Mas, mas, mas Bariloche

Yesterday some friends and I rented a car. Bariloche is the captial of the Lakes Region in Patagonia and we drove around to explore a bit.

We stopped here for lunch, sure beats the office hey??

Post lunch mate that we have all become fond of. Will and Chris seem to be our resident experts, although I was taught the techniques by a couch sufer last night! You all be ready to drink some mate when I get home!

Random stop along the way, beauty and more beauty!

The Bariloche adventurers- Will, Anna, Chris, Tin and Myself. As you can see both by the snow on the mountains and our clothes, winter has definitly hit Bariloche. Send warm thoughts and clothes!

Another random stop, it is so beautiful here.

As the sun was begining to set on our way home, notice the moon just begining to show it´s face.

The road back into Bariloche.

More Bariloche

I have just completed week two of spanish classes down here in Bariloche. I have decided to stay on another week in hopes of improving my spanish losing my american accent! This past week and next week I am staying with an Argentine host family. It has been great to get to know them and practice spanish even more...mas mas mas!!!

Here is more information on Bariloche via my friend wikipediä: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bariloche

This is the apartment building I have been staying in with my host family. My bedroom is the window to the mnost left on the top floor. The views are spectatular, straight onto the lake.

Above is evidence that I truly am studying down here. Note the pencil as well as notebook and dictionary. The silver cup with the straw-esq type thing is Mate. It is quit similar to tea or coffee but with a much stronger social connection. It tastes good and is always had with great company, I love it! (a wikipedia link to explain Mate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_%28beverage%29). A friend of mine eloquently said ¨life without mate, is not life¨. As you can see it´s a pretty serious game down here with mate, there are very strict rules. A mistake can cause sayings such as ït´s not a microphone you know¨.

Lat weekend we decided to rent bikes and ride a 25 klilometer loop that is supposed to have great views. About 5 kilometers in the rain started falling and literally did not stop the rest of the time. I was in an especially smart mood, I wore shorts and a sweatshirt (it was 50 degrees and rainy you do the math). Below is a statue that we saw along the way. My bottom midway through the ride during a mate break. Thank you mate!!!!! Notice the red tint my legs have taken on due to cold and stupidity.
Even though it was completely rainy, the views were still great.
On a walk during a clear day, Bariloche is absolutely stunning.
Myself, Anna and Will during our walk.

A view onto the lake during sunset.
Walking back from the bus station, I could not believe the shapes of the peaks. It seemed straight off of a post card.
Argentine flag on a sunny day.
We went bowling last week, it was great! The highest score in my lane was an impressive 95. The shoes were cool and the alley played some great ABBA.
Today is the 12th of April and believe it or not I have been gone now for 2 months. I have slept in over 25 different hostels and spent almost 100 hours on buses. Traveled to three new countries and countless cities and towns. I have learned sayings such as ¨crash the five¨ and ¨it´s worth the pain¨ en español , eaten more empanadas and medialunas than I would ever want to admit to everyone. I could totally go for a Wawa hoagie, pack of Herr´s chips and an Arizona Green tea but for now I will eat another medialuna and drink my cafe con leche!

First few days in Bariloche

Yesterday school was closed to comemorate those who died in the War of the Malvinas (Faulkland War). I along with some friends from my spanish school/hostel decided to explore some areas outside of Bariloche.

We climbed this mountain/hill and this was the view from the top. We had our lunch looking out onto the Andes Mountains and the lakes of Patagonia.

From L-R Mikel(German), Yours Truly, Anna and Will (England) and Omer (Israel)

Another view from the top.

Will and Omer went for a swim in Lago Nahuel Huapi which is quite chilly this time of year.

Pucon and finally Bariloche!!!!

After Valpo we headed south in Chile to the town of Pucon. It had been recommended by others and seemed like a good stop over before Bariloche. We decided to clime one of the nearby volcanos (there are many many people who do it each year, not overly dangerous trust me). The weather was not great for the first two mornings so we couldn´t go.

On our second day we had a picnic with some of the others from our hostel when the weather cleared. We had a few univited guests but it made for a much more interesting lunch.

A view of the Villarica volcano that we climbed from town. (sorry about the power lines!)
On our third day we were able to make the climb/hike/trek to the top! The first hour and a half was rocky and quite unstable, we then put on cramptons and hiked up a glacier for another 2 hours and finally climbed an hour on volcanic rock. The climb was probably the hardest hike I have done before. The view and the ride down made it completely worth it, I say that now a week later. On our way down, we put these pads on our butts and slide down the glacier on what seemed like a bobsled track it was soo cool, definitely the best sledding I have ever done.

View from the top, looking into Argentina. The volcano in the distance marks the border between Argentina and Chile.
Pablo our guide at the top.
View from my room in Bariloche. The town is situated on Lago Nahuel Huapi....a really huge lake. It is absolutely breathtaking with the Andes mountains as the backdrop.


The town of Pucon from one of the hills behind town with our new friends.

Cool street art in Bariloche that Mara matched.
Great sign we saw in Bariloche.
Our last picture together on our trip. Bye-bye prima, we had a great run together!

The second part of my journey is now starting. Mara is leaving tonight out of Buenos Aires back to Philly and I am staying on in Bariloche. I am half way through my first week of Spanish classes and have another week to go.

Valparaiso

We spent Easter weekend in Valparaiso, Chile. It is one of the larger cities in Chile many of the residents are young univeristy students making it a great town. Well we sure had fun!

The Easter Bunny found us all the way in South America! Street art in Valpo, the otwn has a strong bohemian feel. Lots of art, street art, puppets and other creative expressions.

Valpo is a port city built on enormously steep hills. The architecture has accordingly been customized to the natural landscape making it quite unique.

Santiago

The journey from Puente del Inca to Santiago was full of switchbacks and incredible views. At some points I felt that the scenery could have been taken and put straight onto a bottle of wine. We drove through what seemed to be an aboslutely massive wine reigon on the west side of the Andes mountains and then magically Santiago appeared. We arrived late into the city and headed striaght to our hostel.

The next day we spent exploring the city. Andy and I found a massive fish market and had ourselves some lunch, it was dish delish. We also found out about a soocer/football match as well. Santiago reminds me a lot of Los Angeles a sprawling city surrounded by mountains causing a bit of a smog situation. We were able to go up to the top of one of the hills in town and get a pretty good view of everything.

The next day we got up early and bought our tickets to the football match, Cola Cola vs. Boca Juniors. Cola Cola is the Santiago team and the Boca Juniors are the best team in Argentina based in Buenos Aires. We had wanted to go to a match while we were in Buenos Aires but it just didn't happen so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Later on in the day I met up with an American man named Marc who now lives in Chile. His main gig is fly fishing and skiing but he also has a shop in which he sells Outback. Dad had casually mentioned Marc and the timing worked out great. Marc spent the day showing me around his part of the city. It was such a treat! I had my favorite sushi for lunch....I was beyond excited to say the least. I was also able to spend a bit of time at his shop and check things out. If anyone is looking to do some fly fishing or skiing down here Marc is your man.

Afterwards I met up with a group of people who were all headed to the game. We took a subway out and arrived just as the game was starting. Ihad never been to such an intense sporting event in my entire life it was great! People were cheering literally the entire time and singing songs of Cola Cola. I totally felt bad fro the Boca Junior fans especially since they lost. After the game we took a cab back to our hostel and headed to a bar Mara had wanted to go to. We drank Pisco Sours [the drink of Santiago] and then back to our hostel.

Today we are headed to the coast to spend our Easter weekend in Valpo or Valipariso.

Hope everyone has a great Easter weekend!!! Love Pia

Mendoza and Puente del Inca

After Salta Mara and I headed south to Mendoza. The main industry in Mendoza is wine and tourism so it was a bit different from Salta that was not so heavily reliant on tourism. 20 hour bus ride and multiple horrible hollywood flops dubbed over in spanish later I was in Mendoza. Mendoza is a decent sized city with wide streets and many public open spaces. There was an earthquake about 20 years ago that destroyed much of the city so a lot of the architecture is new. Even so on the first day I went to thermal springs about an hour outside of Mendoza. The scene was quite breath taking because the springs were built on the side of a mountain that was part of the Andes. The water and thermal springs were not quite as amazing but still the view made the massive trip out there worth it.

On the second night we switched hostels to one closer to town, it was great. We immediately found a great group of people and knew almost everyone there. A few people from our hostel in Salta were also staying at our place in Mendoza which was fun.

On the third day we decided to do some wine tasting...when in rome right? We took a bus out to the wine reigon beautifully named Maipu {pronounced my poo}, rented some bikes, grabbed a map and we were on our way. The gig is that you ride your bikes to whichever winery tickles your fancy. Mara and I made it to two bodegas, an olive oil factory and also a chocolate liquor place. We both decided that Vistandes would be the locationof our destination weddings http://www.vistandes.com/home.htm check it out! At any rate we had a great day biking around and taking it all in nice sunny day, beautiful wine country with the Andes as the back drop and of course the bodegas. That evening we went out with a few people from our hostel to the main bar area in town as well as to a reggae bar with some great live music.

We spent the next day exploring the towns squares and markets. Another beautiful day hanging out in Mendoza. I am not sure I would rush back but it was pretty cool all the same.

Early on Sunday morning Mara, myself and our new friend Andy headed up into the Andes into a small town called Puente del Inca. The town itself was literally ten buildings in a valley between the massive Andes mountain range. I am pretty sure the town exists for two reasons: there is an ancient land bridge that the Inca's used to go to thermal springs and it is about 4 kilometers from the hike out point of the world's tallest mountain outside the Himalayas. The town was great though one small general store,a hostel, a hotel and some toursity stores. We walked around on our first evening there and found the bus from "Into the Wild" as well as saw one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

The next day we had decided to try and stay at the basecamp but that ended up not working otu after a lot of effort and time. We ended up doing the lame loop at the bottom near the ranger station [woot to us hiking!!!!] and then heading back to the hostel. We were bummed that we couldn't stay at base camp but when we heard winds would hit 100 mph we quickly changed our minds. We spent the night instead back at our hostel with new friends, some wine and pasta. It was a great night totally enjoyed by all. We also were able to go to some of the thermal springs on the other side of the Inca bridge which were so lovely. We sat watching the clouds roll into our valley slowly covering up the bright stars that we had been admiring and headed to bed.

Here is a link about Aconagua.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aconcagua

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