Thursday, August 30, 2007

"Vale La Pena"

This is a Spanish phrase that I have come to know well. It means "worth the pain". This is how I would describe yesterday, for example. We joined a tour to the lagoons outside of San Antonio de Areco, Chile where we are staying. The lagoons are not the usual swampy type that this word usually signifies. Rather, they are salt lakes in the desert surrounded by a ring of volcanos (some of them active!). We arrived at the first lagoon, which was shining bright blue in the middle of a stark white salt flat and we were here to swim. This desert (the driest in the world) can drop below freezing at night even in the summer. This keeps the surface of the lagoon water so cold that it burns. However, there is a hot thermal spring under this lake that meets the cold at a depth of about 3 feet. This lagoon is also extremely salty so that there is no actual swimming necessary. This is what I knew before jumping in.

Jess jumped first and proceded to scream. So I waited. After a minute she settled down and said that it was fine. Although I didnt believe her I jumped in anyway. The effect was quite wierd. The top 3 feet of my body was burning from cold. The bottom of my legs and feet were burning with heat. And I was bobbing in the water with no need to tread. I couldnt tell if I was cold or hot--just uncomfortable. I couldnt take it for long but it was quite the experience and reportedly quite therapeutic. I was glad to get out of the pool and into the heat of the day to sip some pisco sour (an extremely sour local cocktail) with our guide. All things considered, vale la pena.

I would also use this phrase to describe today. A mini bus pulled up to our hostel at 4:20 this morning for the tour to the local geysers. From here we proceded to drive up the mountain to a height of about 16,000 feet. When we arrived, the ambient temperature was -11 degrees celcius (or 12 degrees farenheit). The combined effect of exhaustion, altitude sickness, and below freezing temperature may not sound like somethig that a reasonable person would inflict upon oneself on vacation. But we did it for the geysers. Our destination was a field of steaming and spitting geyers located in what was essentially the crater of a volcano. There were streams of orange, red and green bacteria flowing from what looked like mini-volcanos and the emmitted water quickly turned to ice, making the field slippery and steamy at the same time.

The sun shortly came over the mountains and warmed things up somewhat. Just in time, in fact, for our next thermal bath. We arrived at a pool that looked like a field of steam and we gladly shed our clothes and headed in to warm up. Although we doubted it at 4:20 am, at this point we pronounced the trip vale la pena.

Unfortunately, internet connections here havent been substantive enough to upload pictures. So we are only able to describe our adventures. We will upload the best ones when we can.

Monday, August 27, 2007

The road to Salta

It´s been a while since we´ve had reliable enough internet access to update the blog. When it takes 10 minutes for the gmail homepage to load, you know you´re not meant to be sitting at a computer :) We´ve been in a lot of smaller cities since leaving Mendoza and visited several parks along the way. But rather than give a light overview of everything we´ve been up to, I´m opting to give a more in depth description of one particular leg of the journey...

From Tucuman, we caught the one bus that goes to a small town called Cafayate. The road was full of switch backs and changing scenery, prompting much tapping of the shoulder and exclamations of "Look!¨" and "Did you see that?!". At first every donkey elicits such a response, but they soon become pasé, as do the goats, sheep and llamas. Five hours later, we arrive in Cafayate, a town of no more than 9,000. I declared it heaven with its warm sun, cheap food and great wines, and convince Kate to spend three nights here. But it was the road to Salta, about 4 hrs north of Cafayate that was truly incredible.

Within about 5 blocks you´re on a dirt road. Eventually the pavement picks back up as the road passes two famous wineries, their vines dormant for now. The torrontes grape vines are soaking up the dry, dusty air and the gale-force winds that make them flourish in the one and only place on earth. They produce a fruity smelling, but satisfyingly dry white wine for which the area is famous within Argentina.

After another 5 or 6 km the wineries and scattered trees give way to shrubs and cactuses before melting into sand dunes, held together with harsh, hardy looking bushes and giant candelabra cacti. The chard remains of trees destroyed in flames a few years ago dot the landscape, preserved by the dry, arid climate. The sand transforms from yellow-brown to pink and red quickly. The greens, browns, yellows and reds of the shrubs extend as far as you can see. One plant in particular - Kate´s favorite - stands out with its nearly flourescent green bark. It´s called a brea, electric green because its bark does the photosynthesis work in the winter.

Suddenly it seems as though the whole world has turned red with cliffs and spires rising up out of the sand and purple, blue mountains peeking out from the distance.

Slowly the road begins to rise, winding its way up through canyons beside the mostly dry riverbed of the Río Conchas. The place is known as the Quebrada de Conchas or La Quebrada de Cafayate.

Now color variations break the red hills...in perfect lines are woven all manners of yellows, shades of pink and stark white and black. The sandy floor glitters with small and large chunks of quartz - white, yellow and pink. Sections of greens and yellow plant life mark where a river sometimes flows.

The striations become more and more dramatic till you can barely believe what your eyes are telling you. And still you´re driving up, getting closer to those mountains all the while...the cliffs around you climbing higher and higher. The sky behind them is the kind of bright blue only achieved in such dry places.

Ruins like a mini Mesa Verde are carved into a cliff face. The rock seems to rise out of the ground at the most alarming angles, as though the earth had just ejected chunks here and there, calling to mind the Flatirons of Boulder, Colorado...only these are red.

A line of white dots marks a particularly strange formation called "The Friar". It´s hard to believe it´s actually natural as it looks like a rough sculpture. Before long we pass another odd formation just a few meters off the road, "The Frog". A giant composite rock, its base of red stone, shaped just like a squating from with the legs folded and appropriately rough skin.

Off to the left a steep mountainside reveals giant fissures, one known as "The Cathedral" stretching back no more than 100 meters into a huge opening big enough for one rioutous mass. The next, "La Garganta del Diablo" or Devil´s Throat (this one sounds so much better in Spanish, I think), winds back much further, seemingly endless if you can manage to scramble up the steeper sections.

This entire time the bus has been stopping to let people off the what seems like the middle of no where...nothing but rock and a mostly dry river. Where are these people going?

More and more of the rock is covered in scrubby green bushes and the river bed sprouts stunted trees. The road remains flanked by pink sand. And it continues like this for at least another 45 minutes, during which my heavy eyes start to close. Three hours later we´ll find ourselved in Salta, our last stop before crossing over the Andes to Chile.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Update

By the way, not all the pictures described on the blog post are yet uploaded. Look for them soon!

Sunday, August 19, 2007

More News on Argentina

Much has happened since the jugoso steak post. There are ups and there are downs. We get spoiled and we have to rough it. As you could tell from the photo postings we took a day trip to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. It was beautiful! It was sunny, warm and quiet. We ate good food and drank good wine. We were further spoiled by our two day trip to an estancia (ranch) in San Antonio de Areco, which is a traditional gaucho (cowboy) town. We splurged a little and got a beautiful room with big white fluffy bedding, a crackling fireplace and big bath tub. There was always coffee, wine and pie to be had and we spend two days relaxing with the cows, turkeys and horses. We figured that we deserved it after the week we spent in a dormitory hostel room in the hectic city of Buenos Aires.


However, our luck was soon to turn. The plan was to take a short bus ride back to Buenos Aires to catch a long bus ride to Mendoza. Our travel agent said that the ride to Buenos Aires was 1.5 hrs and that we could catch a bus two hours later to Mendoza. Not only was the bus ride two hours long to start with but our bus also broke down on the side of the road when we were 10 minutes away from our destination. That didn´t end up mattering though because when we got to the bus depot we sat in standstill traffic for the better part of an hour, ensuring that we missed our scheduled bus to Mendoza. When we got into the depot there were thousands of people covering every square foot of the place. It was Dia de the Liberator, General San Martin, and a long weekend. Everyone was leaving the city. We managed to get our tickets exchanged for seats on a later bus, though we had to sacrafice our cama class, meaning that we didn´t get fully recling seats for the 15 hour overnight bus ride. There wasn´t time to grab anything for dinner but luckily/unluckily enough there was food on the bus: a styrofoam tray with every variety of ham and cheese sandwich...and a coconut square for desert. Breakfast was free too: cafe con leche and something that can only be described as 10 layers of tasteless cardboard bread pasted together.


We arrived in Mendoza yesterday. It was snowing but we were glad to be here. Yesterday we explored the wineries via bicycle (it warmed up a bit in the later half of the day). Mendoza is interesting because it is in a surprisingly undeveloped area for being such a famous wine region (as the pictures show). The wines and olive oils were fabulous and we got to tour the vineyards and facilities to see how it all worked. Today we are off on a two hour bus ride to San Juan to see the Valle de Luna. It´s a desert landscape that is supposed to be beautiful and, as the name suggests, a bit other-worldly. Wish us luck on this next piece of the adventure!

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Estoy jugoso

We are now one week into our trip and I have already eaten more meat than in the rest of my 27 years combined. My stomach is handling the transition pretty well given the about face my diet has taken. Now, lest you think this means the food is bad, let me tell you a little story about two gringos in a fancy restuarant in the excessively trendy neighborhood of Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires...

The restaurant had been included in an article in the New York Times listing eating establishments that are worth the price of a plane ticket, so our expectations were high. We were also prepared to plunk down some serious cash thanks to my generous friends at Environmental Defense (I promise you guys, I put it to good use!). We arrived at a respectable Argentinian dinner hour, 9pm (most restaurants are not open till 8), but given that we did not have a reservation, we were seated, and I mean seated with the pull out your chair take your jacket off type service, in the waiting area. After consulting the waiter for some help in choosing a nice Argentinian malbec from the book sized wine list, we settled in for a wait. Plate after plate of tasty appetizers appeared at our table till we were shown to a table that resembled a giant tree stump.
Immediately upon being seated again, a new platter of tasty treats appeared. They were so good that Kate even ate the mushrooms and I ate what appeared to be a thin slice of cold, mostly raw beef. Kate opted for a salad as she has been seriously missing the greens and was banking on my steak being big enough for sharing. It was a good bet. I ordered the medallon de lomo (a giant tenderloin steak) and learned how to say rare from the waiter, jugoso, literally meaning juicy.
When my steak appeared it came on a giant plate all on its own with the little guy above resting on it. He was indead juicy and we ate every last bite of that steak. It was so good, I had tears in my eyes. When we were ready to leave we had to flag down the waiter for the check (they never deliver it without you asking) and got the biggest shock of all.

Dinner cost us 200 pesos, or roughly $65. I guess we will just have to go again!

There are plenty more stories to tell but I will leave it at this for now...you can check the newest pictures for more details. You will not find, however, find any pictures of a second incredible dinner we had in Palermo (think SoHo) where they gave us free champagne and chorizo and olives as we waited for some famous parrilla (grilled meat). I will refrain from telling you only about food in the future, I promise! Next up, we will be at an Estancia in the Pampas for two days and hopefully will have some good horseback riding experiences to report. By Saturday, we will be in Mendoza which will be all about wine, wine and more wine.

Friday, August 10, 2007

We're here!

This is just a quick note to say that we are safely in Buenos Aires and enjoying ourselves. Pictures soon to follow. Our cell phone is working, we found a nice little hostel, and everything is as cheap as promised. And we haven't even gotten sick yet. There are, of course, so many things that could have gone wrong so we are as happy as can be. So far we have done some shopping, visited the enormous cemetary where Evita is buried, seen a tango show, and eaten some beef. We are looking forward to some clubbing and a soccer match this weekend. We'll post again soon!

Monday, August 06, 2007

Sailing Glory

I have a penchant for sea sickness. Numerous boat outings have consisted of lots of head over side time. Typically, I most enjoy being at sea when unconscious. Thus, you might understand my fear when Kate's dad suggested we help crew for his weekly sailing race while we were in town. That and I don't know a thing about how to sail, let alone race.

You can imagine my surprise when I not only avoided getting sick, but also helped crew on the winning boat! While my contribution primarily consisted of staying out of the way and running from side to side to dangle my feet over the appropriate side of the boat, I did learn some handy sailing terms and attempted to man the sheet of the spinnaker (hopefully I got my terminology for pulling a rope right!).

Tomorrow we fly to Buenos Aires where it looks comfortably cool, unlike sweltering NYC. For now, enjoy the new sailing photos!

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

A Beautiful But Rocky Start

Jess and I have had a beautiful beginning to the trip. We first traveled to Whistler to do some mountain biking and hiking (and in Jess' case ziptreking). As luck would have it, we happened to be visiting during a mountain biking festival, called Crankworx, and were able to watch some of the most hard core types throwing themselves off ramps the size of ski jumps. We began our downhill mountain biking experience a bit more humbly on the green and blue trails. For those of you who are not familiar with downhill mountain biking, this actually involves taking your 45 pound tank of a bike (think dirt bike without an engine) up the ski lift and riding it down trails that are built on ski runs - or between ski runs, weaving through trees, down rocks and over narrow wooden bridges. As it turns out, rocks are harder than snow and Jess came away with some gnarly rock-shaped bruises, as featured in our photos.

On Wednesday, we took the gondola up to the top of the Whistler peak to do some hiking. Our chosen trail boasted a fabulous sign -- "Danger: beware of avalanches, crevasses, rock slides, and unmarked terrain. Have a nice hike!" It involved some beautiful mountain views, waterfalls and snowy slopes that we tried not to slide down. Apparently the warning was sufficiently scary as we had the trail all to ourselves. It was altogether a fabulous hike--except that Jess somehow contracted a case of poison oak.

Thursday we rented some cruiser bikes and spent the day in the fabulous city of Vancouver munching seafood and envying it's car-free bike lanes. By the end of the day, however, Jess was working on a nasty cold.

On Friday Jess' parents drove us down to Seattle where we've spent some time visiting with family and hiking on the Olympic Peninsula. We took a small hike through the moss-covered trees of the Hoh Rainforest (small due to seriously itchy poison oak rash acting up) and then headed straight to the coast where we did some hiking, tidepooling, and sunset watching (tip for anyone with poison oak rash: the ocean heals all). On this rare portion of our trip Jess avoided obtaining any new injuries or illnesses.

The next leg of our journey involves flying back to NYC on the 5th and on to Buenos Aires on the 7th. We'll keep you all posted from there!