Goodbye South America

so last entry I guess, which is muy triste, but I´m sort of ready to be home and have a visit with everyone. At this point I´m anxious just to get to the airport and be on the way.

Got to Santiago on Friday and have just spent the whole time lounging by thehostel pool, making elaborate steak dinners, lazing in the many parks, wandering around the downtown eating ice cream etc. Not very cultural or laden with activities, but it´s nice to have a rest and time to just relax before saying goodbye to the continent.

Thanks to all of you for paying attention these past few months, and if it´s possible, I want to try to get together with as many of you as I can before leaving for europe. Expect some phone calls in the next few days, or better yet try me 519-882-0946 and hopefully we can work something out!!

love you all and can´t wait to see you in real life!

chau

Hitting the home stretch

So as of writing this, I have almost exactly one week left in this trip, which is pretty sad, but I´m also looking forward to seeing everyone.

I think I left off in El Bolsón, where I was able to get some great souvenirs, which will only be given out based on good behaviour of course (that means you emily). From there it was a long night bus across the country over to Puerto Madryn, on the atlantic coast. The beach was pretty gross, as it was cold, covered in seaweed and basically smelled like fish barf, but still, the weather was nice and it was a nice place to chill out for a few days. The first night I got there, I went out with a few people from the hostel who had heard about a jazz night at the town margarita bar. But when we arrived, the entertainment was not a live jazz band, as promised, but rather a demonstration of arabian dance. Go figure.

The next day I had a tour booked to go to Punto Tumbo, a national park about 3 hours south of the town which is famous for its permanent penguin colony. Saw a ton of these magellenic penguins, a lot of whom were just finishing the moulting stage of juvenilehood so that made for some very ugly looking birds. Becky, you would most definitely have been cringing the entire time. But mostly they were pretty cute, and they covered the tundra. Apparently there is a permanent colony of about 8000 or so, and even more at this time of year, but our guide didn´t know exactly how many that was. It was kind of cool because in the park there are a few other animals, including guanacos, which are a llamalike animal so some of my pictures with both penguins and these llama things seem very posed.

From there it was a rather long and dusty bus ride over to Gaiman, a nearby Welsh colony, for tea time. I had promised some of my welsh friends that I would order some baked stones on their behalf, but unfortunately it was a set menu and no baked stones appeared. I sort of think that just means that this supposed delicacy actually fails to exist. But nevertheless, had a very lovely high tea with some argentinian ladies and then it was back to Puerto Madryn for another couple nights. Ran into another friend from earlier in the trip, so it was nice to have a little catchup on all the gossip from our other friends who had headed in the opposite direction haha.

Then on Saturday night I got on another night bus, this one to Neuquén, which has no attractions in and of itself but it was sort of in the direction towards Santiago so I figured I´d go there and try to make it on another bus. Which was what I did, eventually, after arriving very early in the morning on Sunday and realizing that I had to wait approximately 10 hours before the first bus going that way. I was too cheap to pay for a taxi into the town which the lonely planet described as "forgettable", so instead I spent the entire day shacked up in the bus terminal. I tried to go outside and lay on the grass to read, which worked for all of about 15 minutes before one of the security guards yelled at me and made me go back inside. She may have mentioned something about the sprinkler system, but I was feeling bitter and chose to think that she was just on a power trip and not actually looking out for my best interests.

So anyway, passed the entire day milling around the same little convenience and magazine shops, checking my email incessantly, going to the cafe, reading a horrible Stephen King novel, counting floor tiles etc. I had the further disappointment of choosing a seat directly beside the out of order dance dance revolution machine, which did nothing to improve my spirits. But anyway, it may have seemed long enough but not really 10 hours worth since I more or less managed to entertain myself, so was feeling not too bad. That was until I actually got on my bus, and we started to pull away from the back of the terminal, where I saw a HUGE CARNIVAL right behind the bus station. Seriously, I was soooooooooo dejected that I spent the entire day just pissing around, when I could have been enjoying cotton candy and the scrambler, south american style.

But other than that, the bus was uneventful. One of the cheaper (ie grosser) bus rides I have had since leaving bolivia, but it was fine. And I´ve adapted so well to the nighttime bumpy rides that a stranger in a nearby seat actually had to shake me awake when we arrived at the border crossing into Chile. I was OUT, to the point where I think I may have been drooling at little. Gross but true.

and it was possibly the longest border crossing I have been through so far, where I think they were training a new drug dog because it was definitely not interested in doing its job. I think it´s handler was actually kind of embarrassed because all it wanted to do was nose around in a woman´s bag which ended up not to have drugs in it, but dirty diapers from her screaming baby. Very entertaining.

So then it was into my very last country of the trip, and I had booked my ticket straight to Valparaiso, a city a few hours west of Santiago on the coast. I had planned on staying only a couple nights here, and then heading north up to La Serena to a famous observatory for a last "activity" type thing before going back into Santiago for a final hostelling weekend. But ever since the moment I arrived at my hostel here in valpo, I have just been enthralled. It´s possibly the coolest place I have ever been to, with crazily haphazard houses thrown up all over these hills overlooking the port (which is actually a working one, very interesting to go down to the harbour and see all the huge cruise ships, fishing boats, and naval vessels). Everything is painted these bold, bright colours and there are all sorts of back alleys and twisting staircases that lead every which way, down to funky shops and tiny little cafe slash art galleries, and above all, everything, literally EVERYTHING is covered in graffiti. Some of it really good, and some of it amazingly horrible, but it doesn´t seem to matter because it just all works together to make this really bohemian, cool atmosphere out of something that in and of itself isn´t really all that beautiful.

So I loved it so much that now I have scrapped going to La Serena altogether and am staying here straight until Santiago on Friday (already have made reservations there, otherwise I would probably wander around these streets taking pictures of random artwork indefinitely). So yeah, am enjoying these last few days- today I went on a long walk around many of the nearby neighbourhoods with a middleaged american couple and a canadian guy, went and saw Pablo Neruda (the poet)´s house, or one of them, and then wandered around some more on my own. Am currently burning a cd in the internet place because I ran out of memory on my camera´s card, and nearly had a panic attack thinking about all the things that I might see and wouldn´t be able to photograph. I already have some art projects in my head to use all these photos for, so if you see them up on facebook and are bored by their seemingly limitless quantity, I apologize.

Other than that, down to the last little bit and just trying not to spend all my money so I´ll have enough left to enjoy in Europe!!

Chocolate Shops and No nuclear zones

Just about to pop on my night bus to Puerto Madryn, but thought I´d update first.... was in Bariloche until yesterday morning, doing a bit of hiking but a lot of laying on the beach (lake) eating chocolates that I dreamt about during all of Peru and Bolivia, where everything available tasted like soap. Will likely add about 5 kilos as a result, but sort of feel like it would be worth it :)

Caught the bus to El Bolsón, a relatively new, totally organic bohemian community in the middle of the lake district in Argentina. pretty cool place, and managed to check out the market in the morning, and have also managed to visit the ice cream place about 3 times already. Seriously, being deprived of comfort foods for months at a time can wreak havoc when you are unleashed. Off to get a bit of dinner before finding where my bus departs from (was given a random address instead of an actual bus station) and then it´s onward to puerto madryn for some wilderness spotting and welsh tea houses.

xo

fast times in Mendoza

Totally didn´t expect to spend so long in Mendoza, but it was a lovely week there. Arrived on Tuesday, and laid around the pool, ate a huge steak, and basically just felt content with life. On Wednesday, Marika, Emma and I were supposed to meet up with some of our guy friends to do a bike tour of some of the local wineries, but they were being boys and didn´t show (i believe they slept in). So instead, the three of us got dressed up and went to a couple of the fancier wineries for tours and tastings. The first was a pretty slick commercial one, but really nice. And the second was really cool because we had heard about this older man (Carmelo Patti)who makes all his own wine in a really small establishment and has received all sorts of international awards. So we had showed up at his place without an appointment, but it looked like the people he was giving a tour to were going to be there forever, so we waited 15 minutes and then gave up to go find somewhere else. We were about 4 blocks down the street when suddenly a truck that had been honking its horn at us pulled over and he runs out to apologize and ask if we would please consider coming back (he had some story about how the american tourists he had been entertaining ask too many questions and talk about themselves too much, hehehe). It was really cute, especially since we had just showed up without warning.

And his tour was awesome, he did it all himself, and let us taste a bunch of wines, explaining how they all get different tastes, and showed us how the same harvest begins to evolve over time by tasting a little bit of the same wine from 2007 back to 2002, his prizewinning specialty wine. His were way too expensive for us to buy, but he really didn´t seem to mind, and just wanted to chat with us for a bit, which was really nice.

The next day we mostly lazed around, read in the park, bought bus tickets, etc, and then on the Friday we met up with some friends we had made in buenos aires and the bunch of us went on Wanka Tours, which drove us to a couple more wineries (not as nice as the ones we found on our own), an olive oil factory, and a chocolate licqueur factory. Also a very nice day (although by the time we got to the olive oil place, we were all a little tipsy from lots of wine tasting and not very much food, so we thought it would be a good idea to buy a 5 kg jar of green olives, one of our shared favourite foods, somewhat ignoring the fact that the girls were flying home in the morning and i would consequently be stuck with a giant jar of pickled olives.........

Had a bit of a tearful goodbye with the ladies on Saturday, probably two of the best friends I have made here (just means I´ll have to do a visit to Melbourne sometime in the near future), followed by a bit of a lonely afternoon (tried to go shopping, but the Mendozians take their afternoon siesta VERY seriously, and absolutely nothing is open between 1 and 5). But ran into some other friends for dinner and drinks, including my friend Carolyn, another Melbourne girl who was on her way home, so it was really awesome to be able to have a last goodbye daquiri with her.

And then Sunday I was meant to be returning to Buenos Aires, intending to find a 2 week volunteer placement or something, but then in the afternoon I bumped into Steve and James, another couple friends I had made back in Bolivia and had hung out with almost everywhere I´ve stopped. They are on their way to Santiago and then to New Zealand /¨Australia, and then southeast asia, and then home to Wales via russia (ps i am sooooo jealous of their trip, but that´s another story). So they had just arrived and so I was showing them around to the best local steakeries and ice cream places. We were just talking, waiting for our steaks to arrive, when it became clear that in my singleminded meat focus, I had managed to miss my bus back to ba. Momentarily frustrating (not exactly cheap), but the steak was delicious so I couldn´t be too upset, plus it meant that I got to hang out with them for a few more days, which turned out to be so much fun.

On Monday I woke up with the epiphany that perhaps I hadn´t been too fussed to get back to Buenos Aires and that´s part of the reason why I hadn´t been watching the clock properly.....and that maybe it was a sign to do something else. So instead, I went downtown and sorted out a new bus ticket to Bariloche, the town at the beginning of the Patagonia region. Then yesterday I convinced the boys, lazy as they are, that it would still be a good idea to do the biking wine tour together. Heaps and heaps of complaining and bellyaching, but it was soooooooooo much fun, probably one of my most perfect days here. Not for any particular reason except it was beautiful weather, biking around with friends and tasting wine in the countryside, I just loved it. At the first stop we ran into Emma and Paul, more mutual friends of ours, and so there was a big group of us that were driving around together. Loads of fun, just being silly and some of us trying to do bike tricks on the back roads after a successively higher number of wine tastings, and then we ended at the chocolate licqueur factory, which I had already been to, but wasn´t complaining about revisiting :) Again, probably one of my most favourite days, and so I didn´t even care that we had to rush back to the hostel so I could quickly shower and throw my stuff together to get to my bus. Luckily made it this time, so then it was approx 18 hours on Ruta 40 (made famous by Che Guevara´s motorcycle trip) down south to Bariloche. Am here for a few days, looking into horseback riding or rafting or something for tomorrow and or friday, and definitely am doing a trek/kayak excursion on Saturday. The whole town has a pretty touristy mountain town feel, similar to Banff or something, with tons of chocolate shops EVERYWHERE, it´s amazing.

Likely planning to go further south on Sunday or Monday, spend Tuesday in El Bolson, a hippie community that has a reportedly awesome bohemian artisan fair that day (souvenir shopping perhaps??) and then further down to El Calafate. I don´t know how much trekking and stuff I´ll be up to down there, even though it´s supposed to be absolutely awesome- it´s hard given that I have limited warm clothing and no camping equipment, so maybe it is just meant to be another trip for any of the intense hikes. But the scenery is already beautiful, well worth the trip just for the views. Will likely be crossing over into chile around 8 or 10 days from now, and starting the ascent back up to Santiago-eeek. Hopefully will get to stop at a beach or two before getting on the plane home though, I doubt that Lake Huron is going to be swim worthy when I get back, and I want to make sure I still have my "tan" hehe to show you all.

Oh, and in other news, I just heard from the girls that we have booked our flights to Europe, in and out of Paris on April 21st and June 10th. Sooo exciting!!! oh, and just another short plea that if anyone knows of a short term get rich quick scheme I could attempt between March 27 and April 21, please let me know :) or just a job would be fine too........

Okay, off to find a nice hot chocolate and pastry before going to bed. Hope you´re having a good week, and Mom, hope you´re having fun in Florida- let me know when you get back and we can have a chat.

xx sarah

in wine country

So the past 9 days or so have been crazy. I loved Buenos Aires, it was such a beautiful city and had a ton of stuff to do, I could never have fit everything in if I stayed there a month!

Like I mentioned before, I went to the Recoleta cemetary, where all the richest and most influential people in argentina have been buried. Saw the graves (well actually mausoleums) of Evita, past argentian presidents, writers, artists, politicians, etc. The sculptures and architecture of some of the graves were just so beautiful, sometimes it was hard to remember you were actually in a cemetary. Right across the street from there was the Museo de bellas artes (national art gallery) and I loved walking through there as well. There were a ton of famous european and north american paintings, but the most interesting part was the argentinian section, especially since a lot of the paintings were done by the people who I had just seen in the cemetary.

On other days I went to museums in the centre, the Casa Rosada (presidential palace in front of the square, made famous by Eva Peron, or should i say Madonna?), shopping in Palermo, botanical gardens, historical San Telmo (birthplace of the tango), to a tango show at Cafe Tortoni´s (the oldest tango house), artisan markets, a futbol game, ate a bunch of steak, including at one place that is basically a meat buffet, all you can eat. Just to name a few activities.

The city totally throws off your schedule though, since all the locals stay up extremely late (if you walk around the streets at night, there are families and older couples out for strolls until 1 or 2 am) and eat really late as well. No one even thinks of going out to a club until after 2 or 3, and they only fill up around 4 so basically if you go out at night, you might as well not even think about getting back home until 6 or so at the earliest. I think I was actually starting to become nocturnal, which made it harder to fit everything in that I wanted to see, but I think I did pretty well at napping at opportune moments.

And as amazing as everything was, it was even better because it seemed like all of the people I had become the closest with over the past few months were all there at the same time as I was. And since most of us knew each other, there was a big group that had pretty much seen the continent together, and this was the last hurrah before most of them head home. Really really fun people, and it just made me realize how many good friends I have made on this trip.

And so now I have escaped from Buenos Aires before becoming fully nocturnal, and taken a night bus with two of those girls, Emma and Marika, to Mendoza, which is in the central west of Argentina, famous for its steak and especially its wine. We´re planning on staying here for 4 days or so (the last ones of their trip) doing some bike tours of the wineries, lounging by the pool, etc. And then they´re off to Santiago for their flight home, and I´m not sure if I will be heading there as well for the last part of my trip, or if I am going to venture further south into Patagonia. Just depends on who is around I guess and how much money I have.

off to find lunch..........

post rio

At the soccer game, we (i had met a swedish guy on the bus who was also going solo and we helped each other figure out where to go, buy tickets etc. well actually i mostly helped him because his portugese was even worse than mine, if that is even possible haha) sat in the section for the flamenco fans, one of the more famous rio teams. They were just like you see on tv, chanting and screaming the whole time, crying and kicking things when we were losing, etc. Which was hilarious to watch, and infectious to be around. There was this middleaged man and his 9 year old son sitting near us and he was answering all of our stupid gringo type questions. And at the end of the game (his team lost) he was so cute and asked for consolation hugs all around, slappping each other on the back and saying maybe next time- but he gave me a team bracelet to remember the day by, which was so cute.

After swimming some more on the famous Rio beaches (also after buying the token rio bikini just to seem less gringoish- seriously, EVERYONE wears them. or even less) Copacabana and Ipanema (which had waves so strong I thought I might drown in water not even up to my knees), it was off on another bus to Florianopolis, which is on the coast but further south. Found a hostel outside of the city on the island of santa catarina, at the praia do armocao, which was absolutely gorgeous. Huge palm trees, big waves, clear water, white sand. And it was so nice that I spent the morning in the water and then on the beach. Only forgetting that of course my new sunscreen is not waterproof, unlike the old one i just had, and apparently did not reapply often enough because I got a medium all over sunburn. Which I didn't think was too awfully bad until the next morning, when i was having little fainting spells just trying to get up and brush my teeth. And let me tell you, having sunstroke I'm sure is never a treat, but having to lay on disgusting hostel bathroom floors while recovering from it is pretty bad.

But after a few minutes of that, sort of got over it and was able to enjoy sitting outside (well shaded this time) before catching a bus back to the centre and on to iguazu falls. Visited both the brazilian and then the next day, the argentinian sides, and the arg is absolutely better. They're not as tall as niagara, but so much more massive and natural, they're just beautiful. Tons of tourists though, which get on my nerves, despite the fact that I am one, hehe. There's one catwalk part that takes you right over one of the falls and it's so misty that people have plastic bags over their cameras, are wearing their bathing suits and you're dripping with water after maybe 30 seconds. Really nice on such a hot day though. Plus my hostel had a pool, which is almost unheard of usually, but very very welcome. Felt so good to be back in Argentina to begin with, just because it's so much easier being able to communicate with people again and not feel like so much of a gringo. (funnily, people even ask me here whether I'm from here. I think they're just trying to be polite, but still, sort of flattering. and weird, after being pointed out as a gringo EVERYWHERE i go for 4 months)

And then after iguazu, it was another night bus to buenos aires and it hasn't even been 24 hours here yet, but I already love it. For a girl who usually isn't a fan of cities, this place is beautiful. Very cosmopolitan, but in an old fashioned, leafy and cultural sort of way. Am off right now to explore recoleta cemetary in one of the older more posh neighbourhoods, and then maybe meeting some friends to see an argentinian futbol match this afternoon. So much to do, I maybe will have to stay here longer than the week I had anticipated!! we'll see.....

xo

arrived in buenos aires

ok let's try to catch up.

Carnaval was amazing, but so tiring overall. I hung out with that group of New Zealand boys pretty much every day, and they were awesome both to chill with and were great at looking out for me, making sure I didn't get trampled by the masses. Made some really good friends I think, so if anyone is up for a trip to new zealand anytime soon..... ok maybe getting a bit ahead of myself, I realize hahaha.

Anyway, probably saw more people in that week than all the peopple i have seen in the rest of my life combined hahaha. Didn't get too many pictures of salvador unfortunately, cause it's because it's beautiful, but was afraid of getting it stolen,. As it was, tons of people got pickpocketed and stuff when we were there. The last night I was in one of the blocos for fatboy slim, which was soooo much fun- totally populated by gringos, but we were loving it hahaha. Stayed there in salvador one more day after the end of carnaval just chilling and then it was off on a horrendously long bus ride to Rio de Janeiro. Along the way we stopped (about a million and a half times, hence the 30 hours instead of 25 or 26 it is supposed to be ) at some of the swankiest rest stops I have ever seen in my life. I actually walked into the bathroom of the first one and burst into rather hysterical laughter, because after coming so recently from bolivia and having most of the bathrooms on those bus journeys be either a bus or a rock (if you're lucky enough to encounter one) or else a scary shack with either a disgusting toilet or just a hole in the ground, with either no toilet paper or some that you have to pay for that is rolled by a grubby person who looks like they have never washed their hands and you don't really want to wipe your ass with their hand towel, but havve no choice...... Anyway, having this in mind, I walk into the bathroom and it is spotless, huge, has leather couches, makeup mirrors, and special little silver bowls of sand that you can use for exfoliation should you desire it. It was just so ridiculous in contrast that I was howling with laughter and barely restrained myself from taking a picture even though I really wanted to because I thought I might be arrested for being a pervert.

Anyway, got to Rio and stayed in Copacabana for a few days *although there was a mixup with my hostel reservations and I ended up having a local help me walk around looking for a free bed at like midnight. Luckily found a place, expensive though it was, right by the beach. My roommate, Belina, was from France and she and I spent a good couple days doing the touristy things, going up to the christ monument, the pao de azucar cable car, went samba dancing in lapa, etc. Really good few days. Oh and I went to a futbol game athte Maracana stadium, which was amazing to begin with and then around halftime it began to pour rain like I have never seen. After it subsided a bit and the game restarted, the atmosphere was crazy. Thgose fans are intense, but it was so much fun!!

ok,..... obviously this is far from buenos aires, but i'll have to catch up the rest later because there are people waiting for the computer. Hope you're all fine, and remember, only 5.5 weeks more to go!!!

xo