Barreal

After Mendoza we headed north to the San Juan province.  After arriving at the bus station in San Juan capital and surveying our options, we decided to head to Barreal in the southwestern corner of the province.  The town of Barreal is a green oasis in the midst of rocky, mountainous desert.  The town is dotted with small orchards and alfalfa fields, however oddly enough there is no vegetation on the banks of the river Pato nearby.  It gives the impression that the land would be inhospitable even with the presence of water.

A half hours drive south of town there is a big dried mudflat, similar to the blackrock desert, called the pampas of El Leoncito.  El Leoncito is the name of the nature reserve.  On the pampas we tried out auto-velismo, which is basically a motorless go-cart with a sail attached.  The wind that day was pretty light, but there were a few good gusts to give us a taste of what riding in a wind-powered car is like. 

After enjoying the pampas for a few hours we packed up the wind-car and drove up into the mountains to one of the two observatories in Parque El Leoncito.  The observatory that we toured specializes in asteroids.  Apparently there is a doozy headed on a collision course with Earth some 900 years from now.  Although we didn't get to look through the giant telescope, we did get to look through a very powerful portable telescope.  One of the docents set up the telescope and showed us around 14 stellar objects.  One of the reasons why the observatory was built in this far corner of argentina is that it averages around 320 clear nights per year.  The night we were there was one of those clear nights, and moonless to boot.  So many stars were visible that I couldn't distinguish the milky way. 

Here are our pictures!

Natural History Museum of La Plata

This post is a bit dislocated from the chronology of our trip, but it took me a while to upload the photos...

That said, this museum in Pedro´s hometown is AWESOME.  It is the largest natural history museum in Latin America (at least it was circa 2007 when my guidebook was written) and has a very old-fashioned, 19th century feel.  The building itself is beautiful and houses hall after hall of any kind of bones you could possibly want to see.  Dinosaurs?  Check.  Giant armadillo-type creatures from the ice ages? Check.  Umpteen whale skeletons hanging above elephants, horses and giraffes?  Check.  There are cool displays of various bugs and butterflies, as well as a room that houses a collection of stuffed animals that would make darwin weep, all realistically displayed, for example the case containing a condor devouring a small goat on a rock which I assumed represented a mountain top.

Did I mention the best part?  They let you TOUCH almost everything.  My gringa head almost exploded.

click here for more pictures

Our route (more or less) so far...

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Vallecitos

On Monday November 9th we wanted to get to Vallecitos, as Pedro´s friend Mono had told us that there is good hiking around there.  Because of the high altitude and "easy" access to several different peaks, a lot of mountaineers train there before climbing Aconcagua.  As there is no public transport we had to pay $100 pesos (around $25) to get picked up.  No wonder.  Vallecitos is around 12km up a winding dirt road, and is composed of five refugios (lodges) and a small ski park.  At 2800 meters (9200 feet), I´m amazed that anyone is able to make it up there during the winter.

On Monday and Tuesday nights we stayed at the Refugio San Bernardo.  It is a cool swiss chalet looking kind of building to which the proprietors are adding additional dorm rooms, slowly but surely.  We payed $45 pesos ($12ish USD) each for our bed, and $35pesos for dinner at night.  Since it was still a week or two before the beginning of high season in mid november, there were only 2-4 others staying at the same time as us, so we had a private room.

When we arrived in Vallecitos we were a bit dizzy from the altitude, and the wind was gusting 100kmph, so we only took a brief walk before retreating back to the refugio fireplace.  The picture to the left shows how the wind was blowing the snow off of the nearby peaks.

On Tuesday we ventured out to conquer a couple of the few non-threatening looking peaks nearby.  We summitted Cerro Andresito (3092m, 10,144ft) by taking an ill-advised path up a scree field.  It wasn´t actually too bad (not too loose), but Pedro was not happy and wanted to throw me off the mountain for forcing him to continue on to the next peak rather than heading back.  But it was a fairly gentle walk up a ridgeline to Cerro Arenales (3380m, 11,090ft).

From Cerro Arenales there were great views of Potrerillos in the valley below and snow-capped Andean peaks of the Cordon de Plata behind us.  We had fairly good weather, the wind had died down to gentle harrassment and luckily the snow that was falling on the mountains behind us never arrived to where we were hiking.

On Wednesday we were ready for an overnighter in the great outdoors.  The wind was still the iciest that I´ve ever encountered, but at least in the pauses we could appreciate the burning hot rays of sun.  We hiked around 1.5 or 2 km to a hanging valley called Las Veguitas (10,600 ft) about 400meters above Vallecitos.  Even though we had dumped a fair amount of weight from our packs at the refugio, it was still a very tiring slog uphill that took around an hour and 45 minutes.  We ate lunch, pitched our tent and then I crankily took a nap for an hour.  In the afternoon around 4pm we decided to hike up to another camping spot 2km further up the trail at Piedra Grande (11,650ft).  Much easier without our packs but still tiring.  We considered continuing on to camp Salto de Agua at 4300m the next day, but on hearing that there was no water and just a desolate morraine we changed plans and decided to head back towards Mendoza city.

More pictures of Vallecitos:

Las Vegas down under

On the Sunday after we arrived in Mendoza we took a bus as far as Potrerillos in the precordillera, then hitched a ride to a campground in a bright green microbus with a couple of mendocinos who needed gas money.  On hearing that we were looking for a pretty place they brought us up to the village of Las Vegas.  Las Vegas seems to be mostly vacation rentals and a couple of Eagleville-type store/restaurants.  We went to have a submarino (hot chocolate) at one of them and Pedro was thrilled to discover an Estudiantes (his futbol team) game on a tv in the corner.  Las Vegas is situated at 1800 meters above sea level (5900 feet) so we felt a bit winded hiking around the dirt roads.  We had great views of what we assumed was Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas, although in retrospect a lot of these Andean peaks look alike so who knows :)

We stayed at the muncipal campground which was packed with picnic-ers during the day, but was totally empty by evening.  We camped in a beautiful meadow with a slight slope.  In the morning when we got up we enjoyed the scene of vagrant horses loping across the field.

In Mendoza

Pedro and I took a night bus on thursday to Mendoza, wine country.  The bus trip was more like a cruise, and what it lacked in quality was made up for by unexpectedness.  We knew that "executive suite" buses had seats that recline 180 degrees.  They look like someone looted first class on United Airlines under cover of darkness and installed them in a double-decker bus.  We alse knew that they would give us airplane style meals during our 12 hour trip.  What was unexpected was the appetizers and sherry before dinner, unlimited wine with dinner, and whiskey nightcap afterwards.  Also unexpected was our breakfast of crackers, granola bars and dulce de leche =P  Not bad for 60 bucks.

We´re staying at a hostel in the city of Mendoza near the micro-center.  It´s a pretty great deal; $20 for our room, a glass of wine in the evening, breakfast in the morning and free use of their jurassic computers.  Hence the lack of photos with this post.

Mendoza oddly enough reminds me a bit of LA, or rather, maybe Mendoza is LA´s alternate reality where the US lost the Mexican-American war and LA remained sleeping little metropolis.  The city is a sleepy green oasis amidst desert plains, and behind it rise the steep gravelly ridges of the Precordillera.  The Precordillera are an intermediate mountain range that are the foothills of the andes.  At this time of year (late spring) they are barren of snow and vegetation...not very inviting, especially because the frigid winds of the andes tend to barrel down the slopes of the precordillera and onto the city of Mendoza.

Tomorrow Pedro and I are planning on continuing westwards into the Andes to a tiny town called Potrerillos where we´ll try out our backpacking equipment at a campground and if all goes well, ie we don´t freeze to death, we´ll take our maiden backpacking voyage.

Redding's Sister City

This is the "Puente de la Mujer" in Buenos Aires.  It was designed by Santiago Calatrava Valls, the same architect who designed the Sundial Bridge in Redding.

Perhaps you Redding natives already knew about the sister bridge in the southern hemisphere, but I had no idea.  When I saw it, I thought, "wait a minute, this looks oddly familiar..."

Tango show at Cafe Tortoni

Cafe Tortoni has been in business off and on for the last 150 years.   In the 30s and 40s it was a big literati hangout, frequented by the likes of Carlos Gardel, the famous tango singer, and the writer Jorge Luis Borges.

There are a ton of tourists who come here, but since Pedro, Wali and I came in the morning during the offseason, the place didn't seem overridden.  I had a delicious hot chocolate with churros that Amy P. would appreciate.

There are still a lot of old cafes and restaurants (usually known as bodegas)  that have a 1930's feel and the waiters in these places wear waiter suits straight out of the movies

In one of the back corners of Tortoni is an interesting papermache depiction of the literati in their native habitat :)  Not only is the architecture of the place gorgeous, but the walls are also covered with great painting by argentine artists throughout the ages.

This picture of Pedro and I is by the entrance to the library/museum in the back, a room that used to be a barber shop.

It was lucky that we stopped by Tortoni in the morning.  Even though October is the off-season, tickets go pretty quickly.  We bought the last 2 for that evening's show at 11 am.

At the show we ordered a plate of appetizers.  Note dishes from left to right: diced ham mixed with red bell pepper and olive oil, potato salad, hard boiled quail eggs (salty!), ham & cheese cubes, salami, salami, salami.  Did anybody mention that argentinians like meat?

The tango show was performed in the basement of Cafe Tortoni, a cabaret set-up.  The performance was composed of loose dramatic scenes: a turn-of the century brothel, a milonga nightclub, etc, and was performed by 4 couples dancing, a singer and a tango quartet (piano, bass, bandoneon, violin).  The music was great, the dancing impressive (especially the milonga, which is basically tango on amphetamines), and the dramatic setup silly but fun.

At one point in the show the mc asked how many argentinians were in the audience and all of 5 people raised there hands.  I have to give Tortoni credit though; all of the performance was in spanish, no pandering in english even when it came time to hawk the dvds of the show.  We happened to sit at the same table as two woman from Salta (northern argentina) who were unbelievably friendly.  The older woman was around 75 years old and within 5 minutes had invited us to her house for homemade empanadas when we get to Salta.  Within 15 minutes she invited us to stay at her house, and within 20 minutes she had even offered to lend us her car.  Amazingly friendly people those northerners, can't wait to get up there!

For Emily Jeffers: down south america way

So remember how in Arrested Development everyone kept talking about going to Portugal, down south america way?  Well it looks like someone abandoned the idea of opening a Bluth Banana stand and is instead running a meat stand.  To see what I mean, follow the jump link below...

First few days in Argentina

We've been in Argentina for a week as of today. I'm trying to get excited about this whole blog thing, but honestly it seems a lot easier to write in a normal journal than to pry the computer out of Pedro's whitened knuckles... but I'll give it a go.

When we touched down it was a beautiful sunny Tuesday, around 28 degrees celsius (whatever that means) and either 8:30, 10:30 or 7:30 in the morning (anybody's bet because this year the argentine government decided NOT to participate in daylight savings time and apparently forgot to inform the international airlines.) Pedro's brother Mariano picked us up at the airport and drove us and our 196 pounds of luggage to Pedro's friend Wali's apartment in the Nunez neighborhood of Buenos Aires:

Nunez is pretty convenient, it is the last stop on the D Line of the Subte (subway), about a 15 minute ride from the civic center. Our first day we didn't do much, I took two naps, we ate enormous Milanesas a la Napolitana (conflict in terms, no?) for lunch at La Farola. Later we registered for private health insurance, which is a pretty awesome deal: $100 a month each (including dental and vision), no copays and it covers us in any country that shares a border with Argentina. Argentina has universal healthcare, and Pedro says that the doctors in the public hospitals are often the best in the country, but we're going with private b/c overall it's a little better.

Anyways....Food has been delicious so far...we ate REALLY good empanadas the first night from El Noble Repulgue. Something that I didn't notice last year is that there are a TON of restaurants that deliver. The empanada place delivered us a dozen and a half empanadas that only cost around $10, and I've seen a couple of waiters walking down the street with single cappucinos on trays...kinda bizarre. On Wednesday we had a traditional dish called Cazuela, which is kind of like a stew. Mine was Lentil & sausage, but the one Pedro had was AMAZING and I'm going to learn how to make it....the bottom layer in the bowel was a mix of stewed tomatoes, onions and ham, the middle layer was pureed butternut squash, and on top there was a crispy layer of mozzerella cheese.

On Thursday we went out to dinner at 11pm with the family of Pedro's friend Ariel who was visitting from Cordoba. In the picture on the left are Julia, Juan, Ariel and Felipe. That's right, Argentina is so hard-core, even the babies eat at midnight. We ate at an old restaurant near Congresso called "Hispano" that is known for spanish-style seafood. Here's a photo of the aftermath of the plate that Pedro and I shared:

And below is a photo of the interior of the restaurant:

Testing, 1, 2, 3

No pictures attached to this post, we left the battery charger at Pedro's brother's apartment....

First of all, the significance of the name of the blog...

• It could be that Aaarrrrgggg refers to the frustrations of travelling, such as ALWAYS running out of camera batteries at critical moments. 
• It may be evidence of our descent into a life of piracy, no legitimate jobs, just drifting from port to port in search of touristic booty. 
•  Pedro will say that the blog name just illustrates my absolute inability to pronounce the argentine "r". 

Or maybe the Arrrrrgggggg springs from the joys of marital tiffs such as these:

Liz: When do you want to leave?

Pedro: I want to leave when we are ready.

Liz: Can I have 15 minutes to start this blog?

Pedro: 15 minutes to write 2 lines?

Liz: 15 minutes to start.

Pedro: I know you, you will write 5 lines and erase 3.