I'm Off on A Huge Trip

I've been in Buenos Aires for almost a year and a half now. I love this city like crazy, but it's time for another adventure. Thanks to a boost from my favorite aunt, I'm off for the next four or five months or so!

In ten days I head to Colombia, and then the plan is to go through Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and the north of Argentina. All I know so far is that I'm landing in Bogotá on the 28th (after a 9-hour overnight layover in the Lima airport. Oh cheap student tickets). The first week I'll stay with the family of my friend Catalina, who is one of my housemates here in BA. From there I go to the Caribbean coast, and from there....I'll elaborate later. From the suggestions I've gotten so far, I have six months' worth of things to see and especially food to eat in Colombia.

For the last few days I've been planning obsessively. Planning too much is a bad idea, and I should know that by now, having lived on this continent for more than a year--but I can't help it, and I've been spending probably more time than I should have alternately sifting through those travel websites that talk up $3,000 a month budgets for backpacking--and those that tell you that the best way to reduce the weight of your bag is to leave out the bar of soap and all but one pair of underwear.

The plan is to see what sort of stuff I find on the road. I'm certainly not pressed for time. Volunteering for a month in the Amazon? Hiking in the mountains? Salsa dancing in the city I refer to every time I tell someone what my name is (Cali)? Bring on the chicken buses, I say. I'm ready. And, if anybody has suggestions about good things to do or good people in any of these countries, I'd love to hear.

picture of the day

"el progreso" fruit & veggie shop.

picture of the day

rocks for sale!

alta montañas

probably the best part of mendoza was going into the andes.



the open road!

first stop

blue rock between the lake and puente del inca

puente del inca. i was blown away by how strange this was. imagine being the first to come across it. apparently all the iron in the water makes the rock yellow, and the water below is bathwater temperature. the whole thing smells of sulfur.

there are a bunch of artisans who set up booths near the river. some of their wares are naturally dyed--figurines and things are left in the water for 30 days to soak up the color, and end up with iron deposits on the outside.

puente del inca is a strange little town. mostly vendors and a couple of little food carts like this one. again, a bit surreal to come across way up high in the mountains.

also for sale were a number of different types of rocks, each with their own purpose. serpentina removes bad energy.

i do not have to climb aconcagua to be satisfied. being in a picture with it is enough! this hair, by the way, is not a new style--it was damn WINDY up there!

part of seven years in tibet was filmed here. much cheaper than filming in actual tibet.

the border with chile!

this is a monument commemorating peace between argentina and chile. the wind is biting, the air is thin even by a colorado girl's standards and it is so high up that more than a couple quick steps makes your heart skip.

this is the road we drove to get there. on a bulky bus! but our driver was quite talented and i never felt as though we'd careen off the edge, even though we were sure to greet passing cars with the argentine hand gesture for "i'm terrified!"

the landscape looked like another planet to me. honestly, why do we need to explore space when we have things like this right here?

i was frustrated with my camera's inability to capture all the cool colors. this was the best shot i got. there was so much variety--jagged rocks like these and then hills that were so velvety smooth that you could see individual animal tracks on their faces. it all had sort of a watercolor quality to it. lovely.

this is the same lake as before, only later in the day. that blue is not photoshopped!

mendoza

a mere 13 hour bus ride away from buenos aires is mendoza. mendoza is famous for adventure tourism, skydiving, horseback riding, its proximity to the andes, wine, and among the traveler circuit, the opportunity to rent bikes and ride among the different vineyards, participating in various tastings. this is also an opportunity to drink before noon--something especially prized among the traveler circuit. hahaha).

this was my first solo trip. i talk a lot about traveling alone, but realized i had never actually done it. i moved to argentina alone, yes, but setting up one's life in a place is different than traveling. anyway, i decided that i would do a trial week, to see if i liked traveling by myself or if it would get too lonely. i ended up loving it, and it never even occurred to me to feel alone because there was so much going on.

well, most of the time. when i arrived, it was a) a sunday afternoon b) during siesta time c) on election day, so when i had a walk down the main street as soon as i got there, it looked like this:

i think this dog had the right idea for how to spend the day in the town square:

this art museum was closed, but there was something about it i liked.

there's something nice about being alone, at least for a little while. i could stop and take pictures of strange things if i wanted to. in buenos aires, there's SO MUCH to look at all the time. the sides of the buildings always touch, and each one is a different style and color, and all are posted over with ads and billboards; cars and buses crowd the streets, there are vendor carts and magazine stands all over the sidewalks, and always people, people, people. so when i got to mendoza i started to notice patterns--the squares of the sidewalk, the stones in the drainage ditches, the spacing of the trees they planted a long time ago. it all seems very planned, in comparison with the chaos that is buenos aires. here's the main square.

and this is an interesting metal sign in plaza independencia.
i think it says ciudad de mendoza, or something like that, below it. can't remember.

and here are the famous gates to the enormous park up north. i had coffee just behind these gates in a place called "caballitos de marly." marly's little horses. a charming name for a cafe.

TIGRE

my trip to a little town on the river delta with my friend renee. it's about an hour's train trip outside buenos aires. two-peso ride, standing room only, naturally.

in the town's flea market, here are some trinkets: for luck, for joy, against jealousy, to avoid fighting.

a clown trash can that made me wonder about the time when this would have been a new and modern development.

this is the view from a water taxi that goes along the river to various little stops.
each has a little restaurant on it, and ours was called 3 bocas. three mouths.
this part of tigre reminded me of the lousiana bayous...except that we had homemade hamburgers instead of crawfish.

the don cesar and the don fernando.