Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody! I know what you're all thinking, "I shouldn't even be reading this because its been 4 months since this clown updated with a REAL post, I shouldn't waste my time anymore."  Well, in the spirit of the holiday season, and because I have a ton of free time everyday, I'm going to give the gift of actually continuing this blog. Last time on Dan's South American Adventure, I had just spent a few days on Lake Tititcaca and was headed towards Puno and Cusco in Peru. Here we go:


We boarded the buses in Copacabana, Bolivia and crossed over the Peruvian border (where we were greeted by a sign that said "Welcome to Peru: Country free of the avian flu") and drove along the seemingly endless shores of the lake until we reached a small city named Puno.  There we boarded some boats which took us out to the "floating islands"- islands built out of reeds and mud that "float" and are anchored to the lake's floor with ropes.  There were a ton of these islands all tied together, each with a bunch of huts and other structures on them so it looked like a small town. It was a pretty intense tourist trap, so we left pretty quickly.
Our bus to Cusco wasn't schedule to leave for about 4 hours and there's literally nothing to do in Puno and the power was out in the entire city for some reason, plus there was no heat and it was nighttime and the middle of the winter- so we sat, freezing cold in the dark, in the bus station and played Hearts for 4 hours.  Finally our bus came and rescued us.
We arrived in Cusco at about 330am and walked around for a bit before we found a hostel.  The hostel actually had hot running water, so I took my first shower in what had been 5 days or so.  My hair was quite long and curly, and the lack of washing it combined with an abundance of filth and sweat buildup from sleeping in a mud hut and/or on a bus/bus station floor had turned it to dreads, so that was kinda cool, yet annoying to try to wash out.  The next day we explored Cusco a tiny bit.  Cusco is an incredible city, my favorite of the trip.  It has a lot of big beautiful plazas, ancient Spanish influence, amazing architecture, and delicious food. We got breakfast in this tiny little cafe with incredible food and good music.  The famous composition Bolero by Maurice Ravel came on, which I hadn't heard since I played it in my high school's concert band during freshman year, and it reminded me of my grandma, so that was really cool. I digress. After breakfast we walked around for a short time and then grabbed a cab to our next leg of the trip.
It was a 2 hour cab ride to a place called Ollantaytambo.  On the way our cab driver took us to 2 sites, one was a giant outdoor market where natives sold the same blankets, sweatshirts, hats, gloves, and other things made in China that we saw everywhere else in South America, and the other was a place called Moray.  The market was a waste of time, but Max and I walked around the town a bit and it was super interesting.  Old buildings, windy cobblestone streets, an old church, soccer fields (obviously, although the altitude was about 11000ft) gave it some genuine character. Moray was incredible. Click here for info and a picture.  The big circle-ish thing in the picture was unbelievably huge and had perfect acoustics, so good that Max and I had a conversation at normal speaking volume while he was at the top and I stood at the center of the bottom. It wasn't used as an ampitheater though, it was used to do research on ideal climates for different crops. It was about 300 degrees out that day, so we hurried back to the cab and continued to Ollantaytambo.
The ride was breathtaking to say the least.  The roads we took wound through mountains, farms, meadows, over rivers, and more.  It was really beautiful and made the 2 hour ride fly by. There's nothing in the town of Ollantaytambo except a train station, so upon arrival we boarded the train and took a ride to Aguas Calientes, home of the famous Macchu Picchu.  Those stories and more tomorrow! Enjoy the snow everybody!

Mid-Semester Life Update

Its been a month and a half since I updated on here, and the last update was to tell you that I was going to finish my stories at some point, and a month and a half before that I updated to tell you that I would at some point finish my stories.  So its been 3 months since I last told you that I would, at some point, finish my stories.  Well my plan is to work diligently over Thanksgiving break to finish my stories.  So if you weren't excited enough for Thanksgiving already, now you even have wonderful tales of adventure and excitement to look forward to.


This semester has been what I believe to be the most challenging time of my entire life.  For what is really the first time in my life I've put in 110% effort to everything I've done and not succeeded.  My GPA is hurt, I still don't have a job, I'm out of shape, certain friendships have sacrificed due to increased focus on other areas of life, and I can't seem to stop questioning what my life is/will be all about.  I just can't seem to figure out career paths, life decisions, future studies, relationships, and many other things right now. Its been a tremendous personal struggle for me lately.  And as pessimistic as this all sounds, I'm super thankful for all of it.  I feel that all of this struggling and weighing of options and searching for meaning and fighting for success has helped me to grow as a person more than I ever have before.  I've been forced to recognize what I need and want to do, and really just go for it.  My priorities have had to adapt and I've learned what it means to really be determined.  At the same time I'm beginning to see how my mind really works and how it is affecting the person I've been, am, and will become.  I think I'm turning into an adult. Gross.


I guess this whole growing up thing is cool, but its super difficult and I really just want it to be winter break so I can snowboard and play my drums already. Plus I think next semester is going to be way cooler.  I'm only going to have classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and I'm finally going to be able to take my first elective in college (a psychology/neuroscience/biology class called Mind and Brain).


That's my current life in a nutshell.  I'm happy I got to write all that down, these are the types of things I'd like to use this blog as after I'm done writing about South America.  Maybe I'll see some of you next week.  I'm super excited for Thanksgiving, its easily my favorite holiday. Thanks for reading, please stay tuned!

September Update

Dear Followers,
I understand that over a month ago I promised to finish my posts on the roadtrip.  This school year has been incredibly busy and stressful.  I've been struggling to get more than 6 hours of sleep each night, let alone time to continue to write.  To be honest I really wish I could not only finish my tales, but write leisurely on this page.  The next few weeks are packed with tests, job applications, interviews, information sessions, group projects, homework, and general oddjobs to take care of.  That being said, I do promise to finish my stories.  While waiting for the shuttle to take me to the airport in Buenos Aires the day I left South America, I wrote what will be the final reflection post of my blogs for the South American Adventure.  The post is something that means a lot to me and I want to share it with all of you, but I can't post it until I have finished the stories.  That is my motivation to fulfill my promise to you.
Until leisure time arrives, head over to my photo page to look at a brand new album containing all 547 pictures I took while driving across the continent and back again.
Have a wonderful fall, and really, stay tuned for more stories.
-Dan

Summer Update

Hello everybody.  I'm really sorry that I haven't continued to post on here since I got home.  I was busy with family for a while, then I was away, then more family, and now I'm studying for a final I have on Friday.  Right after the final guess what, I'm going away with family.  Crazy, right? Luckily, once Sunday comes around I have absolutely no obligations except to sit by my pool and listen to music.  That's when I'll probably continue to write these fantastic stories.  So stay tuned!

Lake Titicaca and my last post written in South America

August is finally here!  As much as I would love this incredible experience in South America to continue, I cannot wait for my flight home in 2 days. It's been over 6 months since I left the USofA and I don't think I could miss it more. Thoughts of warm weather, the beach, family, and friends have taken over my brain and made me extremely eager to come home.  Right now we're driving from Tucuman to Cordoba, Argentina where i'll catch a bus back to Buenos Aires to grab my stuff and say my final farewell before my flight on Wednesday night. Now to continue my tale:

On July 15th we arrived in Copacabana, Bolivia on the shores of Lake Titicaca. It's a small town entirely run off of tourism. We talked with an agent for a few minutes and planned out the next couple of days, which would be spent on the Isla del Sol in the middle of the lake.

We took an hour and a half boat ride out to the island where we were met by a swarm of local businesschildren who all told us glorious fabrications of how their hostel was better than the rest. We followed one particularly portly young boy up some winding staircases to a house overlooking the port and lake.

This is when we learned the facts of the Isla del Sol.  Lake Titicaca (which honestly should be considered a sea because even after driving for literally hours along its coast, you can't seem to find where it ends) is located at 3800 meters of altitude, or over 12000ft.  Imagine putting a sea at the top of the Rocky Mountains and you'll get the idea. Climbing the stairs to the hostel with our bags almost made us all pass out, and the hostel was maybe a tenth of the way up one of the massive mountains that comprise the island.

We dropped our bags off and decided to go explore the island. At the pace of mud and with stops for air every 7 steps, Dave, Max, and I checked out the Incan ruins of the Templo del Sol for a bit and then hiked back towards the village located at 4060 meters (13000+ feet) high at the top of the mountain above the port.  There we met Malcolm, who had made some friends who invited us to have a beer and watch the sunset from the peak overlooking the hilly western end of the island and lake, so we did that.  It was beautiful.  As the freezing cold and blinding darkness set in we headed back to the hostel, getting semi-lost and almost dieing on the climb down.  When we arrived a pleasant old lady made us a delicious dinner of fresh trout and rice. 

The next day we took another long boat ride to the north end of the island, again almost passing out as we found a hostel. We decided to take a nice hike, however I was actually fairly sick with a fever and congestion from the lack of showering/heat at night/oxygen in the preceeding few days, so Max and I decided to make a shorter loop around the top of the island and come into the port from the other end as Dave and Malcolm continued on. We ended up finding some big rocks towards the peak where we sat and talked and relaxed for a long while before going to find lunch by the port.

That night we learned the further truth of the island: there's only one set of powerlines connecting the island to the mainland, and the wind often disrupts them.  As if no heat or hot water (or barely even running water) were not enough, now there was no electricity on the entire island. The restaurant we went to was the only one open and only had soup for food left, so we enjoyed that by candlelight.  That night I slept wearing my alpaca-wool hat, gloves, and socks because our mud hut with thatched roof wasn't exactly warm or conducive to my healthy recovery.

The next morning we took the boat back to Copacabana and there boarded the bus to Puno, Peru.  Those tales in the next post. See you in 3 days!  

Escrito en tranvia

Right now I'm on a train from Oruro to Villazon, Bolivia. We're heading into the last leg of the trip- returning now to Salta to get the truck and then heading west into the Chile for about 5 days before making our way back east. A ton has happened in the past 2 and a half weeks and it feels like we left on this trip 2 months ago.  I'll pick up where I left off last time.

We arrived in Uyuni after that tortuous bus ride and searched out a hotel with some space. Bolivia is about as third world as you can get in most of it, so our hotel had no heat or hot water, and it's located at about 10000ft in a desert so nights get a little chilly. First thing we did was outfit ourselves head to toe in winter alpaca clothes, for a total of about $15 US dollars.  That night we went to a bar called Extreme Fun Bar which was actually extremely fun. They had some pretty crazy drinks and very crude names/ways of serving them.   

The next day we headed out on a tour of the famous Bolivian salt flats. A local guy picked us up in a Land Cruiser and first drove us to an old train cemetary where there were tons of old broken down locomotives laying in the middle of the desert. Then we drove to where they had a small village of salt packaging houses, which were also made out of salt.  We discovered some of the coolest hats ever in a store back in Uyuni, and in this village there were plenty more of them so each of us got some (8 between 4 of us).  We continued on and saw a salt hotel (building, beds, etc made of salt) that is now a museum, and then drove about 45 minutes more across the salt flats to the center (I think our guide said the flats we were on were about 11500 square kilometers, but I have no way of checking that on this train so I could be way off) where there is a spot of actual earth called Fish Island.  There we had lunch and took some perspective pictures and played cards for a bit before returning to Uyuni. After a tasty 2 course dinner that cost us $1.45, we took a bus to Bolivia's capital city of La Paz, using it as a transfer hub to continue directly to Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca.  That and more stories to come.

Things I want to say but don't know how to include in the post:
- We are way too big for Bolivia. We hit our heads an average of 2.5 times per day. I hold the record high with 6 times in one day.
- As we have now traveled a large amount in Bolivia, weve discovered that there is almost no comfortable way of transporting yourself around the country.
- Bolivian authorities are not nice. I have a long story to support that claim, if I can manage to fit a reasonably sized version of it in a post, I'll do it. 
- Bathrooms are not often sanitary here and there is rarely hot water. We have gone a few days at a time without showering or comfortably relieving ourselves to this point. With my long hair (which is actually pretty curly) and not showering for 5 days at one point, it turned to kind of loose dread locks.
- I finished The Sound and the Fury. Tough read, but enjoyable. I also crushed the Davinci Code in like 3 days, that book was incredible. I tried to start The Road to Jerusalem, book 1 from the Crusades Trilogy, but after 45 pages of incredibly dry text and a warning from my friend that it doesn't change too much I abandoned that. I think tomorrow I'm gonna start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

That's all I can think of for now. There's wifi in our hostel in Salta so I'll have this and hopefully another post up within the next day. Later          

Another update from the road

What's happening everybody?  Right now I'm in the bus terminal in Puno, Peru with the guys waiting for our bus to Cusco. Playing cards has gotten old so I'm gonna start writing some posts on the trip thus far.  We were supposed to leave last Friday but there were some complications with the truck and the insurance company, so we left on saturday morning. We took the ferry from Buenos Aires to Colonia, Uruguay then a bus to Montevideo then another bus to a small town in the north of Uruguay called Melo. We stayed with a man named Mauricio who is the manager of max's dad's farm in the town. He was super hospitable and helped us prepare the truck, our route, and gave us some advice on where to stay. 

We took off in the truck on Sunday morning, driving all the way across Uruguay to a place called Salto where we crossed the border into Argentina. From there we went north to Corrientes and spent the night. Monday we drove from Corrientes straight west to Salta, stopping in a few tiny pueblos for food along the way.  We found a long term garage for the truck which cost us only $50 for 2 weeks, about the same as you pay for a beer at a Yankees game.  We hung out and explored Salta for a few hours before our bus to La Quiaca on the Bolivian border.  Max and I found this cool 99 year old liquor store that had hundreds of old beer cans and liquors and other cool stuff. I think my dad would have found it really interesting. I also had lost my copy of Fahrenheit 451 on the bus, so we stopped in a bookstore to get something for the long bus rides. I got The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. If any of you have read it you'll know that it's a very difficult read, so I'm pushing through it with a little bit of trouble.

We arrived at La Quiaca at about 630am and it was unimaginably cold. We walked across the border to Villazon only to find out that Bolivian migrations doesn't open until 730am, so we stood, extremely unprepared for the cold, on the sidewalk for a while until they let us in.  There's absolutely nothing to do in Villazon so we just grabbed some food and outfitted ourselves with a ton of winter alpaca clothes for a total of about $15.

We then took a bus to Uyuni, Bolivia. The bus ride there was more than interesting. It was supposed to be 8 hours long, but as not a single road in Bolivia is paved, it took about 11. And 11 hours of very twisty off-roading across the mountains in seats that we absolutely didn't fit in. It was really miserable. 

I need to head down to the gate for the bus now, but next time I'm sitting around and don't feel like tormenting my brain with that book I'll post again. Enjoy the summer everybody, don't take it for granted. Trust me, you'd miss it if you couldnt have it.

Ps- I actually wrote this post a few days ago, we've explored Peru and are actually back in Bolivia now.  The problem is I can only update this blog with these posts from my ipod when I have wifi, which isn't exactly a common thing here, so the posts will all be kinda far behind.  I'll keep writing when I have time. Real time update- we're in La Paz until Saturday then doing a 3 day tour in the Amazon.    

One for the road

I've got some extra time now as we drive through gaucho country in the middle of nowhere, Uruguay. I figure I can use this time to write that long awaited post using my iPod touch. So here it goes. I'm going to make one list of all the things I can't wait for in the USA and another list of all the things I'm going to miss about Argentina.  Enjoy!

Things I'm excited for in the USA:
-My own house
-Family and friends
- the beach
- my pool
- little vincents at 2am
- delis
- my drums!
- blueberry pie
- my bed
- toilets that flush with some force/toilets that flush/toilets that stop flushing
- efficient/reliable banks
- peanut butter
- ny pizza and bagels
- driving in my car
- good gyms
- milk in cartons
- fast reliable Internet
- text messaging without worrying about wasting your credit
- clean sidewalks
- not having to say "como?"
- word variety
- life being in English
- good old fashioned greenbacks (that's US dollars)
- an abundancy of coins, or the fact that i don't have to stress about not having any
- clean air
- unlimited free water in restaurants
- canned beer
- not wearing the same clothes all the time
- having a printer
- never being at a loss for words (it actually happens to me down here)
- Boston College!
- people not looking at me funny because something about me or something I'm doing is clearly foreign
- not having a marching band wake me up at 8am every day


Things I'm going to miss about Argentina:
- All of the incredible people I've met here
- the never ending parties
- choripans, milanesas, and the beef
- incredible patriotism
- not having any responsibility
- monopoly with the guys
- boliches
- sporadic vacations to amazing destinations
- asados
- low prices
- situations that make me say "what the HELL is going on right now?"
- everybody being laid back and doing there own thing without having to worry
- being taller than everybody
- alfajoreos
- real dancing
- quilmes
-such an enthusiastic and passionate culture
- being excused from stuff because I'm the stupid gringo that doesn't know what's going on
- kissing hello/expected bro-love and affection
- hostels
- living simply
- being able to have anything at all delivered to your door
- not having to shave or cut my hair
- cheap cabs
- 30 minutes away being close by
- crazy futbol fans
- the view from my apartment
- generally never worrying about anything and people that don't either
- hanging out being the national pasttime
- empanadas
- my cell phone not being a necesity

That's all I can think of right now (and i assume that's all anybody wants to read) but I assure you theres more i could think of for both lists. We're crossing the border into Argentina soon and spending the night in Corrientes before heading to Salta tomorrow morning. Catch up with you later.    

Hasta luego!

The guys and I were supposed to leave on our road trip today, but plans got a little messed up, so we're leaving tomorrow instead.  I'll be heading to Max's farm in Uruguay by boat and bus then spending tomorrow night there.  Sunday morning we head out in the pickup truck to Cordoba in the middle of Argentina.  Then we stop in Salta where I went a few months ago for a day or 2, then we're going to travel to one or two cities in the very north of Chile to see the Atacama desert.  A quick stop back in Salta to park the truck, then we're taking buses around Bolivia for a about a week and a half to places such as Uyuni, Potosi, Cochabamba, and Lake Titicaca.  After we may take a bus to Cusco, Peru and spend a few days there and at Machu Picchu.  From there we head back down Bolivia through the giant salt flats and back to Salta to grab the truck and head back to Buenos Aires in time for my flight at 830pm on August 4.  I'll see many of my readers in New York on August 5.  I'm expecting a blueberry pie to be warm and ready when I arrive at my lounge chair next to my pool.  See you then.  Stay cool out there and enjoy the next few weeks!
-Dan

PS- If I wake up early enough tomorrow I'll try to type a quick version of that fun post I promised a gazillion years ago.  But don't hold your breath.

Iguazu, Finals, World Cup, and more!

Hola todos.  Sorry I haven't updated this in a long time, its been a mix between laziness and lack of material to write about (sort of).  I've got some motivation right now and the material has piled up long enough that this will probably be another long post.  That cool post I promised almost a month ago is still coming, I'll use it as an excuse for a study break sometime this week.  Basically, here's what's been happening in my life- We went to Iguazu from June 17-21, since then we've hung out a lot, partied a lot, done a little bit of work, and watched a LOT of soccer.

For those of you less informed, Iguazu is a city/town on the Brazilian border of Argentina and also about a 30 minute bus ride from the border of Paraguay, and it is famous for its waterfalls.  Its on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, so the weather was nice and warm and the animals are very cool.  We took a 17 hour bus ride there on Thursday afternoon and checked into the hostel Friday morning.  The hostel used to be a casino, so it was more like a resort with a pool and tiki bar and all that fancy stuff.  Friday afternoon Hannah, Malcolm, Dave, and I headed to a small zoo/sanctuary down the road.  We saw some cool animals like toucans, monkeys, eagles, falcons, and some other strange creatures I can't name or describe.  Our tour guide was hysterical and the rainforest was super cool, so we had a great time.


Saturday we headed to Iguazu National Park, where the waterfalls are.  We first walked around the catwalks and balconies set up over the top of one side of the falls.  You can literally stand inches above the water right where it drops over the edge, pretty sweet.  We snapped some pictures and soon headed to the Great Adventure, a truck and boat tour we had paid for.  They loaded about 25 people into an open-top truck and drove us for a few miles through the middle of the rainforest, pointing out cool plants and animals the whole time.  Eventually we reached the river where we boarded the boats (and where an alligator was hanging out in the sun).  We stripped down, threw our valuables in waterproof bags, and headed off down the river.  The boat twisted and turned around some rapids until we reached the falls, which it drove right up to and under.  Of course the falls would crush us if we went right under them, but I was about an arm's length away from a couple hundred gallons a second washing me away.  We took a turn or two going under each side of the falls (they kind of twist around so its split between the Argentine side and the Devil's Throat which is half Argentina and half Brazil) and eventually docked and hopped of the boat.  We walked around the walkways around the bottom of the falls for a bit drying off, then headed back to the hostel.


That night we had a big bbq dinner at the hostel with the 200 other British and Americans that were staying there.  They put on this risque Latin dance show during dinner, which Brenny, Dave, and our friend Julian were volunteered to be part of, and which eventually turned into a hostel-wide party that lasted until morning.  On Sunday, Dave, Hannah, and I just hung out and studied for our final all day/watched soccer.  We took a bus back to BA that night, studied some more on Monday, and took our literature final on Tuesday.  It went pretty well, I felt great about how I did afterward, hopefully I actually did well.  We also had a take-home final for history due Wednesday that I think went fairly well also.  Now I just have a huge paper and one final left this week.


The World Cup has been a ride.  This country LOVES soccer, and every single aspect of life in Argentina has been dominated by the Cup since it started.  Its all anybody talks about, stores have Mundial sales, everything closes for games, etc.  Argentina played incredibly well all the way until today when they played Germany in the quarter finals (and got crushed 4-0).  During the games the city just makes as much noise as possible- people constantly chanting, horns honking, vuvuzelas vuvuzeling- and its just an unbelievable atmosphere.  I took some videos from my balcony the other day of my neighborhood all out on their balconies at halftime chanting Argentine soccer chants in unison.  Its just so cool.  As for USA soccer, we dressed up as American as we could and headed to the bar and heckled other fans for the games (That's the stereotype.  Might as well embrace it).  The American bars are a ton of fun for US sporting events, just too bad we lost to Ghana, again.


That's basically all that's been happening for a month.  Things are really starting to wind down now, tonight is my last Saturday night in Buenos Aires (!!!) so we're going to celebrate a bit.  Next weekend the guys and I leave on that awesome road trip for a few weeks, and a month from tomorrow I hop the big metal bird and head home for some NY pizza, bacon egg and cheese sandwiches, the beach, my drums, my pool, and of course, mom's blueberry pie (Marie, Michael, and Kristen- I'm not sharing, you've got like a 2 month head start on pie eating).


Here's a few pictures from the last month, click here for my photo page which now has an Iguazu album.  Click photos below for full size.

A view of the Argentine falls from one of the balconies.

 Some falls at the edge of the Devil's Throat, taken from the boat.  Brazil is about 7 feet to the left of where I took this picture.

An awesome fort we made in our common room with some friends at 4am after a fantastic night out for Malcolm's birthday.

 The guys dressed as American as possible getting ready to head to the bar for the game.

An awesome sunset from our balcony.  I've been living in this apartment for 4 months and this still doesn't get old.

That's all for now.  Happy 4th of July everybody, enjoy the weekend.

Don't Worry, I'm Still Alive

What's happening everybody?  Not much has happened on my end, surprisingly.  Its been 3 weeks of just living since my last post.  We've been partying a lot on weekends, watching the NBA finals, working a little bit, and generally just hanging out otherwise.  We're heading to Iguazu Falls on the 17th with finals starting shortly afterward, so the second half of this month will be a little busier.

Post-finals plans are being discussed, and I think mine may be the coolest ever.  I may or may not have mentioned, Max's dad owns a 25 square kilometer farm in Uruguay.  He's going to be away for a while, so he told us we could take his pickup truck if we want it for a bit.  Max, Dave, Malcolm, and I have decided to take him up on the offer.  Starting approximately July 9 (depending on tests and how Argentina does in the World Cup), we will be heading off from the farm on a 3 week road trip.  The plan is to head west through Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru until we hit the Pacific Ocean, then drive south down the coast through Chile, then back east across Argentina, eventually making our way back to Uruguay.  Places we are intending to see are the Argentine cities of Cordoba and Rosario, the Bolivian salt flats (which are visible from space!), Bolivia's capital La Paz, Lake Titicaca, Cuzco, Lima, and Machu Pichu in Peru, and the Atacama desert in Chile.  Very little is set in stone for now and there's a lot of little places in between, so the guys may completely disagree with everything I just said, but we're workin on it.  It should be an amazing trip to say the least.


I've got a fun post lined up, but I have to cook some dinner now.  Stay tuned!

Bariloche

And after that circus of a weekend, we're back.  Yesterday was the 200th anniversary of Argentina's independence, so this whole weekend was one gigantic celebration.  There were no classes Monday or Tuesday, so the parties stretched day and night from Thursday at noon until about 2am this morning.  We went to some bars and clubs, had a few friends at our place, went to some friends' places, went to the Argentina vs. Canada soccer game (Argentina won 5-0), and went to the gigantic celebrations on 9 de Julio, the widest avenue in the world.  Last night there was a crazy parade, the coolest one I've ever seen (it was created by the guy who produced the off-broadway shows De La Guarda and Fuerza Bruta).  I honestly think the whole city came to see it, there was no end to the people.  The floats consisted of people flying, giant burning objects also flying around, a gigantic snowglobe with tons of people and confetti in it, flying cars, and the best float imaginable- a traditional Argentine folkdance party, with an actual asado on it.  I mean the people were having a blast dancing and singing to the music, in cool costumes, all the girls were super hot, they had a fire pit on one end with giant slabs of steak, chicken, and sausage cooking, giant jugs of wine, and a live band.  It literally was just my dream party placed on a platform and towed through the city.  They were even handing out food to people in the crowd.  Best thing ever.

Now for Bariloche.  Sorry if this is a long post, but we spent 5 days in Bariloche and I want to cover them all now.  We met a lot of ex-pats from around the world who had told us they visited Bariloche once and decided to move there.  If you have ever been there or ever do go, you'll understand why.  Bariloche is a gorgeous ski-town in the middle of the Andes and a ton of lakes near the Chilean border of Argentina.  The people are very laid back, extremely friendly, and love to have a good time.  We arrived there around 1pm on Wednesday after our ridiculously long bus ride from Chalten.  We headed immediately to the chocolate factory because Bariloche is famous for its chocolate.  Afterward we just walked around exploring for a bit.

Thursday a few of the girls went paragliding while the rest of us relaxed in the hostel or did a little more exploring.  Max, Madeleine, and I wanted to ride the alpine slide, but it was closed.  Instead we hung out by the lake and found a cool cat too play with.  Later, the guys, Laura, and I headed to a nearby go-kart track to do some good old fashion, American-style racing.  The place had a loft with a really nice bar, tv's, couches, and more, where we had some beers while the guys prepared the karts.  They were super fast and it was a fun track, so we had a blast.  Max won and I took second, I choose to blame the weight disparity for that.  The place even gave us a printed time-sheet with everybody's lap times, it was great.  That night we played some games, went to a Mexican restaurant, then went to a bar and played some games with a few guys from England.  Great day.

On Friday, Dave, Malcolm, Max, Hannah, Brenny, and I went paragliding.  There are a few guys in Bariloche who are good friends and have their own private company, so we went with them.  We drove for about an hour and a half south to a place called El Bolson to do it.  We pulled up and parked in the front lawn of somebody's farm, and Max and Hannah hopped in the pickup truck with the guys and headed up the mountain.  They flew down fairly quickly, then Dave and Malcolm went.  They had great luck and caught some rising warm air columns which carried them so high that we almost couldn't see them.  Malcolm got so high into the clouds that he has pictures of the other side of the mountain range, it was unbelievable.  Brenny and I went last.  We also had some good luck.  Brenny got about as high as Malcolm and Dave, and I was up there too but not as far.  Paragliding is so cool.  You basically sit in a little chair and literally just float around wherever you want, looking for rising air columns so you can stay up as long as you want.  Our rides were only about 30 minutes because there 6 of us that had to go, but that was enough because it was freezing that high in the air.  I posted a bunch of pictures taken during my flight on my photo page.  I'll try to find a way to post some videos too.  Friday night we had a wine tasting party at the hostel with all the other guests.  That was fun because we got to hang out with some cool people from all over the world.


Saturday was the guys' day out.  We rented bicycles from a local place and headed off on Bariloche's famous "circuito chico".  A few miles in, we got off our bikes and went for about an hour hike up a hill to our first incredible view of the day.  We continued on and stopped at the magestic Hotel Llao Llao, which a few of the girls chose as their future wedding spot.  If I could afford it, I'd probably agree (what a guy thought).  We went a bit further and stopped at a little cove with a beach on the lake, where we saw a bunch of hawks or eagles or something.  A bit further and we ran into trouble.  While riding my bike through some woods earlier on, I had taken a small tumble and bent the derailer on my bike.  After that it was making this weird clicking sound when I pedaled.  Well on my way up a hill, the chain snapped.  We were really far from town so I just walked/scooted the bike or Dave and Max would push me until I reached downhills which I would bomb at terrifying speeds.  Eventually, we reached our haven- a microbrewery in the middle of the woods.  We called the bike shop, and they sent a guy with a new bike for me.  Meanwhile, we ate some good food and tasted the local brews (which included a pale ale- extremely rare in Argentina and my favorite kind).  A few more miles and one gigantic hill later, we arrived at the most breathtaking view I have ever seen in my entire life (seen in the picture at the top of this page).  For miles around you could see lakes and mountains and the Hotel Llao Llao right in the middle.  And it was just as the sun had set behind the mountains directly in the middle, so the whole sky was light up bright orange (unfortunately my camera didn't capture the light very well).  I literally wanted to stay there forever and just keep looking at it.  Instead we went up some more hills until we arrived back at the rental shop.  That night we went to dinner and hung out.  Sunday we relaxed and then took the bus back to Buenos Aires, arriving about 16 hours later in Buenos Aires.


All in all, the trip was amazing.  Fresh air, incredible views, physical activity, and no stress at all.  I'd do it again in a second.  Now go buy your plane tickets.


PS- Do you guys look at the links that I post inside these stories?  I add them whenever I feel they could add something.  Somebody other than my mother, please post a comment and let me know.

El Chalten

After sleeping plenty on Saturday night, we headed off early Sunday morning to Chalten.  It was about a 3 and a half hour ride through the barren land of Patagonia (there are plenty of mountains and lakes and stuff there, but a huge amount of this whole country is just empty desert) before we arrived in the quaint village of Chalten.  We received a quick welcome at the Chalten visitors center, then checked into our hostel.  After a quick run to the supermarket to grab lunch supplies, we headed off on a hike that we had chosen to do.

Chalten is the national hiking capital of Argentina, so the entire 200 person village is located at the center of all of the trails spidering out through the surrounding area.  The hike we had chosen for Sunday was supposed to take us 3 hours to a lake at the end of a glacier in the mountains, a place called Laguna Torre, then 3 hours back.  We headed out through some scattered brush and hills, through a valley between some massive mountains.  After passing through fields, marshes, forests, and streams, we arrived at the huge basin of Laguna Torre.  The lake is located at the base of some mountains, with a small glacier at one end of it.  The air was super fresh and everything was absolutely gorgeous there.  We took tons of pictures, ate lunch, and rested our legs for a bit before heading back towards Chalten.  On the hike back we found some really cool gigantic woodpeckers on a tree, there's some pictures of them on my photo page.  That night we were exhausted from the hike, so we just made some dinner in the hostel and took it easy.


On Monday we headed out early once again.  This time, we had chosen a hike to a place called Laguna de los Tres.  We were told it was significantly more difficult and longer than the first day, about 4 or 5 hours each way (we had actually done the first day in about an hour less time than predicted, but we were warned this one actually takes 8 or 9 hours).  We left around 845am, before the sunrise because we were so far south.  The first 45 minutes or so of the hike was super difficult with a lot of uphills and lingering sleepiness.  Eventually things flattened out as we continued through more forest, streams, valleys, and marshes.  About 2 hours in, we saw a huge mountain in the distance with a squiggly looking stripe going up it.  Dave joked saying, "Hey guys, that's where this path ends up, straight up the mountain."  We all laughed at how ridiculous that would be, and kept truckin onward.

Apparently, Dave was right.  About 45 minutes to an hour later, we arrived at a little rest stop at the base of that mountain, a place for the courageous to refill their water bottles in a little stream and for the smart to turn around.  The cool thing about Chalten is that it's very removed from any cities and all of its water is sourced from glaciers, so you can literally drink any water you see- waterfalls, streams, puddles, dew, or lakes- and it all tastes super cold, clean, and delicious.  I didn't carry a waterbottle, so I would just kneel down and drink from whatever water was flowing past me at the moment.  Anyway, after a quick rest we headed up the mountain.  At first it was just an aggressively steep hike for about 20 minutes, then it turned into almost a full-out climb.  The trail disappeared, and using our legs and hands to climb over boulders and huge rock piles, panting the entire time from exhaustion and altitude, we continued.  After about an hour of climbing and literally almost passing out or falling off a cliff or 5, we reached the peak.  But the peak had a little dip and then another peak on it.  We tossed around the idea of stopping there, but decided we hadn't come that far for nothing.

As we crested the second peak, we caught our first glimpse of the coolest place ever.  A blast of cold glacier air met us as we glared in disbelief at a huge lake situated in between several jagged mountain peaks.  The water was unrealistically blue, 2 glaciers converged from opposite sides of the lake, massive teeth-like rocks towered over us, and the snow-capped peaks just higher than us gleamed in the sunlight.  We sat and ate lunch next to the lake, discussing how incredible the place was (we concluded that the words I'm using right now to describe the place with are 100% inadequate, and you can't begin to grasp how breathtaking it is until you're there).  Dave saw a trail running around the lake, so he went to explore.  A minute later he was screaming for us to come over.  As we approached, the sound of water flowing grew louder, and the reality of a several-hundred-foot cliff slowed us a bit.  The lake was pouring over the cliff creating a massive waterfall, which then flowed down to a second, even larger lake a few hundred feet below.  My pictures really don't capture any of this unfortunately, but I can assure that I have never even dreamed of a place as massive, isolated, and peaceful as this was.


We needed to catch a bus that evening, so we started climbing back down the mountain.  A few hours later we arrived at our hostel, where I downed some Advil for my knees and ankles.  We took the bus back to Calafate (Argentina's famous Route 40 is closed in the south during the winter, so we couldn't go anywhere except Calafate from Chalten) and hung out at a hostel for a few hours.  Our 34-hour bus ride (yes 34, as in thirty-four) to Bariloche left at 3am, so we had a few drinks for Max's 21st birthday to get us feeling nice and relaxed before we boarded.  After a day and a half on the bus we arrived in the magical town of Bariloche.  Highlights of that story include chocolate factories, go-karts, paragliding, bicycles, and kittens, so stay tuned.  Click here for pictures!

Calafate

We started off our trip in Calafate.  After a 3.5 hour plane flight from Buenos Aires, we landed in the middle of nowhere in Calafate and grabbed a cab to our hostel.  We got in around 7pm after the sun had already set so we didn't really get to see much of the town.  That night we just relaxed around the hostel because we had to wake up early on Saturday to head to Perito Moreno National Park to go glacier hiking.
The sunrise revealed a breathtaking view of the massive valley surrounded by snow-capped peaks that Calafate sits in.  We hopped on a bus and drove for about an hour to the park.  On the way we passed a big group of eagles huddled around some carcass on the side of the road, I have some pictures of them on my photo page.  We then took a boat down the lake to where the glacier was.  The guides gave us some instructions and background information on the glacier before we started our hike.  They said the part of the glacier we were hiking was 400 year old ice, and that the wall of the glacier on the lake was 55 meters, or 180 feet, tall in some places.  I hope that helps give some perspective on it, because it certainly doesn't look that big or cool in my pictures.  Then we headed to the crampon place, the place where we put on our crampons.
Once ready to go, our guides led us up and around tons of hills, ridges, crevices, and caves on the glacier.  It was really cool to see how jagged the whole surface of it was, and how almost everything is tinted blue.  Some crevices went down really deep until the ice was a dark navy blue.  The view from the glacier was also incredible with the lake behind it and tons of mountains all around.
Towards the end of the hike we came down into a basin area where the guides gave us some free snacks and whiskey.  The water from the glacier is extremely pure, so you can drink any water you find there, so we drank plenty of that too.  Afterward we went back to the crampon place to take them off, then went to a place where we could go underneath the edge of the glacier.  Everything was bright blue as we crawled around a bit, surrounded by cool shapes of ice with air pockets trapped inside.  We then hiked through the woods a bit back to the base where the boat was.  It took us back to the bus which then brought us to the other side of the lake which was separated by an ice bridge created by the glacier.  There were a ton of observation decks overlooking another absolutely massive glacier, so we sat there watching giant chunks of ice cleave off and make tremendous splashes and sounds very much like thunder.  It was awesome to see.
We headed back to the hostel that night and hung out with some friends we had made. There are several things that I loved about Patagonia in general: 1. Everybody is incredibly friendly 2. You can drink almost any water you find anywhere 3. There is never any stress 4. Everything smells fresh 5. There is no one place where there isn't a breathtaking view.  I could definitely understand why so many people we met had moved there after visiting it.
Sunday morning we headed to El Chalten.  That and more stories to come!  Click the link in the second paragraph to see pictures!

Fotos

New albums are up!  Click here to check them out.  Enjoy!

PS- New stories will actually be coming soon.

Hey we're back, just like I said we'd be back

First things first, everybody get off this page and buy your plane ticket to Patagonia.  You can continue reading afterward.  We got back yesterday morning after 10 days in the land where those who dwell in paradise go to vacation.  I haven't been to class in almost a month (not entirely because I took a vacation, we also had some days off and tests and my schedule is awesome) and so I have a bunch of work to do to catch up and resettle my life.  As soon as things chill out, within the next day if I work hard at it, I'll be sitting here typing for hours on end telling you how much better my vacation was than any you've ever been on (unless you've been to Patagonia).  So keep your pants on everybody, plenty of fun stories (and unbelievable pictures) to come in the very near future.  I just wanted you all to know that I'm home safe so that you can all sleep again.  Hasta pronto.

La Querencia continued

Hey everybody.  I understand that the last couple posts have been excessively long, so I'm gonna try to keep them a bit shorter to keep my readers reading.  Midterms ended today with Business Oraganizational Theory finishing it out.  Its a fairly easy class because I've learned most of the material already or its common sense or its in English, or a combination of the three.  Everybody told me that the professor is super easy too, and that the midterm was 50 multiple choice and a short answer.  Turns out, his tests aren't that easy- it was 11 multiple choice and 9 essays.  Didn't go as well as I'd thought it was going to, but I'm sure I did well nonetheless.


Somehow I forgot to mention in all of these posts that my wonderful family came to visit in between Mendoza and La Querencia.  They spent a week here exploring the city and getting a taste of local culture.  Unfortunately I was sick for half the time they were here, so I tried to take it easy a bit.  We went to dinner a few times, made a trip to Tigre with Brenny and his family, had an asado at our friends' apartment, explored areas like Caminito and the Plaza de Mayo, and went to tango lessons and a dinner/show.  Hopefully my lovely sister Marie will post the videos of Lynn and Sal doing the tango on Youtube soon.  As soon as she does you can be absolutely positive that I'll post the link up here.  Love you mom and dad :)

Saturday at La Querencia, we woke up around 11 and had breakfast out on the patio.  We hung out listening to some music, playing cards, reading, and chatting.  The weekend was really all about getting away from the bustle of the city and chillin as much as possible.  After being sick for the 500th time and entertaining my family for a week, it was great to relax in the fresh air.  Eventually a few people got some motivation and played a little tennis.  Belu and I headed into town to pick up some beverages for everybody.  The roads in the area are beat up old dirt roads and the car was a busted old compact, so it was a fairly interesting drive.  When we came back we had some lunch and hung out more.  To be honest we didn't really do anything at all that day.  We had tea time around 6 and then an asado for dinner.  That night we drank a bit and played some more games before going to bed.  For some reason, at night there are hundreds of frogs around the house, by far the most I've ever seen at once.  I have a picture or two of them hanging out on the patio if you check out my photo page.


Sunday was very similar.  Wake up late, hang out, listen to music, play cards.  We went horseback riding again too.  This time we headed towards the other end of the property.  We walked for a while just talking and enjoying the gorgeous sunset, but eventually that got a little boring.  We tried to get some pictures of us galloping and with the sunset stretching our shadows across the field, but they didn't turn out that well.  We had a quick race to take a cool picture, but Dave started behind me and his horse ran straight into me and half knocked me off my horse, taking me out of the race.  Thus, no pictures of me running, sorry.  There's a really long, straight, tree-lined driveway leading to the house.  As the horses got more and more anxious to head back, they wanted to run.  So we raced down the driveway.  I'm proud to say that even with significant headstarts and a bunch of prior riding experience, both Max and Belu both got SMOKED by yours truly.  What I'm saying is that my horse would have made Secretariat look like a little donkey the way he was running.  It was awesome, although it took about 30 minutes for my heart rate to calm down a bit.  Afterward we showered and ate and watched Iron Man, then went to the bus station and headed home.

The time since then has been just hanging out, classes, partying a bit, and studying.  The best thing I've done lately was on Sunday.  After a big party at our place Saturday, I woke up and went to the National Fine Arts Museum by myself.  I threw on my ipod and just checked out all the cool stuff they had there, occasionally just sitting and thinking for a bit.  Afterward, I went to a fair in that cool park I love so much.  I watched some jugglers, a percussion group, a really good reggae band, and some guys doing capoeira.  Then I met some friends at a cafe.  I came home, had an awesome steak dinner from the parrilla across the street, then watched Dexter and went to bed.  Best day ever.


Sorry if that was too long.  Feel free to comment anyway!  I'll be out of posting commission for almost 2 weeks as my friends and I are heading to Patagonia!  Itinerary: Calafate, El Chalten, Bariloche, Villa Angostura, and San Martin de los Andes.  Google them and get a little culture.  Chau!

La Querencia

How's everybody doing?  Things around here have been kind of slow I guess.  Our 2 week midterm period ends Friday, so we've all just been hanging out and studying a bit and going out a bunch at night.  My friends and I are taking the first week of classes after midterms off to go on a nice long trip to Patagonia.  Its going to be 10 days starting way down south in Calafate heading north up through Chalten, Bariloche, Villa Angostura, and San Martin de los Andes.  Look up Calafate on Google maps, its really far down there, almost at La Tierra del Fuego.  To everybody's pleasure and my partial dismay, the trip promises a ton of blog posting (also known as "lunch break literature" at Groner Service), so I figure I better catch up before I have new stories.

After returning from Mendoza on Monday morning, Dave, Max, and I crammed in a few quick classes and a nap or two before heading back off into the country again.  A friend of ours named Bel came over back in March with her other friends named Bel (the former known as Belen and the latter as Belu) and Clara.  Belu invited us to her campo (the Argentine word for estate/farm/massive property) named La Querencia near a little town about 5 hours away called Arias on the border of the Cordoba and Santa Fe provinces.  We all took a bus up to Arias late Thursday night, arriving at about 5am.  As Belu drove from the bus station to the house in the dark we couldn't really tell what the campo looked like or how big it was.  When we woke up later in the day around 10, we got our first glimpse of it.


Belu told us the whole thing was 2000 hectares.  For those of you who are bad at math or have no idea what a hectare is, that's almost 5000 acres, or 7.72 square miles.  For those of you who would like a geographical comparison, that's one-third the size of Manhattan, or 235.35 times bigger than Aunt Suzy and Uncle Eric's piece of sod.  It's massive.  If you look at my pictures of our weekend, there is not a single picture that shows any other land in it other than her family's, even the ones where the horizon looks a million miles away.


There is a big old mansion in the middle of the property where some of her family members live.  There are other houses and buildings and structures scattered about the property where workers live or where tools/grain/things are kept as well.  Around the mansion there is a garage, big windmill, tennis court, picnic area, and tons of grass.  There's also a fenced off farm where horses and cows are kept.  Its really a cool place.  There's also a couple of dogs living around the farm, two of which stayed with us the whole weekend.  One is an adorable beagle named Holly and the other was a black lab.  We didn't know the lab's name so we called him Negro (not the American word negro, but negro as in the Spanish word for black).


On Friday we had breakfast in the big dining room (there's a lady or two that comes everyday to cook for everybody) and then went to play some tennis.  We took a break and had lunch on the back patio overlooking the huge lawn and a ton of farmland where they grow soy and corn.  We enjoyed the perfect weather and serenity and got our minds off of this stressful life we're living for a bit, it was great.  After lunch we played a little bit more tennis as a farm hand rounded up some horses for us.


We got changed into some gaucho clothes (one of my tshirts, some super comfy horse riding pants, and a cool hat i found) then headed over to help saddle up the horses.  I had never truly ridden a horse before, so the gigantic masses of muscle scared the crap out of me.  As I stood back afraid of walking near them for fear of being kicked or something, our experienced gaucho Max went to work with the farmhand.  For those of you who don't know, Max is our French/American friend who goes to school at Tufts in Boston.  He worked as an actual gaucho on an even bigger farm in Uruguay for like 6 weeks before coming to Buenos Aires, so he did really know what he was doing.


Eventually the horses were ready and we all hopped on.  We got 15 seconds worth of instruction on how to "control" the horse, and everybody started going.  I was in a near panic, so when they told me to kick it to get it to walk, I hesitated just a bit.  The guy smacked its butt and it started off.  It was super uncomfortable and I had no idea what I was doing, so everybody just walked slowly for about 15 minutes.  Max, Belu, and Dave got impatient and started running around the fields a bit.  Eventually I worked up some courage and gave my horse another kick.  It went into a trot, and I bounced up and down, hanging onto the reigns for dear life, as my butt and adjoined parts were smashed flat.  The group continued on (probably for a couple of miles) until we reached a big reservoir.  We rested there for a bit and watched the little beagle Holly bound through the grass that was a foot taller than her (she actually stayed with us the entire time on the 3 hour ride).


We started heading back by going the long way around the property.  Max eventually pressured me into trying a semi-gallop or gallop if I had the courage.  I got some decent speed, but was really scared so I stopped.  I practiced a few more times, and eventually Max and I reached a long straight strip of grass mowed through the field.  The horses know the property pretty well, so they knew we were heading back and started becoming hard to control because they wanted to go home.  Max took off down the strip at full speed and my horse immediately followed, without even warning me.  I actually hit a full sprint!  It was so cool to feel the horse running and breathing heavy underneath me as he just tore through the field.


Eventually we got back, unsaddled the horses, hosed them off, and brought them back to their field.  The saddle and 185lbs of person on their back must be pretty annoying because every single one of them immediately laid down, rolled onto their backs, and did that wiggle thing that dogs do to scratch their back.  It was really funny to see giant horses doing it.


We showered off, relaxed a bit, and had dinner.  Afterward we just sat around and relaxed some more on the back patio.  The nearest city is really far away, and the sky was absolutely filled with stars.  The air was crystal clear and it was super silent.  I haven't been that relaxed since Long Beach Island, which is saying something.


Saturday held more adventures, but its getting late, I need to study more, and my fingers are tired.  I'll finish up tomorrow.  Click the link above for pictures!!!


Oh, and one last thing- as much as I appreciate my mother's comments (thanks mom), I get tons of those without this blog.  I really would like to hear from the other people who are reading this (I would like to thank Tracy for her funny comments, and the one comment Aunt Carole left me).  I spend a ton of time doing this, and I always wonder who is actually reading it.  I leave Flat Evan pictures up all the time, and I never hear from my beloved Godfather or his rascal sons in New Jersey to know if they're getting the pictures.  Que frustrante!  Anyway, here's a quick guide on how to leave comments:


Step 1: At the end of each post, it says for example: Posted by Dan Alfano at 7:23 PM 0 comments.  Click the part where it says "0 comments" (not right here, but at the end of a post).

Step 2: It will take you to a screen that says "Post a comment" with a white box under it.  Write your comment in the box.  Then under the box it says "Comment as:", select "Anonymous" from the list.  Since you're posting anonymously I will have no idea who wrote the comment, so make sure you say who you are in the comment.  Hit "Post comment". 

Step 3: You will be taken to a similar screen.  Under the comment box it will say "Word verification."  Just copy the funny looking letters into the box below, and again it "Post comment."  You're done!  Thanks in advance for your thoughts!


Hasta luego.

Mendoza Part 3

Hey everybody.  Took my first two of three midterms Tuesday and yesterday.  Art History, the class that I thought was going to ruin me, went surprisingly well.  My history and culture of Argentina class also went really well, although everybody in the class seems to have written about double what I did.  We'll see how that goes.  Now I'm hangin out and studying until my Business Organizational Theory test on Wednesday, which shouldn't be too hard.  Now to wrap up Mendoza-

Sunday we signed up for a hiking, rappelling, and hot spring trip.  We were picked up once again early in the morning and drove for about 30 minutes to the base of a small mountain (but already at about 8000ft of altitude).  We got out of the van and our guide, a short gap-toothed man with a zany smile, handed us helmets and climbing harnesses.  We started up a path along the mountain which wasn't very steep, and our guide pointed at least several hundred feet up to a pointy peak and said that was where we were going.  He led us off the path and up onto a pretty steep ridge made of big rocks and small desert plants.  At this point we were literally almost climbing the mountain rather than hiking it.  We continued a few minutes at a time, stopping every once in a while so we could catch our breath and rest our legs (they were burning from the climbing and the altitude was killing us).  Eventually we reached that pointy peak.  The view was absolutely incredible as it looked out over a bunch of other mountains and valleys.

We took some pictures at the edge of a cliff, and then our guide told us to put our harnesses on as we were going to start our descent.  We walked down another ridge on the other side of the mountain which was just as steep and with small loose rocks all over the place.  It was super difficult climbing down as we were slipping all over and trying to avoid cactus all over the place.  My friend Madeleine was walking and suddenly jumped and screamed, scaring all of us.  She called everybody over as she looked down in horror at a massive tarantula that was standing right on the rock in front of her.  As it ran across the rock to hide, it almost doubled in size to more or less as big as my fully-stretched hand.  We took some pictures and kept moving.

After about 3 more minutes we reached our first cliff.  Our guide set up the ropes and anchors and everything to some clips bolted into some rocks, then gave us our instructions, "Just hold onto the rope and lean back really far.  Then just walk backwards down the wall"  Seems easy, until you realize that laying backwards horizontally over 50ft of nothing with only a rope holding you is a little scary.  Dave went first and got down safely, almost eliminating some of our fear.  I went towards the end.  It actual was pretty easy, its just a scary feeling so your body tenses up and you don't move smoothly.  We hiked another few minutes to a second cliff only about 20 or 30 feet tall.  Finally we reach the last cliff of 150 feet.  It was soooo high.  I wasn't too nervous until I leaned back to horizontal, the first point that I could even see over the edge of the cliff.  Everybody below me seemed to be a mile away.  Everything went fine, it just seemed to take an hour to get down (it was really like 3 or 4 minutes).

We changed out of our harnesses and hiked the last 100 feet of the mountain and then down the road a bit.  We then reached the last part of the day- hot springs.  There is a big spa center with tons of pools, hot tubs, and saunas for people to enjoy in the mountain air.  Lunch was provided for us, so we ate heartily and then changed into our bathing suits and headed straight for one of the big stone hot tubs.  It felt unbelievable.  After killing our bodies with bicycles, wine, rafting, camping in the desert, more rafting, hiking, climbing, and rappelling, the spa is really what we needed.  We moved around to some of the different pools outside, all overlooking those incredible views described before.

Malcolm and I saw our friends in a pool down next to the Rio Mendoza (it ran right next to the spa), so we found a waterslide and took it down to them.  They were in a 1 foot deep little pool, next to a big circular pool with a giant man-made geyser in the middle.  We decided to have a relay race- each team member has to get out of the little pool, run around the base of the geyser, and come back before the next person can go.  The catch was, the giant pool was filled with the freezing cold river water (remember the river is supplied by melting snow and ice at the peaks of the Andes), the water at the base of the geyser was about 4 feet deep, and the geyser was a long way around.  The losing team had to do the whole thing again.  Much to my chagrin, my team lost.


We headed back up to the warm pools for a bit and relaxed some more.  Malcolm had his waterproof camera, so we took some funny underwater pictures.  The time came to leave, so we grabbed some smoothies, churros, and fried dough that a lady was selling, and headed back to our hostel.  We hung out for a bit before heading to the bus station to go home.  It was a really incredible weekend, one of the best trips I've ever taken in my life.  We did tons of cool outdoorsy stuff and had fun 110% of the time.


We were home for 3 and a half days before heading out again on our next adventure- La Querencia.  Those stories soon to come!  Click here for pictures of Mendoza!

El Rio Mendoza: Cold enough to freeze the mustache right off your face

After sleeping peacefully Thursday night, we woke up early on Friday to head out on our best adventure yet- whitewater rafting and camping.  The company, named Ser_O Outdoors, picked us up from our hostel around 830am and drove for about an hour through the desert and mountains to its home camp.  When we got there, there was reggae playing, a bunch of hippies playing hippie games, some dogs running around, and a tiki bar.  We were approached by a smiley young guy with curly dreadlocks, who introduced himself as Juan Pablo our lead guide for the trip, and another spacey kind of guy named Kiké (pronounced keekay) who was our other guide.  They went over some logistics of the trip: prepare everything for our trip, drive to the river, load the rafts, and head out on the Rio Mendoza.  Friday night we were to camp out in an abandoned train station in the desert, then pack up again Saturday morning and finish our trip down the river.

They asked for our sleeping bags to be loaded into the cargo containers first, but we were just tourists in a strange city, so of course we didn't have sleeping bags.  Juan Pablo panicked a bit and thought we were kidding, but we weren't.  He warned us that in the desert it gets down to about 50 degrees and windy at night.  We told him we had sweatpants and sweatshirts, but he was still worried so he scrapped up every blanket, towel, table cloth, etc. that he could find for us to use as blankets.  We packed everything up, fitted ourselves with super thin and ripped wetsuits, helmets, life vests, booties, jackets, etc, went through a quick explanation of proper rafting procedures, and headed off.


After another hour drive through the mountains, we pulled off the road a bit to a small bank next to the river.  We changed into our rafting suits, packed everything securely into the raft, and dropped the raft in the river.  This was the first point at which we found out what river water from the Andes mountains is like- unimaginably cold.  I mean really cold.  We pushed off the bank in our two rafts and then learned about the winds moving through the river's canyon- super strong and also absurdly cold.  We paddled/rode the current for a while before encountering our first set of rapids.  Since it was the river's low season the water was a little low and not moving as fast, we really only faced class 3 rapids the whole time (rapids go from class 1 to 5, 5 being the roughest).  Nonetheless, the raft bounced and spun and we all hung on for fear of falling in the river (our friend Agustin actually did and Juan Pablo had to throw him a line to pull him back to the boat), and waves of water dumped over us constantly.  It was really really fun.  After about an hour or 2 on the river, we pulled onto a tiny little bank and set up for lunch.  We had coolers with plenty of sandwich supplies, granola bars, and drinks, so we all ate heartily and tried to thaw out.

We headed back out for another hour or 2 before the sun started to set, then pulled onto another bank.  As Juan Pablo said, "Unload quick, we need to find firewood before we run out of daylight."  Comforting.  We dragged all of the equipment up a hill to where we saw our home for the night- a bunch of old abandoned and crumbling buildings in the middle of the desert.  We changed our clothes and headed out.  Almost everything you find in a desert like the one we were in is tiny little thorn bushes and tumbleweed, nothing good to burn.  We found a few tree branches around, and eventually resorted to tearing the roof of one building apart to get some wood.  Nobody has used these buildings in a long long time, so the walls and roofs and everything are essentially ruins.  We carried everything back to camp, and then used railroad ties from the tracks that are still there to create a nice circle of benches around a fire pit that we built out of rocks we had found.

As the sun set, we set up our tents inside the semi-walls of the house we picked to stay in (in the Mendoza album its the building with the word "Guido" on it, obviously).  Our guides cut up vegetables and a few chickens, then threw it all in a big pot with some chicken broth and rice.  As the food slow-cooked for an hour or 2, we drank the 12 liters of wine our guides had also brought for us, played games, looked at the stars, and chatted.  It was really really peaceful and fun.  There are an incredible amount of stars in the desert sky- it literally looked white.  We saw a shooting star that lasted about 3 full seconds and went literally from one side of the sky to the other.  We ate the food and some cookies for dessert as we watched the moon rise over the rim of the mountains.  At some point we headed to bed, cramming up to 5 people in 2 person tents under a ton of blankets to keep warm.  It was extraordinarily uncomfortable.


We woke up sometime in the morning, no idea what time.  We ate some more cookies for breakfast, packed up, got back into our freezing cold and wet clothes for the raft, and head out again.  We met with some of our other friends who were only doing a 1 day trip at the bank where we tied up the rafts.  The 3 rafts headed down river for about 2 hours, going through a bunch more rapids, and one small waterfall until we reached the lake that the river ended in.  It was by far the bluest lake I've ever seen- it almost looked like they dyed the water.  A van was waiting for us at the end and after packing the rafts onto the trailer we headed back to camp.  After showering and changing into dry clothes, we ate an asado that the company has for all rafters after their trip.  We headed back to the hostel around maybe 6 and it took us until about 9pm to finally warm up again (we got off the rafts around 2 or 3).


We napped and then hung out around the hostel for the rest of the night, playing cards, pool, and charades, eating pizza, and having some drinks.  My friends headed to bed and I stayed up talking with a guy from Chile for about an hour or 2, and another kid from Manhattan came in and sat with us.  The 3 of us spoke (in Spanish because the guy from CHile didn't speak English) until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore, then went to bed.


Sunday we went on some more adventures, highlights include: mountain climbing, rappeling, tarantulas, hot springs, and churros.  Stay tuned.

PS- I took this picture from my balcony at about 6am this morning:

The sunrise over Buenos Aires.  I couldn't stay awake any longer to take a better one, but this was gorgeous.

Mendoza!!! Part 1

Mendozaaaaaa, the land of cool outdoorsy stuff and second home of reggae music.  My friends and I headed to Mendoza, a city near the west coast of Argentina, for the end of March/first weekend in April.  We had heard a lot of cool stuff about it beforehand, and it certainly matched up to the stories.  My friends headed there on Tuesday night (its also a 15 hour bus ride) and arrived around noon on Wednesday, when they rented bikes and road them around the city.  Allie and I had class on Wednesday that we couldn't miss, so we took a bus late on Wednesday and arrived Thursday at noon.  We headed to the hostel and settled ourselves in, then headed right back out for the famous bicycle-wine tours.  Mendoza is Argentina's equivalent of the Napa Valley, except it looks way more like a desert with way less pretty countryside, and so offers plenty of wine tours and tasting.  Unanimously voted the most fun way to take the tours is on a bicycle.

We headed to the famous Mr. Hugo's, where you rent bicycles for the day for 15 pesos and then Mr. Hugo gives you plenty of free wine before you head out.  Mr. Hugo sent us off with a big smile and nod of encouragement, and we headed a few miles down the road to our first winery.  We heard a 3 minute description of the winery, explored it a bit, then tasted some wine.  At this point everybody was feeling pretty happy and excited to ride their bikes some more, so we rode for a while around the wineries and down the long desert roads.  We took some pictures and stole some grapes off of these huge dump-trucks that were overflowing with them, then headed to the next winery stop.

At our second stop there was a deal where you pay 20 pesos and taste 4 full glasses of whatever types of wines and/or champagnes you want.  Needless to say we all took advantage of that.  Everything we tasted at this place was excellent, and the weather was beautiful, so we bought a bunch of bottles of different wines and sat out in the grass next to the vineyard for a bit.  As we talked and drank and had an awesome time, the winery was closing and the owners decided we were not exactly in "bicycle riding condition" for the "busy" roads around us.  So they called Mr. Hugo.  And the police.  This was all unbeknownst to us, so when Mr. Hugo came with his pickup and began throwing our bikes in the back, and when the police came in two paddywagons and threw us in the back, we were a little surprised.  Apparently this is a normal occurrence, so the police were very cool and took pictures of us cuffed together while drinking wine in the van.  Everybody was shuttled back to Mr. Hugo's, where there was a ton of more free wine waiting for us, and the police reluctantly declined the offer to join us.  We danced and drank and laughed a ton with Mr. Hugo before he walked us to the bus, which he paid for all of us to take back to the hostel.

We were pretty exhausted when we got back to the hostel, so we showered and napped.  We then took a taxi to an asado/party that the hostel was having for guests at a nearby park.  We never RSVP'd about the asado so we had to sneak in and steal some food.  After some food and drinks, we hung out on the playground, riding swings and some ride that spun really fast for a bit, then went home and passed out.  It was a super fun day.


Early the next day we embarked on a 2-day whitewater rafting/camping adventure.  More on that tomorrow.  Click here to see my Mendoza album.  Sidenote:  I forgot to mention that the guys and I decided that the theme of this trip was "Mustache Mendoza", so you may notice that I have some ridiculous looking facial hair in these pictures.  For those of you that like history, this style of facial hair, was invented by (and named after) the 21st president of the United States of America, Chester A. Arthur.  I have no pictures of the police and Mr. Hugo in that album, so I'll post them here.

All of us with the cops and Mr. Hugo (just left of center in the black shirt)

 Apparently we have different definitions of "bicycle riding condition".

Not as fun as riding bikes.

Talk to you tomorrow!