Long way to go

Ahh, Buenos Aires. One of the few cities in the world in which I could totally live. It's so nice to be back strolling around Palermo, Recoleta, enjoying the fantastic weather. Yesterday I met up with a friend who is down here for a month's vacation, John, and we checked out San Telmo, the neighborhood where tango was born. However, I didn't see any shows.

Instead of antiquing, which the barrio is also known for, we spent a nice afternoon drinking wine in the park, one of my favorite fair weather activities. Ended up having dinner at La Cabrera - the third time I have eaten there, but I really think they have the best steaks I have ever consumed. And they gave me free champagne after I finished my malbec!

Today I spent the morning reading classic science fiction in the botanical garden. After that I went to the Museum of Belles Artes, which had a very impressive collection. Then I checked out a shopping gallery full of high-end design shops, but couldn't really afford anything. Tonight I am meeting up with a friend from New York, Zev, for some drinks. It's strange that so soon I won't be able to spend my days reading in parks, checking out museums, strolling around interesting neighborhoods. Reality is about to intrude rather rudely, in the form of work. I need a job! But I am not going to worry too much, not going to think about sending resumes out until I get back to NYC. Which is to say: next week. Wow.

Also, once I return to the states, I will go back through and update this site: post all my pictures and clean up some of the writing, which has been so hastily scribbled and barely edited.

By the way, my head is doing fine. The concussion was mild; I was kind of out of it on Sunday, but I am feeling much better today. Thank you to all those who expressed concern, but you have nothing to worry about! I am a hard-headed person.

Posted by j3s at 09:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apologies in advance if this entry is a bit more scattered than usual, I might have a mild concussion. I'm ok though, nothing to worry about.

Last night I went to meet Molly, who I met in Santiago, at her hostel for dinner. Molly's had a string of bad luck, and had barely finished warning me about hanging out with her for fear that something awful would happen to me in her presence, when I hit my head very hard on an open steel window corner. (Though this sounds like something I would do when drunk, ironically I was totally sober.) I fell to the ground for a second, a bit stunned. When I touched my head I was surprised to see a little blood on my hand. So I touched it again to apply a little pressure, and when I pulled it away my entire palm was bright red. That's about when the blood started cascading down my face.

Fortunately, there was a Brazilian doctor and an American nurse staying at the hostel (both women), and they attended to me quickly. Though it hurt really badly, I didn't cry, just felt stunned. Everyone else around me seemed to be panicking a bit, which made me think I should be worried, but more than anything I just felt like a clumsy idiot, and started laughing at myself. After about five minutes the bleeding stopped, so I had the hostel owner cancel the taxi he'd called to take me to the hospital. The nurse assured me that head wounds bleed a lot more than normal ones, and helped me clean the gash and wash the blood from my hair.

I asked her if there was anything I could do if it turned out I had a concussion and she said no, not really, just wait it out. So I went to dinner with Molly anyway, and after about an hour the swelling went down, and the feeling that something was growing out of the side of my head subsided. So I had a nice dinner (though I was glad I wore black so the bloodstains on my shirt weren't as visible), and decided to have a drink with Molly afterwards.

I'd asked the nurse about it, and she said if I wasn't feeling dizzy a glass of wine would be ok, so I had a caipirinha. Hanging out with Molly was a lot of fun; she's lived an interesting life and we got along really well. It can be difficult to meet really cool girls (though I've had a lot of luck with that on this trip), and neither of us wanted to return to our separate hostels because the conversation was so nice.

The people at my hostel were really understanding; checkout time was 10am, but they told me to sleep as late as I felt like I needed to. This morning I definitely feel a little out of it, a little slow, like moving underwater a bit. My head is sore but not painful, and I am slightly dizzy if I walk too much. I'm ok though, there is absolutely no reason to worry, I am taking it easy this afternoon. I plan on having a mild late lunch, and sitting in the 400 acre park in town, and reading a book.

I am glad that I took a wine tour yesterday instead of waiting for today. Mendoza is known for its wines, particularly Malbecs, which I learned when touring a winery, a vineyard, and a boutique olive oil producer. I have been holding off on buying souvenirs because I didn't want to carry them this whole time, but I bought a bottle of Malbec at the vineyard since I am nearing the end of my travels. I have an overnight bus back to Buenos Aires tonight, and look forward to returning to one of my favorite cities tomorrow.

Posted by j3s at 05:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The rest of my Santiago stay was quite lovely. I was back in exploratory mode, so the day after the museum of Pre-Colombian Art, I did a few more touristy things. My favorite was visiting Las Chascona, Pablo Neruda's house in Santiago that's designed to feel like a ship. I like the poetry of Neruda, and his house was equally interesting, full of 60's furniture and lots of little collections.

After that I went to the top of Cerro San Cristobal, a giant park on top of a mountain. I rode a cable car to the top that had a plaque in it stating that Pope John Paul II rode the same car some years ago. The view would have been nice, except that the city is so smoggy that I could barely see the mountains. The Cerro has a zoo on it as well, and from my hostel in the mornings I could hear the animals. However, most zoos depress me, so I didn't visit the one there.

I also explored the Providencia neighborhood a bit, both after the Cerro (strolling through parks, checking out shops), and later that night when I went out for drinks with some Germans. The Germans knew some Irish grils from the hostel; turns out they were booked on the same bus to Mendoza from Santiago as I, so the next day (yesterday), we shared a taxi to the bus station. Unfortunately it was raining, and the taxi took an hour to arrive; we got to the bus station ten minutes after our bus was scheduled to depart. But this is South America, nothing is on time, so our bus was late and thus everything was ok.

The ride from Santiago to Mendoza was absolutely spectacular. Any passage across mountains usually impresses me, but the Andes are just amazing. We crossed the border on a mountaintop reminiscent of the Himalayas. It was snowing, which made for a chilly wait at passport control, but I warmed up with some tea afterwards.

I didn't get to Mendoza until after dark; I dislike arriving in new places at night, I have no sense of where I am. It was a bit difficult to find my hostel, and the one ATM at the bus station wouldn't take my bank card. By the time I finally got to my hostel it was 10:30 and I was a bit grumpy, so I decided to just have some wine with a couple Australian sisters and go to bed. I had gone out the last three nights in a row in Santiago, so a night staying in sounded good.

Plus I am planning on going out tonight with a girl I met in Santiago who actually lived in Chicago for a little while. She came to Mendoza the day before I did, so we are going to meet up for dinner or drinks or something later.

Mendoza is a very pleasant city, known for being the top wine producing region of Argentina. I am taking a tour of a winery this afternoon, which should be nice. I am definitely sold on South American wines, and plan on drinking more of them when I get back to the States. Some of them are quite tasty, and relatively cheap.

It's kind of nice to be back in Argentina, feels more familiar. It's definitely the most developed of South American countries. I look forward to returning to Buenos Aires, which I do on Monday. Today I got to check my bank account for the first time since I left Argentina; I knew I was running low on money, but I didn't realize how close to empty I was. I had told myself I could spend everything in my checking account while down here, leaving a small amount in my savings account for when I return to New York, to live off of until I can find work. When I checked my balance today, I only had about two hundred dollars left, yikes.

So, I will be returning to the States a bit sooner than originally planned. It's not just because of money though: my grandmother broke her hip and isn't recovering from the operation. If I really wanted to I could stay another month down here, but then I would be in debt upon my return, and I want to be in the States in case something should happen to my grandma.

It's strange though, to think that this trip will end soon. Not just South America, but my year-long stint of not working, living in Berlin, everything. Time to go back to cold weather and jobs. At that thought...I will go outside and have a coffee at a cafe in the sun.

Posted by j3s at 04:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I´m back in Buenos Aires. It´s nice to be someplace familiar again, but I have definitely settled into the rhythm of travel and can´t wait to go to the next place. Which is La Paz, Bolivia, the highest altitude city in the world. The more people I talk to, the more I am beginning to regret signing up for a tour of the country. I was a little nervous having heard that Bolivia is very rough, so I booked a 10 day tour. I haven´t taken a tour since 1998, really prefer to travel on my own. However, from talking to people at hostels it sounds like it´s quite accessible, and I would have been fine on my own. Ah well. The bright side is I can turn off my brain a little, not have to think about scheduling buses or finding hostels for a few days.

The bad news is I am spending money more quickly than I thought. My original plan was to head to Chile after Bolivia, then back to BA, then back to NYC. Now I think after Chile I´d really like to head south to Patagonia for a week or two...if the money holds out.

As for Cordoba, I was sad to stay there only one day. Admittedly, much of my stay was augmented by how nice of a hostel I stayed at; the asado (BBQ) Saturday night was a blast, as was checking out the rest of the town: the big Parque Sarmiento, Paseo de Flores, the Museum, and a couple clubs and bars.

My bus left Cordoba, or rather was scheduled to leave, at 11pm yesterday; at 11:20 there was still no sign of the bus. I was getting kind of nervous, but did a good job of not getting upset once I understood that I hadn´t just missed it. Eventually I found a middle aged Argentinian woman who was on my bus too, and we waited together. She didn´t speak any English, but told me all about her family and her vacation, about half of which I understood. We cheered together when the bus arrived, finally, at almost midnight. After I had taken my seat upstairs (she was sitting on the lower level of the bus), the woman found me, gave me a macrame and bead bracelet and necklace she had made, a hug, and her email address, wishing me bueno suerte. It was so sweet! Little things like this make me quite happy, and remind me why I travel.

Now that I am back in the big city, I should mention a few things about it before I forget, both good and...interesting.

- amazing steaks, so cheap. My favorite so far is La Cabrera, but I want to try other places too
- the Sunday market at Plaza Serrano
- the MALBA Museum´s permanent collection of contemporary Latin American art
- cortado (coffee)
- really cheap breezy dresses and clothes
- asado culture, BBQ is a universal activity
- seeing my friend Maurizio play good music at parties
- always needing to have small bills on hand; portenos don´t like to give change for much over a 5 or 10
- so many beautiful plazas and parks everywhere
- good cheap argentinian wine
- Palermo Viejo, a really cute neighborhood
- the difficulty in finding English books not in the genre of Clive Cussler, Danielle Steele, or Stephen King
- the weather: sunny, hot but not humid, always a breeze
- the eagerness with which portenos offer directions
- Parisian-inspired architecture
- dulce de leche
- dulce de leche ice cream at Alta Volta Heladeria

I´m sure there will be more, that´s just off the top of my head. It´s a ridiculously pleasant city.

Posted by j3s at 09:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After a 23 hour bus ride from Puerto Iguazu, I am in Cordoba, the second biggest city in Argentina. So far it's really lovely! Feels older, and less developed than Buenos Aires, very lively, except everything seems to close down at 6pm. I highly recommend the hostel I am staying at: Baluch Backpackers, near San Martin Square.

When I set out from BsAs, I got a little tired, feeling the weight of the next month of hostel living, buses, always watching my stuff. But so far I have had really lovely experiences, and met really great people. Maria, a British girl I hung out with in Iguazu, spent 6 weeks by herself in Bolivia, where I am going next week. Everyone says it's quite rough, but after hearing her talk about it, I felt like a wuss for only planning on being there 12 days.

Side note: I am using way more commas than usual because I can't find the semicolon or dash on this keyboard. The keys aren't always what is marked.

Iguazu, by the way, was fantastic. It's been 15 years since I saw Niagra Falls, but compared to my memory, they were bigger and much more impressive. Very tropical location though, the other side of the Falls is Brazil. Which meant extreme heat and humidity, I sweated the whole time. And when it rains there, it's a really heavy intense rainforest pour. But the sun was mostly out, and I got a pretty bad sunburn regardless of #20 sunblock, and 40 incredibly big and itchy mosquito bites. I'm crossing my fingers for no malaria! Took some nice pictures, but there's no way they will do the place justice.

Tomorrow I take an 11pm bus back to BsAs, arriving sometime in the morning. Two days in Cordoba is nice, I would love to stay a third but I fly to La Paz from BsAs on Tuesday. Then: Bolivia!

Posted by j3s at 11:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)