Humahuaca Gorge

¡Hola a todos!

Anybody who is geologically inclined would love Humahuaca Gorge. I got to go on a day trip through it while I was staying in Salta and it has some amazing rock formations!

"Humahuaca Gorge" is basically a high altitude desert mountain pass, and includes several small towns, the most famous of which are Humahuaca (home to the most giant monument I have yet to see, pictured at right...the man in the middle is 9 meters tall!!)

and Purmamarca, a smaller town nestled into mountains made up of rocks of a rainbow of colors, a sampling of which you can see at left and below.

We also got to visit a historical site called "El Pucara de Tilcara," a town dating back to the 9th-15th centuries, before the Spanish came to South America. It is an important archeological site and in its prime was home to over 1500 people and a booming trading town; today some original adobe huts still exist within the protected area.

And finally, a fun fact...we passed through the Tropic of Capricorn, which was marked by the monument below. I feel quite worldly, because I've already been to the Equator and the Arctic Circle and travelled past the Tropic of Cancer, so now I just need to go to Antarctic Circle to complete my north-south travels!

I'll post one more blog about my vacation, and then it's back to school...I just finished my first week of classes for the semester and it was quite an experience! Have a good weekend!

Salta

The second destination of my "winter" vacation here in Argentina was Salta, where I stayed for four nights. It is nicknamed "Salta la Linda" (Salta the beautiful) because it's surrounded by mountains (albeit small mountains, and it's a desert relatively close to the Equator so it rarely snows). But, I have to agree that it is a beautiful city, much more my style than Buenos Aires, minus the climate. I was there during the coldest time of year and walked around in a t-shirt every day!

One of the city's main tourist attractions is a cable car (it's called a "teleférico" in Spanish for anybody who's interested) which takes you to the top of the nearest "mountain," where you are able to see a beautiful view of the city. There are also stairs that go up the "mountain," which I opted to take instead, and it only took about 45 minutes for me to walk up.

The main park of the city was also really cool, probably my favorite I have encountered so far. There was a big lake with a fountain in it that you could paddleboat around, and there was a little island in the middle that was basically a bird sactuary.

And finally, the city is home to the most giant monument to a General I have yet to see. It was in the middle of another cool park that was more or less at the base of the stairs up the mountain, and it was didicated to General Güemes. I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but Argentineans don't like to get very creative when they name things. The names of streets, plazas, places, monuments,

and everything else are all the same in every town. For example, every town's main plaza is "Plaza 9 de Julio" because that is Argentina's independence day. And "Güemes" is the name of a street a couple of blocks down from the street I live on in Buenos Aires. You have to love it...

Salta itself was awesome, and I really enjoyed just wandering around on the free day I had there. But it's also surrounded by many national parks and geologically beautiful areas, which I took two day trips to see, and will talk about in subsequent posts...

I hope everybody is getting outside and enjoying the summer!!!

Mendoza and Bodegas

...a continuation of my fascinating vacation blog series.

Mendoza, as I mentioned in my previous post, is a small city of a little over 100,000 people. It also is home to a vast expanse of park (which I have quickly learned is true of every city in Argentina, if you can find it).

Our hostel in Mendoza (which was named Damajuana and was quite nice, I recommend it) was conveniently located about six blocks from said vast park, so of course it was one of the first places I went in Mendoza. In the middle was a manmade lake, pictured at left.

Mendoza is also home to many scultures and other public works of art, as is true with basically any town/city in Argentina. For example, see below:

While we were in Mendoza, we were basically obligated to go on a wine tour, because the region is renowed for its wines. We elected to go on a bike tour in which we were driven to a bike rental place a little ways out of town, and from there we biked to two bodegas (wineries) where we sampled Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon, as well as some champagne.

At right: proof I biked with the lovely Andes and some out of season grape plants in the background, not to mention real snow!

At the first winery we got grouped with a large bus tour, so it was rather impersonal, but the second winery was cool because our tour guide was from England and our group only had four people in it, so she gave the tour in English and I learned many interesting facts about the wine and champagne-making processes.

At left: stainless steel wine-aging units. There were many.

At right: a special kind of wood barrels for aging of a different type of wine (unfortunately I don't remember the specifics for anybody who's interested, you'll just have to go on a tour yourself...)

The whole experience was fun because I had never been on a wine tour before, and it was fun to get to ride a bike for the first time since I left the United States! I'll never take it for granted again...

Overall, Mendoza is a very laid-back city/town, and my favorite part was probably the park. The climate wasn't quite legitimate for me, however, because there wasn't enough snow to go snowboarding even though the mountains are relatively close...definite issue! But if you like wine, it's a must when traveling around Argentina.

Next in the fascinating series: Salta!

The Mendozan Andes

I'm back from my winter vacation in Argentina, and I have a lot to talk about!

My first destination was Mendoza, a city with a population of a little over 100,000 which is about a 13 hour bus ride to the west and slightly south of Buenos Aires, pretty close to the border of Chile. It is also conveniently located about a half hour's drive from the Andes mountains, although it is most famous for its wine and is basically the Napa Valley of Argentina. I was there for a total of about 3 and a half days, during which I went on a bus tour to the Andes and a bike tour to two bodegas (wineries), and had some free time to explore the city as well.

Our first full day in Mendoza was spent on a bus (and off of it) in the Andes mountains. On the right is my first close up view, as the sun was rising. It was probably the coldest weather I have experienced in Argentina, and the coldest I will experience unless I travel far south sometime soon (which I won't). But, on the Bozemanite scale it really wasn't that bad. And as you can see, there was snow in the mountains, but only a light dusting.

Our next stop was at a mountainous operation complete with a ski lift, but I am still not entirely sure why. There were places to rent skis, but they were all closed because there wasn't enough snow, and everbody riding the lift was not skiing. The main attraction, as you can see in the picture, was sledding. Little kids were having a blast sliding down this little hill on a mixture of ice and dirt. It was all rather comical to me; I guess I was a spoiled child when it came to snow. I asked our tour guide when the ideal skiing time was, and he laughed and said there really wasn't one...that was about as good as it gets. But, it was a beautiful location nonetheless.

The "ski" lift.

At our last stop, another sledding hill, I was able to hike up a little ways to get a nice view. Unfortunately, it was my most active opportunity of the day, but we only had about 30 minutes. But, considering that I didn't have a car or very much money, the tour was overall worth it.

Stay tuned for Mendoza Part 2: The City and Bodegas!

Oficina de Migraciones = DMV

This morning, I woke up the earlier than I ever have in Buenos Aires so I could go to the Migrations Office for my 8:00 appointment to obtain my Student Visa. Some of my friends had already gone, and I had heard it was a confusing maze to navigate, so I prepared myself for confusion.

I took the Subte (subway) to a stop approximately 4 blocks away from the Migrations Office, and started to walk in what I thought was the right direction. Streets are rather difficult to navigate in Buenos Aires because half of the time there is no sign indicating which street or streets you are on at a given corner. But, some of the signs are really helpful and actually tell you which block of the street you are on (aka 3100-3200, etc). I found the street the office is on and started walking to the 1300 block, because the address was 1351. I saw nothing that looked like a Migrations building and a nice parking attendant noticed I looked lost and asked what I was looking for. Actually, he guessed it—it must happen often. He told me to turn around and go four blocks in the opposite direction...aka the 1000 block. What?!?! I will never understand this city, or their method of assigning addresses.

I managed to find the "Migrations Office," which was not just one office but an entire complex of different buildings labeled with numbers. After asking several people, I was able to figure out which building I needed to go to, #4, which was apparently half of a building containing both #3 and #4. The door to #4 said "Salida" ("Exit"), so I went to the door that said "Entrada" ("Enter"), which was labeled #3 but in the same building. Already, I had no idea what was going on.

I walked inside and saw a couple of booths that said "Information," and I thought they looked promising and told the man behind one of the booths the name of the office I was looking for. He handed me a number and pointed in a vague direction, and I wandered back to a waiting area in which other people possessed similar numbers, and had a sign displaying which number was being served at which window.

It was exactly like going to the DMV. Supposedly I had an "appointment," but I'm not sure what that did for me, because I feel like I could have done the exact same thing without it.

So, I waited for my number to appear and walked to the appropriate window. Might I add, these windows were literally windows, made of solid glass, with tiny slits at the bottom for exchanging paperwork and apparently for hearing through, essentially forcing people like me to bend down like idiots to hear what the people behind the glass were saying.

I told the lady who was supposed to be helping me that I was there to get my visa. She leafed through my passport, said one thing which I was unable to hear through the impenetrable shield between us, saw the confused look on my face, and without ANY attempt at further conversation said "I'm going to get somebody who speaks English." I told her I could speak some Spanish, but she was apparently uninterested in giving me further direction. She told me to sit down and wait.

So, I sat down and waited a further 20 minutes, when a lady finally came and asked what I needed. I said, "I'm here to get my visa. Am I in the right place?"

"You have an appointment today?"

"Yes."

My helpful English speaker apparently found this situation very hilarious, and laughed as she took me into the other half of the building...aka #4...the building I thought I needed to go to in the first place. Awesome.

There, I was fingerprinted (for the second time since I've been here; the first was when I got a background check to obtain the criminal records necessary for the visa. You think they'd have them on file?), given another piece of paper, and pointed towards yet another series of booths. There, a lady who actually tried to speak to me in Spanish I could understand took all of my accumulated documents and paperwork and gave me some papers to sign, then told me to go pay my 300 peso fee and come back. After this, I had to sign more papers and wait a short while more.

After all of that, I was given a piece of paper and told to come back in 15 days for the visa.

All I could think was, "What just happened?"

Long story short: getting your visa is like going to the DMV. And to call it an "appointment" is a joke. I'm pretty sure they just tell people to come on certain days to regulate the amount of people they have to deal with.

Oh, life abroad...what an experience.

One Month Already?!?!

[me with General San Martín at the Plaza San Martín]

Tomorrow will mark my one month anniversary of being in Argentina, and while I still have quite some time left here, it's hard to believe it's already been that long!

Today I had my final exam for my Intensive Spanish class; it consisted of a written and an oral portion. The written part was great but the oral part was much more difficult; it's rather hard to think on the spot in a foreign language, even when you have a little time to prepare. Our teacher told us what we had to talk about and then gave us about 20 minutes to prepare, and we did it in small groups. I'm not sure if that made it better or worse...

Anyway, since I haven't talked much about my class, it was five days a week for 4 weeks from 10-3. There were a total of seven people in my class and we had two different teachers who taught on different days of the week. Both of them were really nice and really good teachers! I definitely learned a lot from them, even though all of the grammar we learned was review for me, it's hard to remember everything until you've had it drilled into your head a few times.

My favorite part of class was all of the vocabulary I learned, both Argentina-specific and generally useful words and phrases. Whenever we would start talking about a random topic in class (which was often), our teachers would seize the opportunity to teach us related vocabulary, since of course we always had to speak in Spanish. It was very entertaining; I highly recommend the program!

Now I have a whole week off from school until the semester here starts July 26 (don't worry, the semester at MSU doesn't start until August 30, if you are lucky enough to be going there)!

In celebration of my successful completion of the intensive class, and to seize my only long vacation I will have in Argentina, I'm going to leave tomorrow night for Mendoza, a region west of Buenos Aires fairly close to Chile which is famous for its wine. It's also in the mountains, which is far more exciting for me than the wine aspect! I'll be there for three days, and from there I'm going to Salta, which is much farther north and also in the mountains, and contains the highest concentration of National Parks in the northern part of Argentina. I'm traveling with a friend from my program and we're taking buses everywhere, which means a looooot of travel time, but it's also waaay cheaper than flying! And, the buses we are taking have beds, so we can sleep. I've definitely driven further distances in my car (aka: Bozeman to Anchorage), so I'm just happy I don't have to drive!

If I don't have a chance to update again before I leave, stay tuned for the stories of my adventures!

Colonia, Uruguay!

The past couple of weeks have flown by in Buenos Aires! Today is 9 de Julio, the Argentinean Independence Day, so I don't have class, and thus I have time to blog again, finally.

As I mentioned at the end of my previous post, a couple of weeks ago I went on a day trip to Colonia, Uruguay, which is a short boat ride across the Rio de la Plata from Buenos Aires. It was very fun and refreshing for me to get out of the big city, because it takes some getting used to.

Colonia is a small town, and we spent the day in the historical district, where there is a lighthouse (or faro in Spanish), lots of coast to wander, and cobblestone streets everywhere. We were also lucky enough to be there on the day Uruguay won their World Cup game against Korea, so people were celebrating all day, yelling, waving flags, and driving around the streets in cars packed full of celebrating people honking their horns incessantly.

Here are a few pictures:

The view of Colonia from the Buquebus (our means of transportation, a ferry)

Part of the historical district, including a sweet sculpture that caught my eye.

The view from the top of the lighthouse.

It was all in all a fun and cheap weekend getaway. The Uruguayan exchange rate is approximately 20 Uruguayan pesos to 1 US dollar...crazy!

More to come later...I'll try to start updating more frequently!