kbard

Mendoza is a beautiful little town, very walkable and easy to navigate thanks to five large plazas. The biggest, Plaza Independencia, is right in the middle of town and is surrounded by four smaller plazas. They all have fountains, beautiful tiles, and monuments. There's lots of pedestrian streets and an impressive canal/irrigation system. On January 8, 2013 we arrived in Mendoza shortly after 8am on an Andesmar bus. This bus ride was pretty nice because we got the front seats on the top deck giving us fantastic views of the landscape between Rosario and Mendoza. The seats were black leather, we had lots of leg room, and despite being given ridiculously narrow blankets it was a rather comfy trip. We walked to our hotel, the Argentino, which is right on Plaza Independencia, from the bus station, ... read more

On the evening of January 2, we departed Buenos Aries on a Via Bariloche bus for what was supposed to be a 17 hour ride. We should have arrived in Puerto Iguazú by 12:10pm, which I had hoped would give us enough time to see the Brazilian side of the falls that afternoon. But we didn't arrive until a few hours later, and by the time we had checked into our hotel and had a bite to eat, we decided lack of time dictated we should just focus on the Argentinian side the next day. We probably could have taken a taxi over to the Brazilian side to save time spent on a bus, etc. I had read the Brazilian side offers a better panaramic view, and while it has a nice restaurant (Porto Canoas) isn't ... read more

It's hard for me to think about Buenos Aires without the inevitable comparisons to Paris. Both cities have similar monumental architecture, wide avenues, beautiful parks, majestic water fountains, and dog shit strewn sidewalks. I think I like Buenos Aires better though. While it's significantly less diverse (I've never seen so many white people in one city), Buenos Aires doesn't have the swastika graffiti that plagues Paris, has nicer weather, friendlier people, and is less over-run by tourists. Perhaps the friendlier people is directly related to being a city not constantly invaded by tourists - but I think language is part of it too. Parisians seem to hate it when you mess up their language by not speaking correctly, but spanish seems more like english in that the speakers are more laid back about having their mother-tongue ... read more

I arrived in Chicoutimi via bus from Toronto on Saturday, June 16. After meeting my significant other who had been doing a french immersion in Chicoutimi for the past 5 weeks, we went to pick up our car rental which was conveniently right around the corner from the bus station. We had lunch at Café Cambio, a nice little spot with amazing coffee and good vegetarian food. It was a beautiful day outside, so we figured we should head to the beach. We spent a few hours at the municipal beach in Saint-Gédéon. The water was far too cold to swim in, but it was a nice beach otherwise. Next we had a few beers and a cheese plate at Microbrasserie du Lac Saint-Jean. It was deliciously awesome. We drove back to Chicoutimi for the evening ... read more

April 25, 2012 Right after our flight landed and we got our car rental, we made our way to Little Havana for Viernes Culturales, a street festival on Calle Ocho that takes pleace the last friday evening of each month. We had corditos, cuban coffee, or incredibly sweet espresso sold in styrofoam cups. There were a bunch of bicyclists wearing orange shirts that kept circling around the block and riding up Calle Ocho. I was a little surprised that the whole street didn't close to traffic during this festival, and wondered if all the cyclists were doing this to prevent cars from driving down the street. But it was probably more likely some kind of charity bike ride or something. There were a lot of art galleries along Calle Ocho, and portable bars on the sidewalks ... read more