Barrylowchay

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I´ve heard way too many people prononce the city's name in an American accent, so I decided to share the phonetics with you ;-)

Goodness gracious, I haven't written in awhile and I really should have been writing day by day. I just got back from my nearly three-wk stay away from BsAs Thursday night. I spent two weeks in Bariloche, then 1.5 days in El Calafate, 3 days in El Chalten, then we came home early. But I'll get to that.

I had a terrific homestay in Bariloche, and not soo terrific schooling. In fact, don't tell my mother, but I only went to four out of nine days classes. The first week was alright, but when I met my instructor for the second week, I just decided that I would enjoy the city, read the manual on my own time and just teach myself. Not really doing much touristy stuff the first week and a half, I jumped into it during my last couple of days. Last Tuesday Eva, my Icelandic roommate, and I made a picnic and went up to Mount Cathedral. We took the bus along the lake about 18 km and were dropped off in this tiny village that looks like it rages during ski season. There was hardly any life there, and we paid to take the cable chairs to go up to the highest peak. It was really high and really beautiful, but since the weather was so darn nice, we didn't get to see any snow on the mountains. Then we chose to walk/run down the mountain, which took a good hour.

Last Wednesday, I took a bus to go the famed Hotel Llau Llau (I didn't see the big deal about the hotel, but the overall area is superb) I also tried walking around to get into the national park in the area, but it was a 6km walk to the entrance and the buses only run during summer. So I just enjoyed the good weather and went home after a couple hours. That night I went with Jamie, one of Eva's classmates, to the Vegetarian restaurant near my house. It was super good. They served us some homemade bread with a chopped up carrot-garlic-parsley-oil spread. Smelly good! Then we had pumpkin soup, and for the main course was an assortment of veggie dishes.

Thursday, Jamie and I went horseback riding! Her homestay parents set up a time for us and drove us over to the ranch. It was an hour and a half for 30 pesos! It was only us two and a guide. We went up a mountain and saw wonderful views of the lakes and the islands. We got to gallop a lot, also. I hadn't ridden a horse in maybe ten years, but I had a lot of fun. Jamie got an uncooperative horse, so she may not have enjoyed it as much as me! :-)
That night we went out for dinner with Eva and her mom, who had come to Argentina so that they can travel around together, and had both cheese fondue AND chocolate fondue! Mmmm. Then, somehow, we managed to make it over to our favorite Irish bar for a drink and to watch a band. We called it an early night because Eva and I were both leaving on Friday.

So begins my LONG bus ride down to El Calafate to meet my friend Astrid. I left at 3pm on Friday and got there at 1am Sunday. I joined her, and two Australian girls she had met on the airplane), at the hostel and fell quickly asleep (after a loooong shower, of course). The next day we got up early and rented a car to go see "the glacier". What glacier? Well, the Perito Moreno glacier. SEE PHOTOS!! It was almost too majestic and fake-looking to be real. It's a real, moving glacier that falls and cracks and makes these tremendously noisy crashes of ice. We got there in the morning, stayed for a long time, then went to go eat lunch, then came back again to see it in different sunlight. We were really blessed with the weather - obviously it was cold, but there were no clouds or rain (like we heard from people who went the next day, hehe) It took my breath away and none of us wanted to leave, but the car had to be back by 9pm. Well worth the bus ride.

The next morning we caught the early bus to El Chalten, a small pueblo 250km north of Calafate. We went to do a lot of hiking and outdoorsy stuff (despite my lack of outdoorsy gear), but this time we weren't so lucky with the weather. We got there around 1pm and it was really cloudy, windy, and sprinkly. We quickly found a hostel and forced ourselves to get bundled up (onioned up, as they call it, with layers) and went on a small trek towards a waterfall. We braved the wind, which made it seem like we were doing water aerobics on land, and arrived to this clearing with a gorgeous waterfall. We took some pictures and filled up our waterbottles with the water from the stream (deelish) and decided to try and hike up to the top. After getting up there, and being in other people's pictures since we were right on top of the mountain, we went back. We were hopeful that the weather would clear up so that the next morning we could make the 3-4 hr journey to Cerro Fitz Roy, which supposedly has amazing views of the whole valley, BUT we were not that lucky. The next day the weather got progressively worse and the hope was dying out that there would be nice weather. That night, one of the other girls wasn't feeling well, so Astrid, Megan and I went out to get pummeled by wind and rain just to get out of the hostel since we were beginning to get cabin fever and came across this cozy little wine bar that had a nice fire going inside. That was the place for us! We shared a nice bottle of Malbec and the guy made us a free platter of cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and bread and we chatted. We eventually started to chat with the owner (slash chef slash waiter) and found out a little more about the city. The city itself is a national park, so noone can buy the property ( and there are only 30 blocks that can be used to develop the town). The people petition for property and if they are accepted, it's free land. The town's population is about 220. How cute!! But there are more tourists than residents so it doesn't feel so little. It by far is the most expensive place in Argentina. Worse than CA prices. We didn't go out to eat at all, which normally in BsAs would be just as thrifty as making your own food, so that saved us a bundle. Anyway, this owner guy was getting ready to close up the restaurant for the winter, so he kept offering us beers to stay and chat with him. He had a table of six come in so he was back in forth with us, them, and the kitchen. This all started at 11pm when we first said that we were going to leave. He also opened up a couple bottles of champagne, wine, and lots more beer - just because he had to get rid of it. Somehow we (some people from the other table stayed, and some of the owner's friends came by) managed to stay there until 6am! We moved the tables and just danced danced danced. By the end of the night I was chugging water because we had drank so much beer and I was parched from dancing so much. So much fun.

The Australian girls left that next morning (at 8am, so Megan didn't really get a chance to sleep!) for Bariloche and they will be traveling around for two more weeks before they come back to BsAs to catch their flight to Australia. The weather went from bad to worse. That day Astrid and I decided to see if it would burn off, but no way hoseay. At the end of the afternoon, we lost all hope and decided to take the evening bus back to Calafate. We had decided to cut our losses and try to catch a standby flight back to BsAs and spend the last two days in Montevideo, Uruguay, which is only an hour in boat and three in bus. So we arrived late on Wednesday night and found a hostel and went straight to bed. We had had a rough day from watching so many films in the hostel! Yet I did see for the first time Usual Suspects and Reservoir Dogs, good flicks! The next day was spent in the tiny airport since we left right when we woke up and didn't get on the first flight, so had to wait until the 5pm. However we were personally invited on by captain Alejandro and went in the cockpit between flights. He thought we were flight attendants at first because the other guy we were waiting standby with was a pilot, but it was no biggie when we told him that we weren't. So we pit-stopped in Bariloche and arrived in BsAs around 10pm. Yes, a long day of a whole lotta nothing. I had to call my new host family from the airport and ask if I could come early, since they weren't expecting me until Saturday. Astrid and I decided that I would call to buy our tickets to Uruguay in the morn and meet around 10am. We parted ways.

I arrived to my new house and it was sooo nice! I have my own section of the house, with a private bathroom, dressing area, and bedroom. There are three other bedrooms and two bathrooms in another section, with a huge living room. I have my own fridge, too. Her name is Nené and her son Bartolome, a 30 year old lawyer, lives there, too. That night that I arrived I didn't spend too much time with them, as I was ready to shower and get to bed so that I could wake up early.

In the morning was a different story. The boat was all booked up and so that really dampened our plans. We said screw it and were just thankful that we were out of 7deg weather and back into 22deg weather (don't ask me to convert into farenheit, just know that it's a big difference!). I went to the gym in my new neighborhood and did some grocery shopping to make my fridge look inhabited. Last night Nené's daughter and husband came by, also her daughter's friend and baby and we all talked a lot. They are all really lovely, and again I'm the first student they are inviting into their home. They invited me to eat dinner with them, but I ended up meeting some friends for dinner and going to a club that had oodles and oodles of foam spilling out of the ceiling. My shoes escaped unharmed, but I did get an attack-hug from one of my soaking friends. Tonight we are going to Talkarama to meet some more Argentinians and then to all you can eat sushi for 30 pesos. It sounds like a lot of money, but I'm going to take them up bigtime on that offer!

Whew, is that all!?!? For now...

Tara

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Photos

Llau Llau
In Argentina, it's pronounced Showw Showw...

Basura
What a fancy schmancy trash can on the side of the road!

Horsies
This is taken from uptop of Cerro Campanario

Chillin
Eva and I are just chillin in the town square

New friends
Me and my friend Perito

Waterfall
I took a shrinking pill...