tres paises en un mes

where do i even begin? Okay...on Feb 6 Cassidy and I left Santiago to spend a few days with my cousin Eduardo and his 5 children at the beach in Puerto Velero. They are all really strangely well-behaved and even charming and could trick one into thinking they wanted children as well. As in most Chilean beach towns, there is literally nothing to do but lay on the beach and sprint in and out of icy cold pacific. my aunt was also there making sure we were completely liquified with alcoholic beverages at all times...so basically there's no denying we are related.

After Puerto Velero we traveled up and into Valle de Elqui which is known as a super hippy, alternative lifestyle valley. Lots of UFO sightings and mystical experts all over the place. We didn't see any aliens, but our first night in Vicuña we went over to the Mamalluca Observatory at 230AM to check out the southern skies. the valley has the clearest skies in the world and is also populated with a lot of scientific observatories. We saw Saturn through a high power telescope; it was so tiny and yellow and adorable. The milky way was bright, and we could even see our two closest neighbor galaxies, with the naked eye! Our guide talked to us about the constellations and some of the indigenous "negative constellations" that are composed not of stars but the black space in between stars. We also headed deeper in the sunny valley to check out the influence Gabriela Mistral had in her home region. She was really a female pioneer, not just for chile, but made serious impacts in both writing and politics. Very cool!

We paused in San Pedro de Atacama for a few days to hike through Valle de la Muerte, Quebrada de Cari and Valle de la Luna, which are three very different desert landscapes in a very small area. But the jewel of this part of our trip was definitely making a three day jeep trek through southern Bolivia. On day one not only did we get up to 16,400 feet, we saw three altiplano lakes, the White Lake, the Green Lake and the Red Lake. They were spectacular! I never imagined i would see flamingos high up in the Andes. Our first night we stayed in a "rustic" refugio...a mattress on cement blocks. Our tour guides Mario and Eva were really nice though and Eva is an amazing cook, we ate really well the whole time, even when we told her we were vegetarians! The next day was all about highland deserts and lakes. We also stopped in a small town called San Juan de Rosario where there is a pre-Inca cemetery with skeletons just laying around in the open, in their little funeral huts! it was creepy. We also stopped in a quinoa field, Bolivia is the home of the quinoa grain!i tried to steal quinoa but Mario didn't think that was a good idea. even Cassidy who'd had some raging altitude sickness lifted her head in excitement when she heard where we were. Our final night was spent on the edge of the famous Uyuni salt flat in a hotel constructed of salt. salt bricks, a loose salt floor, salt stools and table, even salt beds. it was...salty. Our final day included a few random stops but the most impressive sight was the Uyuni Salar, which in parts is hard, dry plates of salt but in others is covered with a thin layer of water that reflects the immense bright blue sky like a mirror. I'll let my photos do the talking for that part.

Since the trip we have been really moving. From Uyuni to Oruro where we found lots of chocolate with quinoa in it, and a really cool little vegetarian restaurant called El Huerto where we got a four course meal for $1.50. and a nice hotel room for $15. So pretty much we love Bolivia. La Paz was HUGE. its center is 11,800 ft above sea level, though at the bottom of a mountain enclosed valley! We came in across a ridge 13,000 ft high and the view was just amazing. the city is so large it creeps up the mountainsides in a thick blanket of buildings. It was very different from Buenos Aires or Santiago for sure. Much more is crammed into less space, there are open markets overflowing from plazas into the middle of streets where buses, trucks and cars honk at intersections to indicate that they are going to proceed (how do you think that would work for us in the US?). The rule for pedestrians is "don't get hit by cars" so i did a lot of running and screaming. While there we did a tour of Tiwanaku ruins near lake Titikaka. The Tiwanaku were a sophisticated technologically advanced culture that disappeared a few hundred years before the Inca moved into the area. I saw some amazing monoliths and a lot of interesting sculpture work and medical novelties they developed in their 2,700 years of existence. Just think, we've only completed 2,007 years as a westernized society.

Now I am in Peru! Yes, ten days after entering Bolivia, Cassidy and I crossed the border to Puno, the Peruvian side of Lake Titikaka. We arrived in a town finishing its Carnaval; as we dragged our bags through the streets to our hostel we were swarmed by children in traditional costumes of electric green, yellow and pink! There was a huge dance on the Plaza de Armas and all the while my camera was packed deep in my bags. The next day there was another smaller procession on the waterfront, from where we took off to visit floating reed islands. The islands are literally floating...the native Uros pile layer after layer of lake reeds on top of a floating piece of dirt, and then construct homes on top! it was a rather squishy affair, and the rain didn't help. But we learned about the Uros people and how they survive, we rode in a reed boat, and bought some reed mobiles, not that i have anywhere left to pack this thing. Cassidy and I went on a textile buying binge in La Paz and have very sore backs, not to mention crying wallets. We contracted some sort of weakness to artisan crafts and just can't stop buying really pretty things.

We went on to Arequipa after Puno, and from there to Cusco, where I am now. The bus rides are just out of this world. In Bolivia the mountains are mostly bare rock with some clusters of forests; they seem archaic, like the sharp spine of some immense animal that hasnt woken up from its sleep. In contrast, Peru's mountains are huge, but seem draped with a velvet green blanket and are very smooth and rolling. After a long cramped bus ride from Arequipa, we snaked through these same mountains into Cusco, which has fully enchanted me in just one evening. Yes, the Spanish were very naughty for having destroyed a civilization and torn down all but the Inca building foundations (which are indestructible), but they sure knew how to create a beautiful colonial town. Driving in felt like arriving in Madrid and a little bit of Granada. Of course what I hear about the Inca city is amazing too: all the buildings were coated in gold plates, which the Spanish pried off, melted down and sent home.

All right, enough for now, next month I'll have more insights on Cusco, and some great photos from Machu Picchu!

1 - me and cassidy at the Laguna Verde

2 - the Laguna Colorada filled with hungry flamingos

3 - a baby guanaco (cousin to the llama) who is taken care of

by bolivian park rangers after being abandoned.

4 - one of the delicious bolivian textiles that drove cassidy and i into a buying frenzy

5 - the tradition for this mask was that whomever put it on for festival celebrations

had to keep dancing until he died, or else the gods would be angry.

mis fotos favoritas de Chile

un mes al sol

I can't believe tomorrow is February! I am looking forward to watching the superbowl with a rowdy bunch of US Marines on sunday, but that is my last Santiago event! This month has been at once hectic and very laid-back. I have spent some time getting to know Santiago itself, visiting museums (the Pre-Columbian Museuem is SO interesting!), walking around it's riverfront park, and testing out every sushi restaurant I can find. One of the great things about Santiago is it's underground metro system. It is fast, really well maintained, cheap, and the best part: it goes out to wine country.

Cassidy and I spent three days touring vineyards. We went to the big hitters, Concha y Toro, Cousiño-Macul and Underraga as well as a boutique winery called Aquitania. We found at least one wine we really liked at each winery, and ended up bringing some bottles home for the family. Santiago's Maipo valley is really beautiful, lots of leafy acreage within city limits that inched up the Andes foothills and is drenched in sun. But it was also cooler than Santiago, which is averaging about 88 degrees right now. Since Cassidy hadn't been to Mendoza, Argentina when I went in November, we simply HAD to go back for a few days to compare. All very scientific, I assure you. We visited four wineries there as well, Carmine Granata, Weinert, Familia Cecchin and Bodega López. From our extensive studies we deduced that Chilean wines have a smooth and velvety quality whereas Argentinian wines are thornier - more acidic and bold. So my wine tip would be to stick with Chilean wines for now. Argentina needs a few more years to age its vines. Both countries' signature grapes (Carmeneré and Malbec, respectively) need some more work, and their strong points are Cabernet and Syrah. The most exciting visit was our trip to the Argentine vineyard Familia Cecchin, which is both an organic vineyard and winery. Not only was it cool to see an organic boutique producer, they grow non-traditional varietals like spanish carignan and graciana and they tasted excellent!

Okay I know that was a seriously long rant about wine...I'm a nerd. In between these wine tours, Cassidy and I took my godfather up on his offer of a beachfront apartment, and spent a week in Reñaca, a coastal town just outside of picturesque Viña del Mar. The area is famous for two things: cloudy mornings and argentinians. We saw plenty of both. Once the clouds burn off at midday the sun was boiling and the beach was nearly body-to-body, and yes, there were a lot of argentinians. the apartment we stayed at had a rooftop pool so we were really spoiled with luxuries! We wandered around Viña a little, as well as a small town called Concon. But small town here doesn't mean the same thing as it does anywhere else in the world, because Concon was made up of one street lined with seafood restaurants. Not a bad concept really. It also has beachfront, and what is called an "artisan market" but is really a Oriental Trading Company catalog junk sale. So with little to do that week, we really did very little. Instead of returning to Santiago we headed south to Algarrobo (another beach town), where a family friend had invited us for the weekend. Carlos is a Giarda family friend and when he retired he moved to Algarrobo to run an environmental organization. He was a blast for a 60 year old! He and his wife Patricia have an organic vegetable garden in their yard that we ate from every day we were there, and they love to cook, so we sampled a lot of seafood we'd never tried before. My aunt Andrea joined us and we baked on the beach by day, drank beer to cool off every evening, and had a spa night with homemade masks that Carlos wouldn't let us put on him. ah well.

So that's kind of it. beaches and vineyards. that's all I've done this month. well, there were some nice family events too, a farewell party for my sister on Jan 5, my grandmother's birthday on Jan 6, my brother's birthday on Jan 21 and a lot of Sunday family dinners in between. When we leave we will spend some time in Chile's hot desert to the north, Atacama, and then (hopefully) start into Bolivia. After a month basking in familial love, we are ready for the down and dirty traveling to resume. And I have a feeling it is going to be very very dirty.

1 - Andrea, Maru, Isabel, Picha, me, Maria Eugenia, Jorge's mom and grandma

2 - Me at the Concha y Toro vineyard. yay wine!

3 - Pacific sunset (at 9:20PM) from Reñaca

4 - happy organic grapes at the Cecchin vineyard

5 - my grandmother and me on our way to tea at the Ritz-Carlton!

lo mejor de Argentina y de Chile

I have to say, so far my experience of South America is very different than what i imagined it to be. My mother had told me a bit about Chile, but for some reason i still thought I would be in a much more tropical climate and surrounded by a lot more indigenous people. Perhaps it was just my ignorance, but let me debunk one grand lie: neither country is "native".

The truth is when South America, as a whole, was colonized, indigenous tribes were so fully crushed that few people today would have any idea if their ancestor was mapuche, or otherwise native to the Americas. The majority of Argentine population is made up of descendants from Italy, Spain and Wales. The majority of Chilean population is German and British descendant. Seriously, there are O'Higgins and Dittborns, Walters, Sebastians, and Olgas everywhere. Living in Buenos Aires is similar to living in a European city, with lots of tall buildings, close winding streets, people and cars rushing everywhere at all times. Santiago is like Washington DC. I was amazed. The city has a similar sprawl, wide streets, leafy wealthy neighborhoods, and almost everyone speaks some english too!

So this is my list of what I have really enjoyed about both countries. Everything is particular to each respective country...if i loved it on both sides of the andes i left it out because perhaps i will find it again in more south american countries.

Argentina
+ friendly business owners, employees, bus drivers, tour guides. They want to hear about where you are from and why you are there. they want to share their experiences too. and they aren't trying to seduce you.

+no matter what small town you go to, you will find something to do, each place holds some unique charm

+the buses in Buenos Aires; easy to navigate and pretty quick

+Northwest Argentina. it's gorgeous! Salta and Córdoba, two of my top destinations!

+Chacras de Coria in Mendoza. A beautiful, comfortable, laid-back suburb. and close to vineyards!

+Perito Moreno Glaciar. the most impressive glaciar I have ever seen.

+Punta Tombo. I never imagined that penguins would like dry arid coastline.

+Buenos Aires's gardens: well, they are all clumped together in Palermo Bosque, but they are HUGE and mostly free entry, and just lovely spaces to enjoy nature!

+humitas. corn mash with spices steamed in corn husks. a kind of meatless tamale i hear.

+grocery stores sell veggie burgers. that is seriously amazing.

+all you can eat vegetarian buffets in lots of cities. heaven.

+Terma. this is an herb-infused almost iced-tea/juice beverage. you mix it with sparkling water and ice on hot days and it's soo refreshing!

+Meat. Argentina convinced me to eat meat. hey, it's not bad!


Chile
+Eduardo and Pamela from Hostal Independencia in Punta Arenas. they made us feel like good friends.

+whistling men. no matter what size and shape you are, someone here wants to let you know they think you are great. it's not sinister either, mostly amusing.

+Lake District (Pucon to start). sunny, temperate, lots of outdoor activity to be had and a particularly german feel!

+wine country. Not only is every wine smooth and well constructed, you can get to vineyards on the metro!

+beach towns. you are forced to relax because there is literally nothing to do.

+Santiago's Metro. the cleanest and most well-maintained system I have been on versus all of Europe and the US.

+Santiago's US feel. I know I should be looking for unique south american experiences, but it's comforting after 4 months to be back in a land of starbucks and sushi restaurants!

+Casa & Ideas. a Chilean home goods store...god I love shopping.

+seafood! this is a whole new world of seafood, things I love (salmon, crab), things I've never seen before (locos, robalo, sea urchin), and some seriously enormous mussels, clams, oysters and scallops.

+fruit! when I tell you that you have never tasted watermelon, canteloupe, nectarines, and avocados before, it's not to make you jealous, its to let you know that the garden of eden is located west of the andes and there are daily flights to get here.

+ porotos granados and charki can. these are two traditional Chilean dishes that are simply delicious. porotos are big freshly picked beans that are cooked up with an assortment of vegetables, charki can has diced squash, potatoes, carrots, spinach, corn, onion, and green beans, flavored with cumin and cilantro.

mis fotos favoritas de argentina

diciembre; vamos buscando el verano

I feel as if this month has been longer than usual; on the other hand the past four months have flown by and I can't believe tomorrow starts us off in 2008. I left Argentina on December 2 for Chile, though I stayed in the same cold patagonia weather. Cassidy and I are working our way north, but for all the 5000 miles chile covers in length, it doesn't have a very populated south. By December 8 we had made our way over a third of the country and started what was our Christmas present and our one massive luxury for this entire South American experience.

The Skorpios cruise was a 6-day adventure through what is the most picturesque of Chilean Patagonia. Our first stop was the San Rafael Glaciar and and lagoon. The experience was completely different from the glaciar we saw in Argentina, which was somehow continuing to grow in spite of global warming. San Rafael is a "dying" glaciar, and the national park services have even marked on the surrounding with where the ice field used to reach in earlier decades. We were able to get super close to it as well, floating in among the broken iceberg "chips" where the crew hacked off ice to chill our ceremonial whiskey (which tasted awful). Seeing the glaciar crumble into the water was more of a funerary moment than awe-inspiring, and even scary when at one point we had to out-run a massive wave that came rushing towards us after a particularly large section broke off. For the next 5 days we sailed through the archipelagos of southern chile, stopping to check out some local seals, relax in waterfront hot springs, tour the second largest island in South America, Chiloe, and more than anything, taking frequent eating breaks. The service was all inclusive...which Cassidy and I thought we would surely dominate, but in the end could not eat 4 meals a day, or really drink as much as the bartenders were sliding our way. We made an effort though, of course.

Once back on mainland Chile we headed north, into warmer weather (thank goodness!). Valdivia was the perfect welcome to springtime, and while we were there we spent plenty of time lounging on the riverfront park grass. We also managed to get ourselves out to a national park where we spent the day hiking through at once tropical and alpine forests up to the highest lookout point which afforded an endless view of what is Chile's Lakes District, with all of its...volcanoes. And lakes too. Chile has over 500 volcanoes of which at least 60 are currently active. We next stopped in Pucón at the base of Volcan Villarrica, a volcano that apparently erupts every 8 to 10 years or so, and we were pretty glad that all we saw was some thick smoking! We spent close to a week in Pucón, at a hostel run by a very nice couple, Hostal Donde Egidio. I was surprised to see how strong an influence German immigrants had on Southern Chile, and Pucón was the same, with it's ski chalet architecture and plenty of German chocolate shops. While we spent most of our days laying on what was admittedly not the most comfortable of lakefront beaches (the "sand" is sharp volcanic pebbles that boiled in the midday sun), we did manage to get in one big excursion.

Somehow Cassidy convinced me to go white water rafting. And as if that weren't enough, she said class 3 rapids were boring and we should go for the class 4/5. I believe 2 for 1 happy hour Pisco Sours were involved at the time of decision making...Anyhow, we signed ourselves up and were taken out to the River Trancura where after shimmying into wetsuits and taking a whopping 5 minute course in rapids rafting, we set off. We spent about an hour in the water, went through 5 rapids (which seemed more like baby waterfalls to me), and then we had the "opportunity" to throw ourselves into the freezing cold water and be carried down stream for a while. That was really the only scary part. The rest was fun!

Now I am in Santiago, Chile, where the temperature ranges between 70-90F and the view that surrounds the whole city is that of the Andes mountains, only an hour and a half drive away. Santiago itself is huge, Paris huge, with wide ambling boulevards, lots of trees, and really well maintained streets. As far as architecture and entertainment i haven't found anything completely different, but the cosmopolitan selection of restaurants and shopping is fantastic. It also doesn't hurt that the beach is an hour a way by metro, and there are vineyards just outlying the city center. Oh, and Chile is one of the foremost exporters of fruit and vegetables, so i am in a vegetarian's paradise with all the juicy peaches, plums, cherries, canteloupes, grapes, tomatoes, and avocados...oh the avocados. And then there's the wine!

The other benefit of the city is that it houses my rather large, and largely unknown Giarda family. I am staying with my aunt Andrea and my grandmother for the holidays, and have already had the chance to meet a lot of people whose names I am sure I don't have straight. I will be here for at least a month before I head north which will be a nice opportunity to spend time with everyone.

I do hope you are having a fun holiday season, that you received all sorts of fun presents and that you have exciting plans for tonight. As for me and Cassidy, we have a date with is a large quantity of shrimp to be eaten tonight on my aunt's balcony while we watch fireworks go off around the city.

1 - chile's national dance, la cuenca, in punta arenas. all i know is that it involves a lot of handkerchief waving

2 - the cruise ship anchored in front of the San Rafael Glaciar

3 - me at the glaciar!

4 - Cassidy and me all dressed up for our last eating marathon on the skorpios cruise. many crabs died for me that night. and oysters, and mussels, and salmons...and avocados...

5 - The Giarda women (and Cassidy) on Christmas Eve.

Mi última mes en Argentina

I really can't believe how fast the last three months have passed, and that I haven't seen you in that amount of time or longer. I hope to hear about how you are doing back in your respective hometowns.

November started off well, when my mum arrived in Buenos Aires on the first, her first time in Argentina. We spent four whirlwind days in the capital city seeing all the most important sites and spending some time with the rest of the BA family. On the fifth we set out for Puerto Iguazu, a border town on the edge of Parque Nacional de Iguazu, the second largest waterfalls in the world. We spent two days hiking through jungles and treetop walkways seeing the multiple waterfalls and a little of the local wildlife. It was really a one of a kind experience, and a truly unique piece of argentina. I, the girl who can eat anything, actually got sick in Iguazu and after we lost two days of travel, we headed straight for Cordoba, which I was happy to visit again.

On the 13th we arrived in Mendoza, Argentina's wine capital. We actually stayed in a suburb called Chacras de Coria, because it was closer to the vineyards, and the next morning we took a really special tour with a company called Adventure Wines to four wineries. Over the course of the day we sampled 20 wines and at one of the wineries we enjoyed an over the top FIVE course lunch amidst chardonnay and malbec vines, and in the shadow of the Andes. The next morning we headed out on our own for our last wine tour...mum was getting too accustomed to drinking at 9:30AM. We also went on a mountain tour that winded and weaved across narrow mountain highways and included a light hiking excursion to a viewpoint of America's highest mountain peak, Aconcagua.

After Mendoza we stopped in Neuquen, a sort of obscure state capital of Rio Negro...it would be like a tourist visiting Pierre, South Dakota. It was a nice place to relax before meeting up with Cassidy in Puerto Madryn and starting a whole new set of adventures. We did meet up on the 20th and spent the next whole day on Peninsula Valdez seeing penguins, southern right whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, armadillos, foxes, and plenty of birds. It was beautiful.

The next day was Thanksgiving, so we went for a traditional Argentian barbeque dinner, with mashed squash, beef and plenty of wine. Then we moved on to Trelew which is a small coastal town that became a launch point for us to visit a traditional Welsh town...yes, in the middle of Argentina...called Gaiman, where we admired rose gardens and partook in a traditional welsh tea. Then on south to Punta Tombo, which is home to thousands of penguins during their mating season. At the beginning of our walk it was a novelty to see them on the side of the desert-like paths amongst the shrubbery, but after an hour we were literally stepping over them as the ran across our paths and wondered at our long legs.

Now Cassidy and I are deep in Patagonia, spending a few days in El Calafate to see the world's only growing glaciar (the rest, of course, are melting because of global warming) Perito Moreno, and then we will continue on to "the end of the world" Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, the closest city to Antarctica. By December we will be on our way to Chile's Patagonia, and then to a week long cruise through its glaciars and fjords.

1 - me and mum at las cataratas de iguazú

2 - me and mum outside of the Catena Zapata winery at the foothills of the Andes in Mendoza

3 - a shot from our whale watching trip on the península valdez

4 - the adorable penguins i wanted to steal from punta tombo

5 - the Perito Moreno glaciar, growing strong!

Mes numero dos!

Before I left on my month-long journey I had a really nice farewell dinner with my great aunt Franca, Isabel and Jorge.

My first destination was Uruguay...I spent really the most beautiful week there, in spite of some crazy torrential downpours that ruined a beach weekend. Uruguay is just amazing, I have probably emailed all of you individually to suggest you vacation there immediately, so I won't repeat myself. I saw pretty much everything the country has to offer from the aptly named Colonia's colonial spanish and portugese feel, Montevideo's busy urban and yet singularly latin feel, to Salto's hot, yet lush green farmland and it's spectacular hot springs that are supposedly the hottest on the continent (44ºC or 111ºF!).

I returned to Argentina and started a northwestern route. First I went to Rosario, which is considered "Little Buenos Aires"...and it really was, so I didn't stay long. I spent Colombus day in Paraná. I heard about a really cool anti-colombus street celebration, that honored both indigenous roots as well as the african heritage that was transplanted here. My next stop was Córdoba, which is a jewel of a city, I just loved everything about it. It is home to 7 universities, so it has that great vibrant feel to it. I stayed for 6 days, visiting museums and crypts, watching free "water dances" in a central plaza, seeing a play and seeking out the vegetarian restaurants.

I also went on a full day horse-back riding trip through the foothills of Córdoba, that ended with a sunny afternoon barbeque, where I did eat meat, again! I have no idea what it was but it was tasty. so I didn't ask. I also went hiking one day through the national park Condor Canyon. It was a long 18km trip but well worth it, even though it started hailing out of the blue on the way back! From Córdoba I traveled north to Salta, which is another beautiful city! I got really lucky in picking a hostel that was very homey and I met two girls, each traveling alone herself, and the three of us spent the next few days touring the city, eating out, and going to a tiny wine town called Cafayate, to sample both the local wines, and the local sorbet's made with wine. That was a treat!

Now I've returned to Buenos Aires, just to relax for a little while before my mom joins me on November 1 (tomorrow!). I have planned another busy month for us including Brazil and Argentina's shared Iguazú falls, Argentina's wine country, and some penguin and whale watching on the Atlantic coast where we will also be joined by my friend Cassidy!

1 - perpetual dampness in colonia del sacramento, uruguay

2 - the sunshiny beach pocitos on montevideo's southern coast

3 - me and jacob touring the cordobes country-side

4 - me at the end of the trek out to condor canyon

5 - me in the natural ampitheatre in salta's canyon region