Greetings from 10,000 feet! No, we are not skydiving again. We are up in the mountains in Tupiza, Bolivia. It's been a busy last couple of weeks traveling through Argentina so here is what we've been up to.
Our first day in Buenos Aires contained extra reason for celebration as it was Gina's birthday! We got a great apartment on Air B&B and had a huge breakfast and a relaxing morning. In the afternoon we met up with a free walking tour around the city where we saw the National Congress, National Plaza, Dante's Inferno building, and ended the tour at Plaza De Mayo. Our guide, Loli, was very knowledgeable about the city and the history of Argentina, which made for a great tour.
We went back to the apartment, had some wine and cheese, and went out to dinner at Don Julio, which was one of the top rated parillas (steakhouse) in the city. We enjoyed a good amount of steak and a great amount of wine and Gina was in very festive spirits when we headed back home for the night.
The Thinker in National Plaza with National Congress in the background
Dante's Inferno building
Eva Peron tribute
We took another leisurely morning, before walking to Recoleta Cemetery, which had a lot of really impressive memorials for some of Argentina's most famous people including Eva Peron. We walked around the city some more and tried to go to a sports bar to watch the Warriors game, but it wasn't open yet as everything in Argentina is on a very late schedule. In general it seemed like typical business hours in Argentina are from 10-noon, then a break for siestas from noon to five and then open again from 5-7. Not surprising that the country is defaulting on national debt with their 20 hour work week.
We had a great time in all of our walking around the city as there are a lot of parks and open spaces and the architecture is a nice mix of Spanish and Italian. Our last day we walked around the park some more, saw Plaza Italia and headed to the airport to go to Iguazu.
Recoleta Cemetery (was like a small city in there)
Eva Peron's mausoleum
We only had one full day in Iguazu and that was really all we needed as the main attraction is Iguazu Falls. The park was a tad expensive costing us $30 each to get into (by contrast we paid $40 each for a National Park pass in the US that allows us to get into any park for a year). It was still worth it though as the falls were spectacular and we spent the whole day walking around the trails that led to the different falls. We also did a boat ride where we got to go over to the Brazilian side of the falls and go underneath a couple of the waterfalls (we got drenched), and a guided jeep tour through the rain forest where we learned about the flora and fauna in the area.
Upper Circuit trail at Iguazu Falls
Right before we got drenched by the big waterfall in the behind us
Garganta del Diablo (so big and powerful!)
After Iguazu we were off to Mendoza, where we planned to chill out a little and recover from our frenetic travel pace, which turned out to be much needed as we were both nursing various sicknesses. We still managed to do some exploring in the city as we walked across town and up the hill to Cerro De La Gloria, where we had great views of the city back to the east and the Andes, which rise up over 20,000 feet to the west.
We went to a really cool free concert on the roof top deck of city hall, which also included free wine and saved our big expedition for the last day when we took a bus to Lujan De Cuyo to do some wine tasting.
It was a very well organized outing as the bus drives from winery to winery and you just hop off at whatever wineries you want. Our favorite was Dolium, which is a small family owned winery, where we were given a tour by the granddaughter of the man who started the winery and then got to do a blind tasting where we all tried and talked about the wines and then she would tell us what they were. Our other favorite was Septima, which is owned by the same family that owns Artesa up in Napa. The best part about Septima was their large terrace that had great views of the Andes.
Overall the wine was pretty good. There were some really good malbecs, which is what they are famous for and they had some decent cabs as well. It was a very pretty valley, a lot like Napa, but with llamas and 20,000 foot mountains.
Cerro de La Gloria statue
View of Mendoza from Cerro de La Gloria
Enjoying the free wine and music event on the terrace of Mendoza City Hall
Practicing his technical wine tasting at Dolium Winery
On the terrace at Septima winery
Llamas at Tapiz winery with 20,000 foot Andes peaks in the background
From Mendoza our next destination was Salta. Our trip started off a little rocky as when we got to Salta all the bags came off the plane, except for mine. It is definitely a sinking feeling when the belt stops turning, everyone leaves the baggage claim area and the lights turn off while you are still standing there waiting for your bag to appear and then come to the realization that it ain't coming. Gina, thinking fast, realized that our plane was continuing on to Iguazu and sprinted to the Aereolinas Argentinas desk to let them know that my bag had not come out. They were able to radio the plane and send someone to search for my bag, which fortunately they were able to find. Crisis averted.
Salta didn't improve much from there. It was mostly trash, dog shit and prostitutes. We actually saw a deal go down on the street while we were walking home. It happened exactly as depicted in every movie. Woman in short skit standing on the corner, truck flashes it's lights and pulls up next to her, woman leans in through passenger window, quick negotiation, gets in car, drives away. Gina was really excited to witness such an event in person. I think her exact words were "It was just like Pretty Woman!".
We spent the next day walking around Salta, hop scotching between trash and dog shit. They did have a really nice town square, 9 De Julio, with some statues and a pretty old church, and for one block in each direction there were nice stores and barely any trash on the street. To be fair to the area, I think there are a lot of pretty places once you get outside the city, but we didn't have time to venture too far.
Plaza 9 De Julio
We woke up early in preparation for what was going to be a long day of travel. The plan was a 7.5 hour bus ride to the border town of La Quiaca, the border crossing into Bolivia, which we read could take up to eight hours and then a two hour bus ride to the Bolivian town of Tupiza. We were a little nervous for the long and seemingly unpredictable day, but everything couldn't have gone better.
The bus ride through Northern Argentina was spectacular, as we climbed up through the high desert to 12,000 feet and our bus arrived over an hour early. The walk to the border was easy and there was no line to cross. In total it took about 20 minutes. We had also read that the Bolivian Visa is $135 per person, but for some reason they only charged us each $60. Shortly after crossing the border a guy pulled up and offered us a ride to Tupiza for $30. Done! The ride was interesting as his car could barely make it up the hills, and then he'd make up time by flying downhill around the corners. In the end though we made it to Tupiza about four hours ahead of schedule. Still a ten hour travel day, but not nearly what we were expecting.
We had a great time in Argentina seeing so many different types of places. We found that Gina makes for a very passable Argentine, as people were constantly asking her for directions in Spanish. I think I look vaguely Argentine, but like most places people just gave me an understanding nod and dropped coins into my coffee cup. We're going to be in Bolivia for the next week and then finishing up the trip in Peru with our friend Ashley. Hard to believe we only have three weeks left. Definitely sad that it is coming to an end, but I think we are also ready to be back home.
B and G
No comments:
Post a Comment