Bariloche - Parte Dos

One of our days in Bariloche, we decided to go white water rafting. If anyone is wondering how to say "rafting" in Spanish, it's "rafting."
First, we had to take the two and a half hour ride out to the starting point, and most of this ride was on a gravel road. Once we arrived, we were served tea, coffee and a nice assortment of pastries for breakfast. Then we had to suit up ... I think I had one too many of those pastries.

We also had a jacket that went over this, which seemed a little excessive to me. The rapids were not too wild, but everyone in our raft was from our hostel and enjoyed themselves anyway. Our guide was a great laid-back guy, and he told all the standard jokes. He also helped to make the ride more entertaining by doing things like getting us wedged sideways on a rock, letting us go down a rapid out of the raft, and getting everyone to sit at the back of the raft and rocking back in an attempt to make it vertical. This made me start thinking of how happy all rafting guides seem to be. They are all laid-back, personable and get to meet new (somewhat) adventurous people each day. James was apparently thinking the same thing, and we briefly considered career changes.

After the trip down the river, they had some help waiting to get the rafts out of the river.

We had also just crossed the border into Chile, so now I've also technically been to Chile. Of course, I will leave off the "technically" bit when I tell people that I have been to Chile.

When we returned to the starting point, we had grilled meat and sausage, empanadas, potato salad, fruit and wine. After lunch, some of the guys from our raft got the bright idea to jump off the bridge outside into the river. It was about thirty feet high (supposedly). I have to admit that it did look like fun, and James gave it a try. I tried to get a picture of him in mid-air but the camera was too slow.

Everyone was tuckered out after the exciting day.

The Ritz-Carlton on Wheels

For the opening leg of our journey to Patagonia, we decided to take the bus from Buenos Aires to San Carlos de Bariloche, a 23 hour journey halfway across the country. On Friday morning, we left most of our stuff with our doorman Guillermo, I gave the keys to our landlord at the apartment, and Holly went to UBA to find out if we had passed our Spanish classes. Holly and I met back up at the Retiro bus station about a half hour before our bus was scheduled to leave, and she gave me the good news. We had both passed our respective classes with 9/10. I was very proud of myself.

The Retiro omnibus terminal is the main bus station for long-distance buses out of Buenos Aires, has three levels, two-hundred ticket booths, and accomodates over 40,000 passengers a day. The company we booked out tickets with was El Rapido Argentino. The bus company ticket offices are all located next to one another in two long hallways in the terminal. Its very easy to go from ticket window to ticket window comparing prices and searching for the best deal. The buses also have four main classes: common, semi-cama, cama, and ejecutivo. Essentially, the difference between the classes is how far your seat can recline, and the size of the steak that they serve you for dinner. Depending on the company you go with, semi-cama reclines about 150 degrees, cama about 170 degrees, and ejecutivo the full 180 degrees.

We opted for semi-cama (and got a 10% discount for paying in cash). The seats were comfortable and plush, and there were dropdown plasma TV screens every three or four seats. As soon as the bus got rolling, the bus steward came around and gave everyone a snackpack with ham-flavored crackers, granola bars, and Smarties. The first movie, "The Dark Knight" (subtitled), was started after a half-hour or so and we settled down for the long, smooth ride west through the Pampas. At about 10PM, we made our first stop at a gas station. At first, I thought this was to get gas, but the bus crew started taking boxes out of a car and loading them onto the bus. After about ten minutes, everybody reboarded and we got back on the road.

Shortly after reboarding, the bus steward started coming around with trays and I knew it was time for dinner. He brought the first course of vegetable quiche, ham, cheese, olives and bread, and then took our drink orders. I had red wine, and Holly had a Coke. We both thought the first course was the whole meal, until the steward reappeared with more trays. We then realized that the boxes they had been loading onto the bus were our hot entrees: meatballs and gnocci served with tomato sauce and grated parmesan cheese. After another round of drinks, and brownies for dessert, they showed "The Lakehouse," starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. We both decided to take a nap.

In the morning, we had a nice breakfast, along with the screening of an obviously bootlegged copy of "Marley y Yo," starring Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson. After a few more hours of winding through the desert, we arrived in Bariloche well-rested and ready to explore. We would wind up taking many more buses during our journey, and all our bus experiences were very pleasant, but El Rapido Argentino was definitely one of the best.

Ba-ri-lo-che

Bah-ree-loh-chay (Don't forget to roll that "r" a little)

Bariloche was the first stop on our trip. Before we left, we met another one of our neighbors. She is a truly tiny woman, coming up to around my shoulder (I am 5' 2"). I'll be generous, in case she is reading, and say that she is in her late 70's. She started talking to us and, after we told her we were studying Spanish, she decided to give us a Spanish lesson. Pronunciation was her area of expertise. Her name is Mable. "Mable" in English and Mah-bell in Spanish. The Guich, our faithful doorman, saw us from down the hallway trapped in a Spanish lesson with Ma-bell and just laughed and walked back into his room. I will give Ma-bell credit though, every time we had to say Bariloche, I guarantee we pronounced it properly.

The Town:

The tourist part of town is small and doesn't take long to walk from one end to the other. It is summer now but you still could feel that this is a ski town. There is an abundance of outdoor equipment stores, excursion offices, car rental companies, and t-shirt shops. Bariloche's first settlers were Swiss, German and Northern Italian. This is most evident in the town's plaza, cabanas and hotels leading to the slopes, and the chocolate shops.

I am going to be honest about the chocolate shops, I have had better. We tried chocolate in Abuela Goya, Mamuschka (get the cream profiteroles instead - delicious), and Ropa Nuhil. Ropa did give us a sample of a fresh rasberry covered in chocolate that was quite good and the first time I ever liked those two paired together. Everyone else seemed to really enjoy the chocolate because most people were leaving the stores with large shopping bags full of it. I preferred the ice cream at Jauja where they mixed their own flavors.

The Hostel:

We followed our guidebook and stayed in a hostel called the 1004. It is located on the top floor of a condo building and 1004 is the condo number. The hostel has amazing views of the lake and mountains next to the town. Each night we sat on the balcony and watched the sun set and I even caught a sunrise one morning. This is the view from our room:

This is the view from the other side of the building:

The hostel has a large and well equipped kitchen with spices and items for cooking open to everyone to use. There were shelves for each room's grocercies and fridge's for food. This seemed to be a welcome break for many of the backpackers because it was crowded each night with people making pretty well rounded meals.

Everyone we talked to had planned to stay about two days in Bariloche but ended up extending their stay. I overheard one guy talking about how he was nearing the end of his trip around South America, he had been staying at 1004 for about two weeks. He seemed to always be around sipping on mate' or a beer. I even found him wiping down the kitchen counters and chatting people up one morning like he owned the place. It is the kind of town where you can picture someone coming for a visit and deciding to stay.


The Restaurants:

Friends - Our first restaurant was chosen only because I was starving. It was an odd time of day and some places weren't even serving food. We settled on a place called "Friends" because James saw hot dogs on the menu and thought the place couldn't cost too much. We should have known from the location and name that it was a bit of a tourist trap. James said it was the most expensive hot dog he has ever eaten. Although, it was the foot long kind loaded down with toppings. Looking back now, I really enjoyed the meal. I had a pressed tomato, mozzarella and basil sandwich that was a refreshing alternative to the heavier meals I had been eating. This was also the first time we tried the licuados. They are just fruit, ice and a little water or milk blended together and they are delicious. Did I mention the marionette's hanging from the ceiling?

Parilla de Alberto - We tried to order big steaks. Something was lost in translation when I said we wanted what the table next to us had. We ended up with something puny that did not look anything like the huge filets next to us. Apparently it was because we were splitting the whole order and they had supposedly cut ours in half. On the other hand, a big Dutch galoot from our hostel liked it and ate there twice. However, he also kept saying things like "Of course I ate it all ... I'm Dutch" and "Of course I drink a lot of beer... I'm Dutch." We didn't want to burst his bubble by telling him that no one else was aware of these supposed Dutch stereotypes.

Las Andinas - This was a great pizza place. It was in a prime location, yet maintained reasonable prices. The pizza also tasted great cold the next day. If the other customers were not locals than they were all at least Argentine tourists and this made us feel like we were in the right spot.

Los Dias de Zapata - We ate at this Mexican restaurant twice. It was just nice to have a break from the standard Argentine fare served at every other restaurant. I claimed these were the best nachos I ever had in my life but that was after a few beers and a serious lack of variety in my diet for five weeks. The funniest part about this Mexican restaurant was that they served us french bread instead of chips with three types of salsas: pico de gallo, a picante, and tomato sauce. Our nachos were also served with tomato sauce instead of salsa (I used the pico de gallo instead) and the cheese had some mozzarella mixed in it. The fajitas were of the standard variety and also very tasty.

Home Sweet Home

Well, we're back in Buenos Aires. Back in the same apartment in Recoleta. It's actually quite a relief to be back. Our new classes at UBA started today. Both Holly and I seem to have good teachers, and good classmates. My class has a lot of Turks, Holly's a lot of French. Things are pretty much the same back in the ol' BA. Our neighbors, Claudia and Juan (who I talk to through the kitchen window when I am making dinner), asked me about my vacation and told me that nothing exciting happened here while we were gone.

I did get pretty excited that I got my first peice of mail here in Buenos Aires. My buddy Matt and his wife wanted to send me "the rare Southern Hemisphere to Southern Hemisphere" postcard, so they mailed one to me during their recent trip to South Africa. I was quite happy to get some post, and think I will hold onto this one.

As for the blog, we are in the process of uploading pictures from our trip through Patagonia and the Lake District and will be putting out some exciting new posts soon.

More to Come

We are traveling in Patagonia. I know everyone is logging on and dying for some new posts. Don´t worry, we´ll have plenty to post when we return to Buenos Aires.

The Guich

The Guich is the guy who works in our apartment building. James didn't understand his name the first two times that he asked, and now we are past the point of asking again. Now, we just call him "the Guich," but not to his face, of course.

We cook a grand total of two different types of dinners here. (It's difficult with a lack of spices and unfamiliar items in the grocery, not to mention we aren't world class chefs in the U.S.). One dinner we make is raviolis that just need boiling with boxed pasta sauce and salad. Our other dinner is hamburgers and salad.

One day, we were walking back with our hamburger meat and I decided we should invite the Guich to dinner. He accepted, and came over to the apartment at dinner time. James asked the questions he was able to, such as age, work, school, and other things like this. I was left to translate the rest and it was pretty ugly. He was very nice and patient and I really appreciated being able to practice.

The problem was the hamburgers. They were American style. The hamburgers here are thin and remind me of something cooked in school cafeterias. It is difficult to describe, but suffice it to say, we do not eat them. We didn't really think through the reverse effect. The Guich was disturbed by the thickness. He did not say anything bad and even claimed they were good but actions speak louder than words in any language. It took him at least an hour and a half to choke it down. He did not even attempt the salad. I felt bad for the Guich. He said he would make something next time, probably so he wouldn't have to eat any more of our food.

Electronica Company

The other night, some of James' friends from his Spanish class invited us to go to a show at a cultural center called Konex. We thought we should give it a try. At the very least we could check out the venue for future shows.

It's a great space. There is a huge outside area with a modern-looking gift store, cheerfully painted port-o-lets, and swings hanging from a large metal staircase in the middle of the yard. The only downside was the open air bar on the side of the yard. It looks like a cool space, but you have to wait in line to order and pay for drinks from a single cashier. She then gives you a ticket, and you give your ticket to one of the bartenders. This isn't that big of a deal, but it's a strange system when bartenders are standing idle waiting for tickets. Its the same system here for ice cream shops, but it's the reverse protocol in bakeries.

Anyway, the tickets were a reasonable 20 pesos, not bad for a couple of hours of entertainment. The crowd consisted of about half locals and half foreigners. Once inside the concert space (a warehouse), we were urged by James' friends to move toward the stage. I didn't want to push people out of the way, because some appeared to be familiar with the performer's work. I hung back a little and took in the scene. A man was on stage in an orange jumpsuit, wearing a hard hat with a light attached to it. He was surrounded by sound equipment, microphones, and a keyboard. A large screen was behind him flashing pictures. The music was described as electronica, but I'm not familiar with the genre, and I don't know if that is an accurate description. A beat played and he basically added to the song with a variety of noises. He had some little drums he would beat on, sometimes he just made noises into the mic, other times he used a megaphone for his vocals. A palm frond was on his side and this was sometimes given a good shake. My personal favorite was the sliding whistle.

I wasn't sure what to do with myself as we watched the show. The options were: (1) stand still, but cock my head to the side and have an "I'm intently listening" look on my face; (2) bop around a little when I could find a beat to follow; or my personal favorite, (3) the arms raised above the head, hippie free-flow dance. I opted to alternate between options 1 and 2.

I know I'm making fun a little bit but, it was a fun experience and I liked a few of the songs. The venue was my favorite part and hopefully I'll get to see some other shows there soon.

This is the link to the cultural center if anyone wants to check it out:

http://www.ciudadculturalkonex.org/

This Little Piggy Went to the Market

Today, I went to the grocery store to buy food for the week. It's a two-story grocery and they have a section of prepared foods that you can buy, laid out buffet style. I was walking toward this section when I noticed a snout with sharp teeth peering over one of the pans. An entire pig head was in the metal warming tray, little ears and all. Other pieces of pig meat were in the pan as well, some still had fuzzy hair on the oustide of the skin. I pictured someone picking up the pig head with the tongs, and packing it in one of the plastic containers to have it weighed. It goes without saying, that the store has quite a selection of products.