Mate

Before leaving Argentina, I feel compelled to talk about Mate. This drink is enjoyed all over Argentina and it has a ritual associated with it that makes it a very social drink. I first noticed our porters in Patagonia drinking a brew out of a decorated gourd and passing it around. Our guide explained a bit about how it worked, and one day I got to try some. It is a bit like a strong green tea and apparently contains a checmical similar to but not the same as caffeine that gives a stimulating effect. I immediately liked it, and I liked the idea of the ritual behind it.

The gourd, called the Mate, is filled with a leaf called Yerba Mate, and a filtering straw called a bombilla, usually made of metal, is used for drinking. There is one person, called the sebador, who serves the drink to those who want some by pouring hot water into the mate and passing it to the drinker. The first mate, called the fool´s mate, is drunk by the sebador himself, and the next one is offered to the person to his left. The new drinker then sips as much as he wants, usually finishing what´s in the mate, then says ¨gracias¨ and passes the mate back to the sebador. The sebador then continues to offer the mate in a clockwise direction, refilling with water when necessary. At some point, the sebador may appoint a new sebador, which is considered an honor. Apparently, one mate full of yerba mate should last about 14 fillings.

I liked it enough that I found myself a mate I liked in Buenos Aires, along with some Yerba Mate to fill it. So far, I´ve mostly been drinking by myself, as Dee will usually just have a small amount, but I haven´t acquired the custom of some Argentinians of carrying around a thermos full of hot water so they can keep refilling their mates. Hopefully, some folks in San Francisco will enjoy it as much as I do, and I can practice being a real sebador. Look for some mate parties when I get back.

Day 26-27: Iguazu Falls

We arrived in Iguazu midday. We were staying in the Sheraton inside the park, and our room actually had a view of the spectacular falls. Since we only had two days here, we decided to start right away with a tour. We started by going through the jungle in a four wheel drive vehicle, the guide explaining everything in three languages.
I didn´t understand his English very well, so I used my knowledge of Spanish and French to fill in the gaps. Then we walked down to the water, where we saw boats returning full of very wet people. We promptly put the camera in a zip-loc and our dry clothes in a water-proof bag, and our boat took off toward the falls.
They took us pretty close to the falls on one side and then went to the other side to get an even more panoramic view. Then they steered the boat towards one of the side falls and drove right through it. We got wet, but I thought, that wasn´t too bad. Well, they took us back over to the first side and plunged us directly into a raging fall three or four times. Nothing was dry after that. We got dropped off at the bottom of a set of walkways and walked up along those back to the hotel, getting some stunning views of the falls along the way.

Niagara may have more water, but the setting of these falls in the jungle, the way so many rivers come together and form several sets of falls, and the walkways that take you to the middle of the action definitely make Iguazu more spectacular. Apparently, Eleanor Roosevelt visited both, and upon seeing Iguazu, said, ¨Poor Niagara.¨

The second day, we explored all the walkways on the Argentinian side. We briefly considered going over to the Brazilian side as well, since the panorama was supposed to be the best from there, but Dee would have had to pay $100 for the visa, and that seemed a little steep for one day in Brazil. There is an island in between the two major sets of falls, and we took a boat over and hiked around there to get one of the best views. In addition, we took the train to a spot where the walkway takes you over a long stretch of water just to the edge of the biggest fall. It was all spectacular.

Eating and Drinking in BA

We enjoyed a lot of great food and visited a lot of great bars and cafes while in Buenos Aires. I feel the need to mention some of the best. Argentina is known for large amounts of very high quality beef. Apparently, Argentinians eat three times as much beef as Americans, which is saying something, but pretty much all of it is very high quality meat from grass-fed cows. Restaurants that are labelled ¨parilla¨ offer different kinds of barbecued meat, but especially beef. We had a lot of good beef while in Buenos Aires, but the best was at a place called Las Lilas that had been recommeded by several people. It was down at the docks (Puerto Madero), and we stuffed ourselves there one of the last nights in the city.

Maybe our favorite restaurant was right in our own neighborhood, Palermo, and was called Olsen. It offered creative drinks and food of Scandinavian and local origin made with very fresh ingredients, and everything was delicious. We also liked the building the restaurant was in, and the funky signs for the bathroom.





One of our favorite bars was a place called Milion, which was located on all three floors of an old mansion. Every floor was different, with an outdoor patio on the first floor and several different rooms with different seating options on the upper two floors. It felt so cool to be inside an actual old home, and the place was packed both times we visited. Another favorite was again in our neighborhood, right on our block in fact. Mostly we liked it for the sign out front, but it also had interesting drinks and good music, and you can´t beat having a good drinking establishment half a block away.

Colonia, Uruguay

Originally, we had wanted to go to a town in Argentina called Salta, where an amazing high altitude train supposedly ran a day long trip on Saturdays. However, we had called ahead and determined that the train hasn´t been running for at least a year. Instead, we thought we would stay at an estancia, one of the famous Argentinian ranches where you could hang out away from the bustle of the city, see gouchos in action, and eat great beef. We figured we´d just book when we got to Buenos Aires, but unfortunately, we didn´t count on Semana Santa. Easter week is such a big travel week there that everything even remotely close was completely booked. So, we went to Plan C, a trip across the river to Colonia, Uruguay.

Buenos Aires is next to the biggest river I have ever seen. When we flew in, I literally thought we were next to the ocean, because I couldn´t see across. A whole bunch of rivers come together here and form a the Rio de la Plata, which must be about 40 miles wide in BA and gets as wide as almost 100 miles wide at the delta. I have never seen anything like it. Across the river is Uruguay, and we figured we might as well check it out and get a stamp from one more country while we were at it, so we booked a day trip to Colonia for Friday.

The ship that crossed the river fit the river perfectly. It was huge - maybe 100 feet wide and holding several hundred people, a parking area downstairs for lots of cars, three classes of service, several snack bars, and a whole duty free shopping area. It was quite impressive, and it got us across the river quickly in about an hour.

Colonia was a welcome reprieve from the craziness of the big city. It was so mellow that it took us a couple hours to adjust. Once we were used to it, we enjoyed strolling around this small colonial town with its cafes, squares, and lighthouse with an overhead view. It gave us the energy to make it through the weekend in Buenos Aires.

La Boca

One of our favorite neighborhoods to visit in BA was La Boca. As a whole, it is actually one of the poorest areas, but near the water, they have transformed the streets into a bustling market that complements the many colorfully painted houses.

It is a bit touristy, but for a day, it was a great place to hang out, people watch, and catch some more tango and a mobile band of very talented and very jovial drummers.

Rest in Style

Buenos Aires has one of the most luxurious cemetaries anywhere.
Not content to die in a small grave, the famous, the well heeled, and the well connected are buried here, where the tombs are so big that the cemetary looks like a city within a city, with streets and skylines. The most famous tomb here, though definitely not the biggest, is that of the beloved Eva Perron (Evita), and we followed the crowd and paid our respects.

¿Que te pasa, loco?

Sarah (from Patagonia) had an Argentinian friend tell her that this phrase is used constantly as a greeting in Buenos Aires. We only heard it once, uttered by a kid to nobody in particular, but it seemed an appropriate phrase for this story.

As I said earlier, we rented an apartment in BA. However, nobody works here on the weekend, so, deciding we didn´t want to pay the high price of the hotel we were in the last night of the Patagonia trip, we had to find a new room for Sunday night. In the morning, I began calling places in our preferred neighborhood, Palermo, but found that nobody had a room. I don´t know whether it was because of the Indy film festival or Semana Santa, but I must have called 10 places and been rejected every time. I started calling places in different neighborhoods, and finally found one in San Telmo that said they had room.

We took a taxi over to the place, but when we rang the bell, a woman came down the stairs and told us she had been mistaken on the phone, and that a French person was actually coming in that night to claim our room. She told us she had found us a room and that we should go a couple doors down and talk to Augustin. We figured that was where the room was, so we lugged our big bags down the street and rang that bell. No, the room isn´t here, Augustin said, but I found one for you seven block away. We now started walking with our bags next to this guy Augustin and his girlfriend, wondering whether we were really getting our room. Fortunately, we stopped for a taxi on the corner and stuffed the four of us and our bags into a small cab. Though it was seven long blocks that took us slightly out of our intended neighborhood, the story has a happy ending, as they really had found us a room and even paid for our taxi ride.

The good to come from all this is that we ended up walking around San Telmo on a Sunday, when they have their big mercado (market) that spans many blocks and contains many antiques, artists´wares, and tango shows.

After walking around, we ended up on a covered patio, drinking beer, watching tango, and trying to sing along with the song inexplicably called Por Una Cabeza (For a Head).

Day 16-25: Buenos Aires

After all the moving around in Patagonia, Dennise and I were ready to stay in one place for a while. The Patagonia tour ended in Buenos Aires, and we stayed on for a while longer. Buenos Aires is a huge city, and we did many different things. I will try to sum it up with some pictures and stories.

Because we were staying so long, we took the advice of the Canadians we had met in Mendoza, and decided to rent an apartment for a week. Our flat was in a great neighborhood, Palermo Soho, which had many great restaurants and bars.



Buenos Aires is very into Tango. Especially ín the neighborhood of San Telmo, where this picture was taken, but also in other parts of the city, you can find many free tango demonstrations in squares or restaurants. We also caught a fun tango show at the famous Cafe Tortoni.


Cafe Tortoni is an institution in the center of the city. It has been there for a long time, and it is known for the famous people who spent a lot of time there, such as Ernest Hemingway and national political figures. It´s a beautiful, old-school cafe, where you can sit and have churros y chocolate while soaking in the history, or have dinner and catch a tango show.

The theater, Teatro Colon, is a beautiful building that looks incredible inside. We didn´t get to see a show there, but we took a tour. Architecturally and phonically, it is on par with the most famous theaters in the world, and the basement expanded far underneath the building and the adjacent street, containing the many workshops where the sets and costumes are made.

Puerta Madera, or the docks, is a recently upgraded area down by the water, which has a nice promenade for walking, great restaurants, and a public art project of cows with different designs, similar to the hearts in San Francisco. This building looked like a squashed version of the Sydney Opera House.

Semana Santa, Easter week, is a huge deal in SA. Many people leave Buenos Aires, booking up every hotel within a two hour drive, and there are large, city-wide events. On Good Friday, we watched the Via Cruces, a recreation of Jesus´crucifixion starting with the last supper and going through the 14 stations of the cross, as a crowd 50,000 strong followed from one city square to another.

After we saw Jesus die on the cross, we did what every good Catholic would and went to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the cultural center. Neither of us had seen it in a long time, and it was fun watching it in Spanish and seeing the crowd here participate with different props.

Patagonia: Our group

The hiking tour we did through Patagonia was through an outfit called Mountain Travel Sobek. This was the second trip I did with them, and I highly recommed them. Even though their normal minimum for this trip was 6, they were willing to do it for just two of us. In the end, we were a group of four, which was a great size. Besides Dee and me, there were Sarah and Alex, both women who live in New York. All of us were in the same general age range, and we had a great time hiking together. Our guide, Pedro, was excellent. He knew everything about the geography, geology, and biology of the area, and he paid attention to the needs of everyone. He also spoke great English, had a sense of humor, and was willng to hike through the nastiest weather with those of us who were more hard-core, or crazy, as Dee would say. Pedro is thinking about going out on his own, so if you´re thinking of doing a trip down there, let me know, and assuming he follows through on his plan, I will give you his name.

We also had an amazing staff during the hiking portion of the trip. Pedro (different from our guide) was our cook, and he provided us with amazing, large meals every night. The others helped out Pedro, set up camp, and carried some of our stuff from campsite to campsite: Panchi, Pablo, and Viernes (Friday). Last but not least, Luis was our intrepid driver, and always got us safely from place to place.

Alex, Dennise, and Sarah

Martin, Pedro, and Luis

I got lost in the Patagonian wilderness, and all I got was this lousy story.

Okay, here's the situation: I got lost on our South American vacation. Yes, that's right, lost. It all started out fairly innocuously. We made an early morning start for a hike in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, near El Chalten. We were staying in a lovely little hosteria named El Pilar, and the weather was gloomy and overcast, but I was excited because our guide Pedro said it was a pretty straightforward hike, a few hills but mostly flat, through forests and rivers. It was lovely and pretty easy, which sounded great after a few of our tougher hikes. Little did I know it would end up being my toughest day.

After about 2 hours, we moved into a really open and windy area. The rain that had started falling basically turned into ice as it hit the freezing, driving wind. Said ice then began pelting me in the face, and eventually, the eyes. I mean really, what the hell was I doing outside in that kind of weather? Pedro and our fellow hikers were slightly ahead of us, so I told Martin I was going to turn around and they could meet me back at the hosteria, where I would do some yoga, take a hot shower, and sit in front of the roaring fireplace with a book and a hot chocolate.

After about 1.5 hours, I started to notice that things didn't look very familiar. I suddenly realized that not only had I not been paying much attention on the way out that morning, but I also didn't have a map with me. I had just assumed that we were on the only trail (and as it turned out, it WAS the only trail on the map), and I had been daydreaming about my hot shower and the warm, welcoming fire and hadn't noticed any signs. I figured I would turn around and find the last familiar spot, and then there would be a sign or some other obvious item telling me the way to the correct trail. Wrong. I ended up back at a small stream, where the trail split and I went down the wrong way, because I heard the river and thought that was where I should be. I also thought that if I got to the river, I would be able to walk along the shore back to our starting point. Also wrong! I wandered around for nearly 5 hours, looking for the right trail. There may have been some tears involved. There was definitely some bargaining with whatever god or gods or other ruling forces might be part of our universe. Don't worry, I didn't make any promises I couldn't keep.

I finally decided to go back to the most familiar spot and wait for Martin to find me. Luckily, he knows me pretty well and when he got back to the hosteria several hours later and realized I wasn't there, he did indeed set out to find me. In fact, our whole group and a gaucho from the ranch were out looking for me! It was all very dramatic, with a pretty boring ending. Martin and Sarah found me, gave me some chocolate, and led me back to the van. We got back to the hosteria and sat in front of the fireplace for at least an hour, sipping hot mate and assuring everyone that I was indeed fine. I ended up having to tell my story about 5 times, which of course made me feel ridiculous, because I had no one to blame but myself.

The weirdest part has how quickly everything returned to normal. I was really lost, especially when I wandered down by the river and lost the trailhead. I honestly thought I would have to spend the night out there, and I was totally unprepared for that. Next time, I am bringing everything I need with me for a night in the wilderness - including my husband!

Day 12-15: Los Glaciares, Patagonia, Argentina

On Monday, April 3, we drove to El Chalten, a small town just inside the northern end of Los Glaciares Park. For four days, we hiked in this area, staying two nights at a place just outside of town and two nights in town. Unfortunately, the weather during this time consisted mostly of rain and occasionally very high winds. Fortunately, these were the nights we were not camping. We never did see the main attractions of the park, a mountain named Fitz Roy and a rock spire called Torre, but we still had some great hikes and enjoyed the glaciers and mountains that were close enough to see and the beautiful fall colors. The second day was a bit of an adventure, but I will let Dee tell the story from her side. Here are a few pictures:

Day 10-11: Perito Moreno Glacier

On the first day of April, our group ended our stint of camping and drove across the wasteland between Chile and Argentina, crossing the border and landing in El Calafate, a town that has clearly flourished with the influx of tourists flocking to see the glaciers nearby. The most magnificent of these is Perito Moreno, a massive field of ice that is unlike anything we've ever seen. It is one of the few glaciers in the area that is not retreating, and it regularly calved large chunks of ice into the lake while we watched in awe. Hopefully, the pictures do it justice. On the 2nd, we took a tour that included an hour of walking on the glacier itself, followed by whiskey served over ancient glacial ice.

Day 5-9: Patagonia - Torres del Paine, Chile

Patagonia is best described with some adjectives and a lot of pictures. Adjectives: harsh, desolate, windy, rocky, icy, stunning, unique, brutal, glacial, beautiful, lonely, awesome. We did four great hikes in Torres del Paine, an incredibly beautiful park on the Chilean side. Though we experienced some ridiculously high winds and some clouds and rain, the weather was amazing and we got to see clearly all the sights on our itinerary.


Our first hike took us to an overlook of Glacier Grey, a huge and long glacier flowing from the Patagonian ice field into Lago Grey, a large mountain lake where you can find stunningly blue icebergs. The wind literally nearly knocked us over, but it was a great view to start the hiking trip.


Hike 2 was a strenuous and long one, the goal an overlook at the base of Los Cuernos (The Horns), craggy rock formations intruded by a bubble of magma long ago and later carved by glaciers to reveal the different strata. The weather began poorly, with hardly any view at all, but we arrived perfectly at the top as the clouds parted and revealed an amazing display of mountains and glaciers.


The third day was a shorter, four hour hike that was basically a transfer to our final campground but had some great views of glacial lakes and Los Cuernos from a different angle.


The last hike was another long day with a couple steep climbs, including a last push up a rocky old glocier moraine to the base of the spires that the region is named after, the Torres del Paine. When we reached the lake underneath the glacier, we had what was probably our most stunning view directly underneath the Torres.





And now, more pictures: