Buenos Aires, Baltimore & Boston

My last day in Buenos Aires was Easter Monday. I was prepared for it to be a holiday, but i didn't know it was a national holiday called "dia de la memoria", when the coup d'etat started the proceso in 1976, and the "dirty war" in which thousands of politcal prisoners disappeared. So I spent the morning at Recoleta cemetery and at MALBA, the Museo de arte latinoamericana de buenos aires, and was shocked when i emerged from the subway back by the hostel to find myself in the midst of a huge march. There were groups from each party marching, from the Juventud Peronista to the Universidad de Buenos Aires's delegation to the Partido Obrero (workers' party). I sat in the back of a cafe to watch a bit. There were lots of signs about the desaparecidos (those who disappeared in the dirty war) and also signs about Uribe and Bush.

The day I flew out, i walked down to mail letters from the old Post Office by the Rio de la Plata and then walked over to Congreso. Talked to the taxi driver on the way to the airport about the "paro" or farmers' strike that's blocked the highway to the northwest of Buenos Aires. Apparently, farmers have to pay 33% export taxes to sell any food to other countries, and president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner wants to increase it to 45%. Because of that, when i left Argentina farmers had been on strike for about 2 weeks. Food prices in Argentina have been rising really fast (a dozen eggs in Buenos aires just hit 10 pesos...which is about $3.50!) and people are upset especially about the increasing price of meat.

I got back to Newark and after waiting 2 hours for the train to come (a little eerie after reading the end of Atlas Shrugged, which describes the collapse of the newly communist economy from the perspective of a railroad exec who's trying to keep the trains running through multiple crises), and met my mom in Baltimore. i had a great 3 days with her - met up with Tara and Westra and (a surprise bonus!) Roma at Ulah's Bistro on U Street. tasty pizzas like Ratatouille and Chicken Artichoke. Friday night we went out to dinner at an old Rockville staple Indian restaurant with Lilly and then went to her mom's house for middle eastern desserts. and Saturday I went hiking and climbing with Steve at Old Rag down in the Shenedoahs.

I got back to Boston where i'm staying in 69 Elm with my fabulous roommates! I drove out to Lincoln yesterday to get some things and halfway out route 2 the hood of my car flipped up! Luckily, it didn't fall off, didn't crack the windshield, and because it came unhooked on the left side, i could still see in front of me pretty well so i pulled over. and then freaked out. and then waited 1.5 hours to get towed. so lucky though, it could have been so much worse. Today I went to Roxbury and built raised beds with Kathleen and Johnny, who just started in my position 2 weeks ago. i'm hoping to show some pictures at staff meeting tomorrow and to help build more raised beds friday before i move to williamstown sunday!

back to argentina

Puerto Varas was great - italked with a woman fromthe feria for30 minutes about fruit jams only to discoverthat what are called "grosellas" in chile are not currants as i'd thought (groseilles in french arered currants) but gooseberries. currants are zarza parrillas. she has an orchard infresia, about an hour from puerto varas, whichtakes volunteers...mght check it out sometime! i went on to get kuchen (mostly a fruit covered cheesecake - i got one with cherry - and chocolate eggs for jorge's sister deisy and cousin daniela. Met up with julia, a german girl who's been working at the hostel for coffee.

Saturday i took a bus back to bariloche, and met up with two irish guys,robert and richard, and my roommate, an english girl named charlotte. we had dinner at the hostel (assortedpizzas...but they brought out one with hard boiled eggs first and left all the tasty ones till the end...grrr) they had karaoke and charlotte and another girl jessie snuck the guys names onto the list to get them to sing "bye bye bye". well they get up there and ofcourse they refuse to sing that but it turns out robert can sing and play guitar really well! and then went out to a bar in town. where they still play the same pop songs they played in mexicoin the late 90's.

Sunday morning i got on a 20 hour bus ridefrom bariloche to buenos aires. i didn't realize we were going to stop in neuquen, so i went to the bathroomon the bus about 10 minutes before, and smacked my head SO HARD onthe overhead compartments coming back. i had to ask the guy sitting next to me if i still had my teeth. ido,but i definitely chipped one of the front ones a bit. and ofcourse the kiosk in neuquen wasn't open so i couldn't get any advil, so i watched a terrible movie about some12year old switching places with his preteen movie star idol and waited for the red wine at dinner. (i shouldn'tcomplain too much, i've had pretty good luck with bus movies...the first one yesterday was rush hour 3).

anyway, i'm here in the hostel in buenos aires waiting forbreakfast and then hope to go to MALBA, the modern art museum here, for my last day! See everyone soon...ciao!

Mingas y Puerto Varas

So Wednesday i went to the Minga, or community work day, at Blanca Rosa´s house. Vero and Zoe and I went and met up with about 12 other people. Jacob, a guy from Oregon who´s been in Argentina for a year, showed me how to make a mix of 3 buckets of mud (arcilla), 1 bucket of water, 4 armfuls of straw (paja) and 9 buckets of sand in a concrete mixer, and we used a pulley system to get buckets of the mix up to the second floor. The straw in the mix is the insulation, and it keeps the house warm in the winter. You smack handfuls of the mix on a wooden wall where you´ve wedged a couple of sticks (this helps to hold up the mix). I mostly worked on filling in the gaps between the walls that had been built and the window frames. At lunch, Blanca showed us a powerpoint of all kinds of natural building projects in Argetina and in the states, from similar ones to how people reuse empty wine bottles as windows, to green roofs. Her grandchildren made pancakes (really crepes) for us with dulce de peach, cherry or apple, and we had coffe with cinnamon sticks.

I stayed and talked for a long time to Philippa, Jacob-s girlfriend whos also been in argentina for a year and zoe and lauren before we walked back to fedes house. Thursday morning, zoe and i walked down to el bolson and i figured out a plan really quickly to get on the next bus to bariloche and off to puerto varas, running! made the bus just barely, but the next bus was 2 hours late so spent a good long time reading Atlas Shrugged in Bariloche bus station. but arrived fine to Puerto Varas after a lovely snack of 3 ham and cheese sandwiches, each on a different kind of bread, and watching Rambo dubbed into Greek with Spanish subtitles. i love these buses. I went over and had coffee with Jorge, and spent the evening watching some sort of Chilean dancing with the stars with his sister Daisy and her friend, who are back from school in Chiloe for the Semana Santa long weekend (which was also why i was so lucky to get a bus ticket...pretty much every ticket i bought was the last seat on the bus). today im doing a bit of shopping and will walk around the lake a bit on the costanera, and eat some more kuchen. theres also a feria de chocolate in town with about 75 kinds of chocolate easter bunnies which ill check out next!

Bariloche y El Bolson

So my last day in Bariloche (Saturday), i went with Raul, a guy at the same hostel from Mexico City, to the Colonia Suiza. I had no idea what to expect but it did NOT live up to my expectations. it was a bunch of log cabin tienditas (kitschy tourist stores) and restaurants, of which exactly 1 was open. we walked about a kilometer to somewhere where they raise trout and had a nescafe. mmm. finally, the saving grace was walking down to a lake and playing muskrat (great game i learned from robin and mook last summer where you try to hit a rock in the air with another rock).

finally, i left Bariloche and got on a bus to el Bolson, where i arrived in the evening, took a taxi up to Fede´s house. That night i met back up with Katie (from vida´s farm), and we went out to ¨tribal night¨with a bunch of girls, including another Katie and Zoe (also americans...also into the farming thing), and Fede´s 14 year old daughter. we met up with two guys from mendoza, Carlos and Pablo. Carlos plays trumpet in a reggae band in mendoza and had brought his trumpet with him so he went up and played with the band for a bit.

Sunday, Veronica, who i met on the boat to bariloche, arrived and went spent the day in town eating ice cream. el bolson is really well known for its ice cream. i had mate cocido con 3 azucares (similar to green tea ice cream) and calafate (a berry here) with sheep´s milk. so down here, there are like 40 kinds of ice cream, of which 7 are berries i don´t know. moras (blackberries), cassis (black currants), fine, but also maqui, calafate, and a couple others i´ve never heard of. fun to try as many different kinds. every trip to town involves a trip to jauja (they also have nice bathrooms with toilet paper, which is unheard of here...usually you have to bring your own).

Monday, Katie (the new one, i just met, who went to harvard and worked in boston) and veronica and i went hiking to the cajon del azul, a place where the rio azul ( amazing rivier that´s the color of caribbean ocean) is forced through a canyon for about a kilometer. at the top, there´s a refugio (cabin) with a guy who´s lived up there the last 27 years, built the cabin himself, takes in guests and backpackers coming through. so we got there and drank a mate with him and went running back down the mountain fast to no miss the end of the sunlight (with the time change). except for a couple quick stops for blackberries on the way, and the slow parts on suspension bridges when only one person can walk at a time.

Finally, today i managed to get to the feria, the market that happens 3 times a week with artesanias and food of el Bolson. highlights were raspberry beer and meeting Blanca, a woman who runs a urban permaculture place where i might try to go tomorrow to a "minga", a mapuche word (the indigenous people in patagonia) for community work day, to help her fnish the 2nd story of her house, which is all natural building. and then i might try to go back to puerto varas inchile before heading back to buenos aires...we´ll see if it will happen!

much love to everyone, monica

Lagos, lagos, lagos

Puerto Varas was amazing, one of my favorite places so far. I only spent 2 nights there but went my 2nd days with two german girs from the hostel on a kayaking trip. Our amazing guide, Jorge, knows TONS about birds, plants and even gave me a book on Chilean medicinal herbs. we drove about 1.5 hours to get there, set off from a beach to the other side of the lake and hung out there for a bit. i went swimming, but nobody else wanted too .... i think they were missing out. the lake is beautiful, it´s called todos los santos (because missionaries discovered it on nov 1 - that was my theory and the next day on another trip to the same lake it was confirmed!) but also called Esmeralda because the water is crystal clear and beautiful. we stayed super lo ng and didn´t get back to the hostel until 1030 but jorge dropped us off to get the makings of a spaghetti dinner first, and then i met him for coffee later.

Thursday i got up early and ran down to get on the ¨cruce de lagos¨, an all day trip where you ride a bus, a boat, a bus, a boat, etc to get to bariloche. it was beautiful, but i was a bit underwhelmed, because the most beautiful lake was where we´d gone kayaking the day before and it was definitely nicer to see it from the kayak. but on the way there we stopped at a waterfall which was beautiful, and the guides talked more about the ecology of the area so it was nice to hear it twice and get more grounded. I met Veronica on the boat, who is also staying with Fede, a guy who hosts guests in el Bolson (where i´m heading next). Got to Bariloche late but luckily i had chosen the hostel only 500 m from the bus station and got in just in time to shower before a big asado (bbq) dinner and folk guitar concert where they sang lots of mexican songs for one of the other guests who´s also from mexico city.

also, one of my roommates, gabriella, is an argentinian girl who´s realy into birds, worked on the christmas censun in ecuador (this is cool - every country has a team that goes out on the the same day and records every bird they see). they came in 2nd to costa rica. it´s been really i nteresting to hear what it´s like trying to find work as an ecologist in argentina.

Today i´m not feeling great but i walked into town. Bariloche is really beautiful, right above a blue lake, and you can see mountains across the lake. it´s got a lot of german influence like puerto varas. the main downtown area has a big catherdral and the center square has a big clock tower. lots of timber houses so it looks a bit like switzerland. I had smoked venison sandwich and a coffee, but the best ice cream in town is jauja, which is based in el bolson, and i hear they have more selection there so i figured i will wait to get it from the source!

tomorrow i will head down to el bolson, and meet back up with veronica, who i met on the cruce de lagos, and also katie, who i worked with on vida´s farm. Hopefully also soon a chance to upload pictures, but this computer really isn´t cooperating well, so it´s not the place. Soon ! Ciao, monica

Puerto Varas

I got to Puerto Varas this morning. it´s a little town about 12 hours south of Santiago in the Lake District of Chile. It´s very German - it´s been easier to speak German to the hostel folks. Otherwise I spent the afternoon at a cafe with Keith, a guy at the hostel who works on river and wetland reconstruction. Coffee was good and i´m psyched for Muesli tomorrow. From the lake shore of town, you can look across and see a couple nice volcanoes in the distance, which i´ll hopefully be able to see up close on Thursday, when i take the bus-boat combo back to Argentina, landing in Bariloche. In the meantime, i´m going kayaking tomorrow with two German girls...should be fun!

Kiwis & polo

Yesterday Ana and I went with Felipe, Bob and Andres to the Chile - New Zealand women's polo game.  half the adventure was getting there - we got lost for about an hour, because they moved the match (the fields were really soggy after the downpour friday night).  I didn't know anything about polo so here's the brief primer: 4 women on each team ride horses while holding a huge long mallet, with which they try to hit the ball through goalposts.  each quarter is 7 minutes, and they mostly change horses after every quarter.  for the goal to count, your team has to have hit the ball at least 3 times.  New zealand won 10-0.  

We went back for wine and cheese on Ana's rooftop, and then Ana and I went down to get dinner with Vane Gomez, another friend from the American School in Mexico, and her husband Lalo.  So good to see Vane again...and she showed us their newly redone Mini Cooper.  

My plan going on is to head tonight to Puerto Varas, stay there two nights, and try to get the bus-boat trip over to Bariloche in Argentina.  I'm putting a couple of pictures up here that wouldn't go up on picasa:

here i'm waiting for the bus in Puente de Inca.

OK...picture uploading isn't working...so they will come later.  ciao!

mountains and buses

so i know everyone has been waiting with baited breath for this new installment.  and i have heard rumors that i was in the hospital (not true).  so here's the whole story of last week.

monday i left la consulta, failed to heed adriana's warning to get a direct bus to mendoza, and had to get off after 1.5 hours so i didn't pee in my pants, wait an hour and get on the next bus.  such is life.  i arrived in mendoza, managed to arrange my buses to aconcagua and santiago, and went to the hostel.  monday night i met back up with Filip and Henrique, my two friends from the Hostel in Buenos Aires, and had coffee with them and then back to their amazing hostel (with a pool, courtyard, etc) for a big asado (bbq).  but i wasn't feeling great so i left early (midnight).  Tuesday, I decided i was tired of being sick so i stayed at the hostel pretty much all day reading "atlas shrugged".  went out for coffee and then Filip and Henrique came to my hostel for a big party.  Wednesday morning i took a bus to Penitentes, a tiny town in the mountains, checked into the hostel and went for a walk.  it has got to be the most desolate place i've ever been.  it's a big ski resort in the winter but now it's virtually empty, super dry, and incredibly windy.  i had a pretty terrible pizza at the hotel across the street (apart from food on the bus, this was the first crappy food i've had, so that's not too bad), and hiked around a bit (saw a hare run away from me and a bunch of birds).  Then Filip and Henrique came (totally surprised me, they were trying to come but i didn't think the timing was going to work for them).  

Thursday we went hiking in Parque Aconcagua.  It was great - pretty warm most of the morning with mostly clear skies and great views of lakes, waterfalls, mules and mountains.  we collectively took about 1000 pictures.  On the walk up, I met Luke Martin, who knows some of my Princeton friends, and is moving to Chile to do WorldTeach next.  We got to Confluencia (3300 m), at 3:30, just in time to have lunch, play volleyball with some of the guardaparques before the wind picked up and it started to snow like crazy (Henrique's first time seeing snow!  we made him eat some).  so we headed down the mountain in a hurry, a huge pack of mulesw ran by us super fast.  going down was definitely much faster than going up.  we had rain for some of it, but then it held off and it was pretty nice all the way back down to Puente de Inca, although the guys got caught in the rain again on the walk back from there.  We ate dinner in the hostel with Stefan, who was leaving the next day for 20 days to climb Aconcagua.  his headlamp was out so i sold him mine with the promise that he'd send pictures of the trek.

Friday, I went to Puente de Inca and waited for the bus.  and waited.  and eventually Luke showed up, he was going to take the bus the other way to a bigger town to get a bus to santiago (they only pick you up if you already have a ticket).  so he waited with me until the bus came and we talked the driver into letting him come.  after a LONG time at customs (which was probably the most impressive border crossing ever - so striking to be up in the pass in the midst of these incredible mountains), we went on down into Chile.  We arrived in Santiago in a HUGE downpour (apparently the first rain in 4 months).  I met up with Ana at her apartment and we went out to Tiramisu, a little Italian place in her neighborhood for Pizza Margherita and Carmenere (famous type of wine from here).  So great to catch up - I hadn't seen Ana since graduation in 1999!  Her friend Carmen joined us for dessert and coffee.

Today I was off to see the sights of Santiago.  Started with coffee and croissant and fresh-squeezed orange juice at emporio la rosa, on the side of parque Lincoln in Polanco, Mexico City.  Then to Bellas Artes, the art museum, to see chilean photography from 1930-2000 and recent Norwegian architecture, along with more traditional Chilean paintings.  Walked up the Jardin Japones, which has a huge hill and castle in the middle of the city so you can climb up for amazing views.  and then to Museo de Arte Precolombiano before coming back for my 2nd hot shower since Buenos Aires!

Hope everyone's doing well, i'm going to work on planning the next stage of my trip and hopefully uploading some pictures.

La Consulta

So yesterday we spent all day in Tunuyan, went back to Vida´s and packed up and then got a taxiflet (taxi that´s a pickup) and all rode in the back of it about 20 km to La Consulta, a town in the area. Adriana, the architect who designed the house that Vida´s building, hosted a big asado (barbecue) and let us stay with her a couple days. Today, Katie and I went to watch a documentary on natural building. Some of the techniques we´re doing at vida´s house are the same, some are different (the film is from El Bolson, in the northern part of patagonia, where i will go in a couple weeks). otherwise, we´re not doing anything...it´s pretty quiet here on sunday. everyday everything closes from 1pm to 5pm for the siesta (working on the far with vida, we took off from 1230 to 430, and didn´t always sleep because the flies were really bad in the bedroom, but sometimes i took a bit of a nap before heading for internet). So in 10 minutes when the supermarket opens, I think we will hunt for supplies for grilled cheese to go with Adriana´s tomatoes that are ripe in her garden. Tomorrow morning i will catch a bus to mendoza from here directly.

despidimos!

Last night we went out for beer and ice cream in town. I found my new favorite flavor of ice cream - Ferrero Rocher. i had no idea that argentina was such a big ice cream place. huge! so many new flavors! They finished the well yesterday so today we washed clothes and came into town to check out a little feria that´s here every saturday. Tonight we´re having a big party because we´re all heading different ways from Vida´s farm. i´m heading up to Mendoza for a couple days, where i will hopefully meet back up with Filip and Henrique. from there i´m hoping to take a bus to Parque Aconcagua (the highest mountain in the Americas) so i am waiting to hear if i got a hostel reservation there, so i could spend a day or two hiking around the park, and then i will cross the border to Chile and go to Santiago to see Ana Lombera, a friend from high school.

after that...i have to figure it out! i got a Chile book from Peter, and i´m thinking of going by boat along the coast to Puerto Montt, cross on in the Lake District to Bariloche back in Argentina, going to El Bolson, where there are also a lot of farms (vida´s given me some ideas of where to go, since she was there for 6 months last year), and then head further south in Patagonia to Parque los Glaciares in Argentina or Torres del Paine in Chile. we shall see! it´s exciting to have such flexibility.

So in packing up i discovered that i DO have my camera charger. So all my pictures are up on picasa at http://picasaweb.google.com/mpless and now i´m charging my camera here so i can take and add even more!