My new crib

I have officially moved into the city. For the past 2 months I had been living outside it in Quilmes where the beer is made. But now I'm a city dweller! I'm living in the home of a good friend of Facu's that's in a really nice part of the city called Retiro. I'm next to the train station and a few touristy places and the most important thing...a Starbucks. I'm getting a little tired of this instant coffee thing so the fact that there's 2 within walking distance is incredibly convenient. And there's also 3 grocery stores within 2 blocks as well as some fruit ladies that sit nearby selling produce to people that walk by. 

But of course this is Argentina (TIA) and 4 days after I move in to this awesome place, there's a story all over the news about some French photographer getting killed in the park down the street. Seriously? He apparently went for a walk yesterday morning and was taking pictures of some nature in plaza San Martin (a relatively safe place - during the day) when some rando tried to steal his camera. Of course the frenchie said no, and proceeded to tackle the man to get his camera back which is when he was then stabbed in the chest...6 times. The poor guy was on vacation here and just wanted to take a few pictures of some trees. At least he kicked the thief's butt. Although if he hadn't done so he would probably still be alive.

I don't understand the way people can warrant taking another human's life for something as insignificant as a camera. Btw the criminal was caught and is now in jail. Lucky for him the photographer wasn't a Texan, because then he would have pulled out his gun and shot the thief and got his camera back (in the leg of course so as not to kill him).

Anyway, mom and dad don't worry I'll be smart so I'm safe. Also I'm not french and I don't have expensive things...except the phone I'm writing this with. But I'll be careful. Okay I guess I should give a tour of my new place.

shared living room

my bathroom...Jacuzzi tub!

shared kitchen

my giant bedroom

my living room/work space

The last few weeks

Sorry I haven’t updated in awhile, I’ve just been really busy since school’s been over. NOT.  I actually didn’t do anything really until Lauren got here.  Eat, sleep, walk to the store to buy more food, watch some Copa America, etc.  Going shopping with Paz and Romi was a good break from being a vegetable, and it was nice to hang out with them without having to worry about getting up for school the next day.  I also got to witness a FIRST EVER Starbucks tasting because Romi had never tried it before. BLASPHEMY!

The new artist in residence, Alice, got here on Friday so we showed her around a bit.  She went to capital with Facu and me that night to meet some people.  As we waited for the bus at the stop some rando came up to us and asked politely if we could “give him all of our belongings.”  And of course he said it in Spanish so Alice and I didn’t know that he was trying to mug us.  Especially since he couldn’t make eye contact with us, had a grocery bag in his hand, and couldn’t decide if he wanted to keep his gun out or not.  He kind of half heartedly touched Alice’s purse strap and she was so confused that she thought he was trying to tell her there was something on her back.  And when Facu saw the gun, he told him in Spanish “Ok, wait. We will give you what you want,” but the guy just turned around and walked away.  Slowly.  What a weirdo.  Piss poor effort on his part if I may say so.   We were so confused when the bus came that we just walked on like nothing had happened.  Welcome to Argentina Alice!

Lauren Lynn got here on Tuesday; so her, Alice, and I did all of the touristy stuff in Buenos Aires this week. Woo!  Wednesday was “friend day” here in Argentina which is kind of like mother’s day or father’s day, but for your friends.  Everyone gets together with their friends and has dinner.  Isn’t that cute? So naturally, since the 3 of us were on our own, we decided to buy some friendship bracelets and do friend things together and then meet up with the boys afterwards.  Our own little wolf pack.

We spent the rest of the time going out…way too much - and sight-seeing too I guess.  And then, as a last hurrah, we went to La Bomba del Tiempo on Monday night.  If only we had known Lauren’s flight on Tuesday would be cancelled.  I just can’t seem to get rid of her! Haha no just kidding I’m really glad she came.  I had so much fun this past week, it’s going to make it hard to leave on Thursday.  I guess we’ll both just have to continue the fun in Dallas.

I’ll put pictures up later.

Stateside on Friday. 

Iguazu Falls!

This past weekend I flew with Peggy to the North of Argentina to Iguazu Falls.  We almost didn’t make it because of the Ash cloud from the volcano in Chile.  But after an hour or so delay we were able to take off and fly north.  Take that volcano!

The waterfalls are located on the border of Brazil and Argentina.  Paraguay is also very close.  Unfortunately I couldn’t go to the Brazilian side of the falls because they require a visa for Americans.  But it worked out fine because the Argentine side is better since you can go below the falls, on top of the falls, and get a pretty good long shot of them as well.  Wow.  That’s all I can really say.  They were amazing.  Much different from Niagra where you only really need to spend an afternoon looking at the falls.  We spent two days walking around the area and we still didn’t do everything! 

It was cold and it rained a lot, but only after we had already left the park for the day.  And the hostel we stayed out was pretty nice because it wasn’t very crowded because of the weather.  So it worked out perfectly for us. 

La Garganta del Diablo

La Garganta del Diablo (The Devil’s Throat) was ridiculous.  It’s the main waterfall and I can’t even begin to describe the amount of water the flows over it.  It was one of those moments where you just look at it and are speechless.  Un montón de agua! So much water!  It really makes you sit back and realize how miniscule we really are in the grand scheme of things. Here's a video of it, but it still doesn't quite capture it.

The other falls were breathtaking as well.  There was so much green everywhere!  We saw monkeys, birds, etc.  There were also these other animals called coatís that would come to the area where all the tourists were and try and steal their food.  It was funny to watch.

Afterwards we almost didn’t make it back to Buenos Aires because the bus didn’t come when we thought it would.  And when we tried to order a taxi there weren’t any because it was a local election day.  Luckily, we managed to convince the only available taxi to bring us to the airport and were able to make it back.

Earlier in the week though I was surprised to hear that Katherine Lagow was in Baires.  So I met up with her at Jackie's art exhibition and we went to get some dinner afterwards.  It was good to finally see Jackie's photos!  She does pinhole photography and then printed them on metal sheets or drew them for display.  They were awesome!

The artist and her work!

Now there are only two weeks left of school.  And I’m spending this week at the North campus to help out a bit with the kindergarten.  It’s a bit of an inconvenience getting up early for the hour commute, but oh well, I can get over an inconvenience for one week.  I’ll let you know how it works out!  Here are some more pictures from Iguazu: 

La Selva

Giant mate!

a secluded fall

Rainbow

La Bomba and Uruguay

Last Monday the boys and I went into capital to watch this local show called La Bomba.  I don’t really know how best to describe it, but it’s basically this drum/percussion show that a group of guys puts on that is just SO GOOD.  I plan on going again and definitely taking Lauren there when she comes to visit in July.  It’s definitely a must for anyone coming who comes to Buenos Aires - unless you can't handle being engrossed in the smell of pot because I'm pretty sure I got high off all the fumes in that place.  If that is the case, then just be satisfied with this video here because I managed to steal a quick snippet of one song, along with some stellar moves from Sam.  

My 90 days here were almost up so yesterday I ferried over to Uruguay to renew my visa.  The other two gappies and I left from Puerto Madero and ended up in Colonia, Uruguay about an hour later.  Colonia is a quaint little town with some ruins from colonial times.  It was a beautiful day so we just walked around and had some lunch.  There is a traditional sandwich there, un chivito, that is filled with steak, ham, eggs, cheese, etc.  It was huge yet delicious, especially when accompanied by un clericó, which is a drink made with white wine, fruit, and sugar.  We even had some local entertainment as we ate since there was some rando stray dog chasing cars right next to us.  I’m actually really surprised it survived the afternoon. 

Puerto Madero before we left.

After lunch we walked around a bit more and then sat down to enjoy the sunset with a bottle of wine.  Sam worked on his photo taking skills until we had to head back to Argentina.  Here are some more pictures from our trip. 

Street in Colonia

On top of the Lighthouse.

Back in Argentina I've been taking care of my friend Peggy's cat while she was home in England.  I've been living it up in her apartment, throwing crazy parties and such! Kidding.  But she has a lovely view of Quilmes from her balcony, it almost makes it look like a nice city!

Quilmes

I think that's it for the week.  Let me know what you think.

Besos.

Salta

School is back in gear after the week-long break for Easter, or Pascua as they say here.  I stayed in capital for a few days and then went to Salta with Jeff and his dad.  Someone had told me that going to Salta was like being on another planet, which is the best way I could ever think to describe it. The rock formations and colors were unreal; some were crazy and jagged while others had the entire color spectrum on them.  There were fields of cacti and giant salt plains, and wild llama and alpacas.  It was beautiful. 

Share the road!

Jeff and his dad have a car so we left at 4am on Monday and drove there, and it only took us 21 hours! Haha.  It took longer than it was supposed to because we took what we thought was a shortcut on a dirt road along the river.  Too bad we went at night because it ended up taking longer than going the normal route.  The trek was slow because there were herds of animals standing in the middle of the road that had to be moved, there were also frequent sharp turns going up the mountain, and parts of the road had been washed out, leaving piles of rocks where the road used to be; so, as you can imagine, at night we had to be careful.  There were also a few rivers we had to cross, no big deal.  Jeff would wade into them to check the depth, which was usually okay, except for the last crossing which was up to his knees.  But after 2 hours on the supposed “shortcut” we decided we would risk  it versus turning back and adding 4 more hours to the journey.  But we made it, rolling into Neil’s place around 1am. 

Jeff and the boats!

We stayed at his family’s house for two days in Dique Cabra Corral.  They have an amazing view of the lake from their house, I don’t think I have ever seen anything like it.  I thought Switzerland and Austria were pretty, but this was unreal.  The water was so calm it was like looking into a mirror.  The weather was nice too, so they took us out on the boat and Jet Ski and showed us around.  The storage system for the boats was crazy, very efficient.  I tried wake boarding for the first time which is significantly more fun than snowboarding, but that’s probably because I didn’t break a bone every time I fell over.   

It was nice to just sit around in the sun, drink a beer and relax.  Especially since we were the only people on the lake, I’m not even exaggerating.  I don’t understand how anybody could NOT want to be out on the lake, but apparently they didn’t.  It was hard to leave because the Uptons were so welcoming, but we headed out on Thursday to explore the rest of Salta.

The Upton clan, minus Neil.

View from the house

View from my bed

Devi's Throat

We drove from near the city of Salta to Cafayate, which is where a lot of wine is made.  We passed by vineyards and this one gorge called Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat) which was pretty cool.  We had lunch in Cafayate, which was…interesting.  Well, I guess if you call a cockroach running across the bread as they set in on the table and the waitress just shrugging when she sees it, giving you the wrong food, some watered down wine, and taking forever interesting, then yes, that’s the best way I can describe it.  Good thing we weren’t a group of American tourists.  And by that I mean we flicked the roach off and ate the bread, as well as the food that came out wrong without a second thought.  We were hungry.  And you can be sure that I drank ALL of the watered down wine (<3 wine). Then we headed out to Cachi where we stayed for the night.  Had a significantly better meal there and we stayed in a fairly nice hostel.  Kind of hard to go back to the grungy stuff after staying at the Upton’s.

"To look without seeing, the earth is earth no more."

Then we headed through a few more places on the way to the salt plains.  The road we were on, Ruta 40, was similar to our “shortcut” except at a much higher altitude.  But we were driving during the day this time so the llama and river crossings weren’t quite as surprising.  We reached an altitude of 4859 meters above sea level at the peak of the road (that’s a little over 3 miles high for those of you, like me, who don’t speak metric system).  But it was super windy so we were quick in celebrating for fear of being blown off the side of the mountain. 

Afterwards, we had lunch in San Antonia de Los Cobres and then headed over to the salt plains.  These were basically exactly what they sound like, just huge plains of salt covering the ground.  They were really cool though because you lose the horizon when looking at them so you can take some pretty crazy pictures.  So we did that and then headed out again for Purmamarca.  Purmamarca is a place where the rocks are all different colors in one spot.  It was crazy.  Jeff and I bought some gypsy pants at the market there since we always make fun of Facu for wearing his.  Now we can’t really make fun of him anymore…well, maybe. 

Rocks in Purmamarca

 That night, we headed back to Salta and stayed at a hostel there.  Unfortunately our room was right next to the social room where everyone was drinking.  And of course, we ran into your typical American tourist.  Dear God, I hope I’m not like that.  This one guy was just so awful, now I can understand why everyone hates us.  I even hate us after listening to him talk.  Luckily we got out of there early the next morning to walk around Salta a bit before heading back to Buenos Aires.  It only took us 17 hours to get back this time since we didn’t have to take any shortcuts.  We arrived around 5am on Easter Sunday.  Home sweet Quilmes. Here are a few more pictures from the trip.  Enjoy!

shop in Purmamarca

The city of Salta

Salta Cathedral

Cactus field

Besos,

Bridget