Adam and Antonia's Adventures in Argentina

Machu Picchu y Aguas Calientes

2007-06-12T16:08:00.000-07:00

We`ll we`re in La Paz, Bolivia now - an absolutely wonderful place. It`s been a while since I`ve had a chance to sit down at a computer and make a blog post (apologies), but this one is about Machu Picchu and the little town about twenty minutes on foot away, Aguas Calientes. Basically there`s one word to summarize Machu Picchu: spectacuar. We were both affraid that after seeing so many pictures before hand that actually being there wouldn`t be such a big deal, but we were thankfully wrong.

We had to take a miserable 4 hour train from Cuzco which took us out of the altiplano and in the cloud forest. It was kind of strange looking out the window seeing modern Incans working their farms, giving us a creepy colonial India feel. But as we decended the landscape became more and more enchanting, especially following the river. We stayed one night in Aguas Calientes then in the morning made the twenty minute walk to the base of the mountain, then the hour and a half climb to Machu Picchu. We could have taken a bus, but though the feeling of doing the climb would be worth it. Once we got to the top we went through ruins, listening to other people`s tours, then made the hike to the Incans Bridge (not the one we saw in Mendoza) then to the Sun Gate.

I have way too many photos to upload, but here are some highlights:

This is Aguas Calientes. Pretty much this town exists to serve Machu Picchu tourists. It was very pleasant even if it had a theme park feel.

This picture was shot on our way up to the ruins.

Here`s Antonia posing in front of the ruins.

Here`s a shot from inside the complex showing the beautiful landscape surrounding the site.

Here`s another from inside the complex.

This is the Incan Bridge. You can`t go across anymore, but the walk there was really nice.

Here`s a picture taken from the Sun Gate, the end of the Incan Trail. It was about an hours walk from the ruins uphill.

Here`s a shot of Machu Picchu mountain. You can barely make out the ruins on the the upper left hand side.

Cuzco

2007-06-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

We´ve made through Machu Picchu so we´re a little backlogged on the blog. We spent three days in Cuzco and yesterday we came to this little town called Aguas Calientes. Machu Picchu is just down the one road in the town. You have to take a train to get here as there are not road, except the one connecting it to Machu Picchu. Cuzco was pretty incredible though. We´re going back in a hour then tomorrow we´re going to Puno, Peru on Lake Titikaka.

Cuzco is pretty crazy though. It use to be the Incan capital before the Spanish took over. A lot of the building still have Incan foundations. Now though, the Incans are relageted to chasing you down the street asking you to buy goods made from Alpaca wool or to come to their restuarant. If you just walked by the say "Okay friend, maybe tomorrow". It´s really pretty sad the poverty. Especially outside the town. We took a bus up to these Incan ruins and walked back into to town. On the walk we saw some houses people were still living in that might as well be ruins as well.

This is a woman and her daughter downtown. They ask you if you want to take a picture. If you ask how much it costs they say its voluntary. After you take the picture though they get really mean and demand at least a sol per person.

This is a little village by some of the ruins.

Here´s the Plaza de Armas at night.

From a distance, here´s the "Red Fortress", one of the ruins outside of Cuzco we saw.

Okay, that´s all for now, folks. We got to go catch the train back to Cuzco.

Lima, Peru - Que puedo decir?

2007-05-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

So Antonia and I started our big trip. We took a flight to Lima, Peru Sunday and are staying with our friend Luke, the one who came to visit us in Buens Aires. He lives with a few guys who run a non-profit and right now there's seven girls from the States volunteering, so it's a pretty full house. We only plan on staying here a few days then, we're off to Cuzco and Macchu Picchu. After that we plan on going to Laka Titicaca, La Paz, Los Salares de Uyuni, then back into Argentina for Salta and Cordoba, before returing to BsAs.

I was thinking "BEST VACATION EVER!" when this picture was being taken. An amry guy without a machine gun was looking at us and laughing too.

This is taken from behind the presidental palace too, but gives you a nice shot of the moutains.

This is a big church in the Plaza de Aramas

Here's a little procession we ran across.

This is a little market inside the post office downtown. The post office itself was closed, since it was a Sunday we were there.

This is a four hundred year old church downtown with catacombs underneith. We couldn't take pictures down there, but the basic image would be this: the bones of 25,000 people in a church basement.

We took a bus trying to go to this section called "La Punta", which is really nice (see the next picture), but got dropped of in this area instead. About two blocks we fit for gingos, the areas outside those two blocks - where I took this picture - got really sketch really quickly. We heard someone whistle and got out of there quick.

This is "La Punta". The day we went there was really overcast and misty so we could barely make out the islands off the shore. But this picture is some fishing boats near the shore.

This is the actual Punta. The islands should be barely visible.

This is a park taken in Miraflores, which is more or less a barrio of Lima, but for legal purposes is a city. It's pretty much the rich area of town.

Here's another shot of Miraflores. The city looks really lush here - but it's not. It's something like this area and the neighborhood where Luke lives takes up 95% of the water in the city. There are neighborhoods (like the one visible on the mountain in the second picture) that don't have running water, but these neighborhoods can use sprinklers to make the city look like this.

San Telmo, finally an entire post

2007-05-16T22:55:00.000-07:00

Lots has been going on with us. I'm still working on my spanish web site, Online Spanish Help. So go check it out, please! Also, we're planning a trip up to Lima. Hopefully all that will happen well. Mostly both of us have just been working from home and not really doing too much aside from that. However, recently I realized that I've never made an entire post about San Telmo. Considering that we've now had two apartments here and even when were living in Colegiales we still spent quite a bit of time here, I figure I should make a post about it.

This is Defense on a typical Sunday. They close off the street to cars and tourists from all over gather here to buy over-price antiques and crafts. We live on this street but pretty far from where this picture was taken.

This is the park across the street from us. The Nation Museum is also in this park. It's very nice and always lively.

This is a crazy Russian Orthodox church near us. I think it looks more like it belongs in Disney World than San Telmo but it's here either way.

And finally this is the center of San Telmo, Plaza Dorrego. Some of the pictures from my birthday were taken here. During the night it fills up with tables from the near-by restaurants and also tourists pathetically trying to learn tango. So far Antonia and I have resisted. On Sunday this is the prime spot for the over-priced antiques.

Another new apartment, back in San Telmo

2007-05-09T05:40:00.000-07:00

Here's some pictures from our new apartment in San Telmo. We're right across from the National Museum and this big park. It's pretty nice. We share the place with two of our friends from the first place we live, Adam and Rubia. I think my favorite thing about this place is the view, but it's hard to choose since we have a digital TV and a washing machine too. ;-)

Also, please, continuing checking out my new spanish page http://www.onlinespanishhelp.com!

More from Mendoza

2007-05-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures I promised, the ones the Catharine and George, our extremely nice tour-mates took for us.

This is Antonia and me in front of Aconcagua, the tallest mountain in the western hemisphere.

This is the Puente de Las Inca. a natural land bridge and hot springs. The Argentines built the sturcture below at the turn of the century to lodge guests to the hot springs.

Here we are at the Chilean-Argentine border.

Condor!

Dy-no-mite!

Mendoza

2007-05-02T15:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've made a post up here. A lot has been going on. My parents came down for a week and the week after, Antonia's mom came down for two weeks. I've also been pretty busy with work, spanish class, and this other website I've been working on called Online Spanish Help. Natalia my spanish teacher has been helping with it. Check it out! ;-) Also, we moved into a new apartment with our friends Adam and Rubia. I'll make a large post about that later.

Any ways, this weekend we went to Mendoza. It was beautiful. A very pleasant place. It's known for it's wine (90% of Argentine wine comes from the province), but we never made it to a winery. Instead we took a hike through the huge park they have in town and took a tour up through the Andes. Half way up through the tour however my camera ran out of batteries so I wasn't able to take pictures from the more magnificent areas. This extremely nice Greek couple took some pictures for us and as soon as they email them, I'll post more.

This was a big reservoir right aas soon as you get in the Andes.

This was the last town in the Andes before reaching Chile. It's called Uspallata. It's weird Brad Pit filmed "Seven Years in Tibet". Very beautiful.

This was a little bridge (or the reconstruction thereof) that General San Martin and the Andian Army used when fighting the Spanish during the war for independence.

In the background is the largest mountain in the western hemisphere, Aconcagua. In the foreground is a ski resort. It was too warm and dry obviously for anyone to sky.

Here's some photos of the huge park just outside of town.

There was this big hill in the middle of the park too. Here's photos from that.

Here's downtown Mendoza from the hill.

Here's downtown Mendoza from, well, downtown.

Here's the street between the park and downtown. It's filled with BMWs, mansions, luxury apartments and cafés.

This is from outside of our hostel while we were waiting for the trolley at dusk.

These are the four were on our tour. The couple on the right are the Greek couple who were nice enough to take pictures for us after my camera died. One the right, she is from Argentina and he's from Germany. This picture was taken when we just randomly ran into them while sitting at a cafe.

Anniversary of the 1976 Golpe de Estado

2007-03-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

We went to the marches memorializing the 1976 Coup today. It was pretty interesting to see. The first march consisted of the Madres y Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo and their families. They carried a large banner that lasted several blocks that had the pictures of all the disappeared and murdered people on it. It was striking to see this in person, realizing that the pain these people have and had isn't just in textbooks. The second march offered much more levity to the situation. It consisted of different left wing and human rights groups. A lot of them had drums, horns and dancers as well as large banners.

This banner is for the Teacher's Union. I thought it was sort of funny they had such a strong presence.

Tigre and the Delta

2007-03-12T08:49:00.000-07:00

Buenos Aires Sunset

2007-02-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

Okay, here's are the pictures of the sunset from our terraza I promised before. Enjoy!

Gualeguaychu Video

2007-02-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a little video I took at the carnaval. The invasion of the spacemen.

Carnaval del Pais - Gualeguaychu

2007-02-25T15:56:00.000-08:00

We went to Gualeguaychú for El Carnaval del Pais on Saturday night. And whoa, what a crazy time it was. Our bus from Buenos Aires left at 9:30pm, so to get all of us showered and ready to go we starting getting up at 7:30. Luckily we were able to sleep for a while on the 4 hour bus ride in the nice semi-cama seats. But once we got there and bought tickets, we found a nice little park by the river to sleep in. We pretty much weren't able to get anymore sleep then until the bus ride back. The carnaval ended at 3:30am but then we went downtown and about 6:30 we decided it was time to call it quits so we went to the bus station to wait for our bus that left at 10:30, so we ended up all sleeping/trying to sleep in the bus station. But oh all the laughs.

Below is just a sample of all the pictures I took.

Feliz Compleanos a mi!!!!

2007-02-23T13:32:00.000-08:00

So I know I'm a little late in the putting these up, but here are the picture from my birthday.

Kim, Ceci and me in Plaza Dorrego.

Juliana. This was sadly also her last night in Buenos Aires.

Antonia in Plaza Dorrego.

Gisselle doing the birthday dance.

Naill, Rubia and English Adam.

Me receiving my birthda cake!

Here's Antonia and Rubia with their proud and delicious creation.

Nuesta Nueva Casa

2007-02-23T13:01:00.000-08:00

So we finally got out of our old house in San Telmo and are in our new one in Colegiales. It's in an area much more traquila.
We're on the other side of the trecks from Belgrano which is a pretty upper-middle class neighborhood, but Colegiales is still pretty nice. It's farther away from touristy activities and the center, but it's refreshing to be in a neighborhood primarily of houses and trees rather than buses and office buildings.

This is the house itself. There's two sections. In the middle going up to the third floor is an apartment for just the owner and his wife. And the rest of it is our section. Our room is actually the one of the first floor on the left, but we're thinking about asking for the one on the second floor with the balcony when the girl who's in their now moves out.

This is the living room. That's Luke (Duck) ducking out of the picture on the couch.

This is our street.

This is our terraza. It's pretty cool with the built-in grill and everything. I promise pictures of the sunset soon.

Plaza del Congreso

2007-02-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

On the west end of Av de Mayo sits Plaza del Congreso. On the east end is the Casa Rosada in the Microcentro. This is an intersting place near the Alkimista Hostel, which just found out will be closing after the tourist season ends this year. When we took the pictures the sky was looking pretty ominous but it never actually stormed or even spinkled.

This is the Palacio del Congreso which happens to be the national legislature.

Here's my attempt at taking an artsy picture.

This is the headquarters of Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo (the Plaza de Mayo is on the opposite end of the Av de Mayo) who were intrumental in restoring democracy to Argentina. Their status as mothers (and grandmothers) allowed them to protest the dictorship without great reprisal. At this location they have a book store and café as well which is a nice place for breakfast or just a cup of coffee in the afternoon.

I feel like this picture really needs an explanation. I mean, what am I doing putting up a picture of weird-ass statue with a crazy horse and crazy guy? Well, it's a giant statue of Don Quixote. I think it says something about the Argentina national identity that this is at the intersection of two of their most important streets. ;-)

Parques de Palermo

2007-02-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since I posted to the blog. Apologies. We've been pretty busy looking at apartments again and other things. We did get a chance to take a break Sunday and stroll (and bike) around some of the parks in Palermo. There were a lot of people out and not just because it was a bright, sunny day, but because the zoo with the white tiger cubs is right there too. We got there too late and too tired to try to battle the crowds, but we did have a pleasant day in the parks.

The zoo with the tiger cubs is on the left. The US embassy is really close to here too.

This was taken in the Botanical Gardens. There are cats everywhere there. It's crazy. Rumor has it that this is the place where Porteños leave there unwanted cats. But we saw people who also looked like they were there to adopt. So, who knows?

More cats in the Botaical Gardens.

Even more cats in the Botanical Gardens.

¡¡Budweiser no es la unica cerveza para el Superbowl!!

2007-02-04T21:03:00.000-08:00

Here are picture from our Argentinian Super Bowl party! Clydesdale horses aren't colts anyways, so who needs Budweiser, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. Quilmes and crappy wine endorsed by Diego Maradona will do just fine.

This is our Superbowl crew minus English Adam (who actually knew the rules of of American Football!). From left to right: Sus (the psychiatrist who just arrived from Mardid), Guillaume (He's form France and is sadly leaving tomorrow, despite his awesomeness), Antonia, Jean (another French guy who speaks English so well I thought he was a native), and Gillom's argentinian girlfriend whose name I still don't know but everyone calls her La Chica Mas Linda en El Mundo even though they've met Antonia so I'm completely confused.

Me and Antonia. I think I'm looking especially Argentinian and Antonia is looking very much like a Roman statue in this picture.

I've wanted to try this wine since the first week we were here and I saw it in the grocery store. Come on, it's a 12 peso limited-edition (we have bottle 22,000 something out of 33,000) bottle of Maradona wine! Unfortunately it didn't live up to the price or the endorsement and was the first absolutely terrible wine I've had here. I mean, here 12 pesos for wine is a lot. In US dollars it's about $4, and tasted worse than a u$s4 of wine in the States. But whatever, it added a nice Argentinian touch to our little Super Bowl party.

I think it's worth pointing out that the coverage we saw was totally geared towards Mexico, not Argentina and also, we found out that there was a bar downtown showing the Superbowl that had a bunch of NFL players and all you can eat pizza and drinks for only 35 pesos, but that was right before the game started so we couldn't go. Que lastima, ¿no? But whatever, we still had an awesome time.

Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur

2007-02-03T14:18:00.001-08:00

This week's touristy attraction for the blog is biking around the Ecological Reserve I mentioned in the Puerto Maderno post. It was a lot of fun and our first chance to get some exercise since we've been here (aside from walking for hours). I really wanted to get out of the house and get some fresh air too since I had dysentery all week. If you were wondering why there hadnt been any other updates this week, that's why.

This is from the back of the reserve. I thought the city through the swamp was a nice juxatposition. The big building being constructed in the front is in Puerto Maderno. The tall building on the right are in Barrio Norte (sort of a rich area and sort of the Silicon Barrio too). And the lower building in the middle are downtown.

This was our first time really seeing the "river". Even though we've been here for over two weeks we still hadn't really seen it. And it's not even really a river. It's a bay! But whatever, it's brown in any case.

There was this cool little turtle tank where you could literally reach out and touch about a dozen turles at once.

Puerto Madero

2007-01-27T18:02:00.000-08:00

I want to make a weekly post of some sort of touristy attraction. So this week's will be Puerto Madero because we walked through there today on our way to the ecological reserve which closed just was we arrived.

These aren't the best pictures, but Puerto Madero doesn't deserve better. It use to be the actual port area and still has a lot of the remnants around, which they're restoring. Now days though, it's just a bunch of multinational corporations and some of the most expensive apartments in town. There's still a few cool old buildings but most of them look like they could be in any other rich city in the world.

Puerto Madero is surrounded by some nice areas though. On one side is the Microcentro and on the other is a large ecological reserve (or maybe just land that's too swampy to develop?), and at the end of the port is San Telmo, our neighborhood. And, to it's credit, many of the streets in Puerto Madero are named after famous Argentine women.

This is one show a lot of the new contruction that's going on. ¡Superlujo!

This is a picture of the old building that they've resorted and turned into restaurants, cafe and botiques. There's also a Catholic university, the TGIFridays and Hooters too. Behind them is downtown.

Here's a bridge the Porteños are very proud of, the Women's Bridge.

More housemate photos

2007-01-27T15:44:00.000-08:00

Left to right: David (a friend of English Adam's who just got here last night), Rubia (the Brazilian girlfriend of English Adam), English Adam (the Adam from England) and a French guy who's name I don't remember (he's not English or related in any way to an English person).

French Party Boy Cesar again

Rubia about to spit up her beer after I asked her to smile.

Rubia begging for a kiss from English Adam:

Velas Raras

2007-01-26T09:52:00.000-08:00

Our landlady puts these funny candles in random places on the floor around the house. They're suppose to burn for seven days and bring money. I think the only way that's going to happen is if they catch the house on fire and they pick up a nice insurance check. Maybe they should just stick with squeezing as many foreigners in a house together as they can and save money by not buying candles?

Feliz Cumpleaños Antonia

2007-01-26T08:03:00.000-08:00

Last night was Antonia's birthday. We had a lot of fun, but I was penalized for it this morning by having to get up for work. Any ways, we sort of had a surprise birthday party for her. I took her out to eat and while were we out all the people we lived with got beer and baked her a delicious cake. Our friends Pablo, from the hostel, and Cecilia, the girl who took us on a tour of San Telmo and showed us apartments, came too. That was awesome. After a while we went out to this ridiculous bar called Gibraltar. It was little English pub (and it looked the part very nicely) in San Telmo filled with people who might as well have been at the Video Saloon. I didn't take many pictures but here are a couple before we left for the bar.

From left to right: Ceci (aspiring actress, belly dance instructor, apartment realtor), Cesar (French party boy, works at a travel agency), Jorgina AKA Cookie (Argentinian Flash developer), Antonia (you should already know her), Juliana (Brazilian student), Pablo (all around awesome, hostel manager)

Antoina looking satisfied after blowing out her candles.

Saying good-bye

2007-01-22T07:45:00.000-08:00

I've been doing this blog in reverse it seems like. But here are some pictures of Antonia and I saying goodbye to our mothers.

Our hostel - Alkimista Hostel

2007-01-21T15:57:00.000-08:00

We stayed in Alkimista Hostel in Congreso which is located just a few blocks away from the Argentinian legislature. Surprise, surprise. We didn't have much time for fun when we stayed there this time because we were so busy trying to find a place to stay, but it really is a nice place. Also, our friend Pablo, who we met when we first stayed there, is the manager now so we were glad he was there to answer all of our stupid questions.

Here's a picture of the building the Alkimistra is in.

Here the building from street level. The pizza and pasta place below is delicious.

And here's a picture of me and Pablo.

Finally getting settled

2007-01-21T11:14:00.000-08:00

It's been about five days now and we're finally getting settled. We decided on an apartment yesterday and just moved in a couple hours ago. Even though the street it's on isn't the prettiest in Buenos Aires it's in a good location along the border of two cool neighborhoods - the Microcentro (downtown) and San Telmo (an old neighborhood that's currently being renovated). I'll post more about these neighborhoods later.

We chose this apartment of the dozen we looked at, because castellano is definitely the language of the house. We still haven’t met everyone, but there are two Brazilian girls, a French girl, a French guy, a British guy, and a Argentinian girl. So pretty much to common language will have to be Spanish since that’s what everyone is here to learn.

This is the street we live on and our apartment from the outside. We're on the second floor. Click on it for a bigger version.

This is the view from the roof in front.

This is the view from the back.

This is our living room.

This is the apartment from the front.