Chimichurri-cher-ee, a girl is as lucky as lucky can be

Today, I accidentally scared an old man because I was walking behind him down the street. He noticed that someone was behind him and stopped and turned to get a proper look at me. I just smiled and kept walking. I felt bad, but I can’t help that I’m taller and bigger than the average person in the country. I’m intimidating without meaning to be.

This weekend I participated in a cooking class set up through IES. We walked to the downtown location and climb to the top floor to find a room with 3 or 4 workspaces complete with stoves, sinks, and plenty of marble counter space.

With my group, I made 60+ empanadas filled with bife y cebolla (beef and onion), humita (corn pudding type dish from northern Argentina), puré de batatas (mashed white-with-purple-skin sweet potatoes mixed with a toffee sauce), a huge steak with chimichurri (a dressing for the meat that consists of garlic, paprika, salt and pepper, red wine vinegar, olive oil, and other deliciousness), fried pastries filled with a Turkish delight type filling native to South America, and a dulce de leche layered cake with merengue on top.

It was awesome. Everything tasted wonderful and even split four ways, I took 4 containers filled with leftovers home. Fabulous!

On Saturday, I traveled through the city to the University of Buenos Aires’ Agronomia center to teach English. The small campus was filled with dog walkers, trees, 100 year old buildings, and mosquitos who believed they were vampires.

Mosquitos in BA are not like the ones in PA. They are tiny; you barely notice them. But, the bites last for a full 8 or 9 days. They are H-E double hockey sticks. I have never wanted to scratch off my skin more than I have in the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately, they have infiltrated my bedroom due to my large patio with plants and adjoining glass door that is my only option for ventilation. I now sleep with a small contraption plugged into the outlet that uses the scent from the pellet I install every night to release an decently unpleasant odor. But, it makes my count of mosquito bites in a 7 hour period of sleep go from 7-8 to approximately 0.3-0.5 a night. Annoying? Yes. Unbearable? No. Thank God for anti-itch cream.

Regardless of the mosquitos who attacked my legs because I was careless enough to wear a skirt, I had fun talking with a post-graduate level class. Their class was more about practicing conversation than actually learning new grammatical structures. Fine by me, but I couldn’t modify my lesson plan much at that point. They didn’t tell me ahead of time which level I would be working with. At CUI, it could be anything from Hop on Pop level to discussing in depth the probable consequences of Occupy Wall Street. I prefer Dr. Seuss, but was landed with Wall Street.

3 hours of intense conversation later, I was on my way home to Palermo. We stopped at Plaza Italia to grab a slice of pizza from Kentucky, supposedly some of the best pizza in the city. It was okay, but not the best I’ve had in AR.

A nap and a half later, I called up a friend to go to the movies with me. For my film class, I needed to view an off the beaten path film and write a review. Because my attempt to travel to a small, unknown theater to watch a foreign film failed miserably resulting in a pointless 3 hour bus ride, I threw in the towel and went to the theater in the huge mall in my ritzy neighborhood and saw a film that is advertised heavily on the side panels of facebook. Lucky for me, it was one of the cutest films I’ve seen in a while. Sure, it was in Spanish, but I understood most of it. At one point when two characters were chatting online, I was struggling to keep up with what was happening - panicking more and more because the audience was chuckling. I didn’t understand some of the jokes, but it doesn’t matter, I had fun. I’ll write my paper anyway and use the, “but I can’t speak Spanish” card.

After the movie we went to a cute little ice cream shop and snacked on delicious flavors. I had half chocolate brownie and half almond. Abby decided to mix spicy lemon with dulce de leche despite the protests from our scooper friend. It ended up being somewhat of a poor choice, but Emma was satisfied with her raspberry swirl.

On Sunday, I decided it was inappropriate to stay in bed all day as my laziness wanted me to and went to the zoo. There were an alarming number of bunny/fox mixed creatures roaming the sidewalks in addition to ducks chasing children in hopes they would drop the bucket containing the nuggets of feed. Small children pointed furiously into cages all around me and shouted, “¡Mira, mamá!” It was election day, so many families took advantage of the slightly overcast day to explore “wild”life with their children.

It was a pleasant afternoon that reminded me much of my trips to the zoo in the States, delightful nonetheless. I lapped the nearby park trying to find the planetarium that I can only seem to find when I’m not looking for it. Today wasn’t the day for gazing into the IMax induced sky, I suppose. I’ll try again.

For full pictures, check out https://picasaweb.google.com/107885548887151676014/BATres?authkey=Gv1sRgCJnq1dqMutWjQg

Part 3 of 3: Fast paced hike on a glacial hunk of ice

Part 3 of 3: Fast paced hike on a glacial hunk of ice

On Saturday morning we woke up well before the crack of dawn to embark on the Big Ice tour. Driving to Parque Nacional Los Glaciales was quite entertaining. Through the bus’s front window, I could see the mountains ahead. What I didn’t realize is that they were so far away. But, slowly by slowly, as we sped toward them, they grew to be quite enormous.

The geography of southern Argentina (Patagonia) is quite interesting. The closer to the Andes, the more the climate is likely to rainy. The winds come from the Pacific Ocean, the west. Once the rain hits the mountains, it pretty much fizzles out and not much makes it over the top. The drive from Calafate (east) to the park showed this diverse landscape. It was flat and dry in town, but inside the park the forests are lush and the glaciers reign supreme between the mountains.

I know this primarily because that’s exactly what my midterm in History of the Argentine Environment was on. Then, every tour guide on this trip has reiterated it, sometimes in 2 or more languages.

The mountains themselves reminded me first of huge brownie chunks drizzled with oily white chocolate. A more apt description (yes, I thought about this all day to perfect the baking reference) is that the mountains resembled chocolate chunk coffee cake dusted carelessly in powdered sugar.

Regardless of the pastries I was then and still am craving, we paid the entrance fee to the park. (What would have been 100 pesos had it not have been for my awesome laminated small paper that serves as my IES id card. It actually serves no other purpose, but like a diligent student, I’ve been carrying it all over Argentina to find some use. Honestly, I’m not quite sure if it was the card that got me an 85 peso discount as my Spanish skills are still not very strong, but my residence visa, student id, or winning smile did the trick. Ps, my card says that my home university is Amherst. Go, IES).

Visiting first the balconies showing the view of the north side of the Moreno Glacier, we took many pictures which I encourage you to look through on Picasa. Then, we took a boat ride to the other shore of the lake (which is gray in color due to the sediment). There, we met up with our hiking guides who gave us a rundown of our time with them that started with a 1 hour hike on the mountain to the Cramp-on point.

It seemed like the whole way was uphill, but we finally made it to our sweat lodge looking destination. Our guides measured our feet with the metal spikey shoe enhancements and put us in harnesses. We were not tied together throughout our time on the glacier, it was just in case of emergencies.

We walked back toward the glacier and made use of the Cramp-ons as soon as we stepped foot on the ice. It was quite intimidating, this huge glacier I hiked on. Apparently, all of Buenos Aires and then some could fit on the surface. And, that’s not just a guess like the Heinz ketchup pack story Sarah made up; the numbers actually add up.

Moving on ice was at first difficult, but the more we climbing up and down the crevices, the more we go the hang of it. We walked for about an hour and a half before we stopped in the middle of the glacial to eat lunch by a huge pool of water that was frozen on the surface. After getting some great shots, we headed back home and de-Cramp-on-ed. It was a long way back, but apparently, I was right on the way there. It had been all uphill. The way home was much less cardio and more muscle. On the boat ride back, the crew cracked open a bottle of whisky and served us up with an alfahor (of course) and using ice chipped from the glacier itself. An awesome touch.

Zonked from a long day, we went into town to return our rented equipment and grab dinner, where I ordered ravioli and a Quilmes.

On Birthday Eve, we decided to make the 3 hour bus trip to El Chaltén, the teeny tiny town nestled in the valley surrounded by huge mountain ranges in every direction. I actually walked the entire length of the town in 20 minutes.

We chose our hike based on the park ranger’s recommendation at the info center. He said it was a 3 hour roundtrip easy hike with a great view of Fitz Roy. Knowing that we only had 6 hours before our bus back to Calafate, we decided to air on the safe side and stick with the shorter hike option.

Immediately the trail skyrocketed and was relentless for the first hour. Incredibly annoyed that I had agreed to 2 consecutive days of hiking, I took my time and photographed the scenery along the way. It was among the best I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t aware that earth tones are actually so colorful. Unfortunately, my camera isn’t capable of relaying the images in their full capacity. Please embellish with your imagination! There were brilliant shades of greens in the trees, the milky sapphire of the river, and the browns of the dust and trails.

Continuing our trek, we spotted red mosses, trees with buds, and a grand total of 2 beetles - no other wildlife. We filled our bottles from the babbling creeks and ate lunch at the top view point. The lookout point would have been perfect, but Fitz Roy was stuck in some heavy fog. We took a picture anyway.

Going back down was pretty much all downhill, and just about the time I thought my knees were going to give out, we reached the trailhead.

Recognizing that the other girls wanted to checkout the condor and eagle watchpoints, I opted to stay back by myself and sit in a cafe in town. Our friend at the info center described it as directly behind the info center building, so I figured it was at least another half hour uphill. According to my friends accounts, I guessed correctly.

My cafe experience was rocky at first because I walked in on 4 guys drinking Quilmes after Quilmes, but I ordered coffee and sat in the corner to read. Maybe an hour later, one of the guys from the kitchen came over and asked if I wanted anything to eat. I wasn’t sure what was on the menu because I couldn’t read the permanent marker on cardboard scribbles on the wall across the room. So, I asked what he suggested. He asked me if I liked dulce de leche and ice cream. I said, but of course. He came back 5 minutes later with DDL and ice cream filled crepe (or pancake, as it is here). It was sublime. Then, we got to talking (in English because he realized I can’t actually speak Spanish) about - well, a lot. He lived in Michigan for a while and is from Chile. He was visiting his friend, Ruby - the owner of the cafe - for a couple of days. He, Juan, told me about how difficult it is to find work in Chile and Columbia (Ruby’s home country), and that Argentina doesn’t know how good they have it.

Ruby, an older woman with milk chocolate skin and tired eyes, told me that when she visits Juan in Chile she is often mistaken for Serena Williams. I enjoyed her company as they sat to eat dinner with me, but I saw the modesty in their movements and being. Ruby moved about the kitchen slowly, almost as if every step was a great effort. Juan was sharper and friendlier, but had a worn air about him. Their hospitality and grace was so striking to me that I didn’t realize that I was late meeting my friends. I left with a new taste of Argentina, one that displays AR as an opportunity. Of course, the aftertaste was that of the caramel sweetness of the dulce de leche.

Birthday Eve was then celebrated by hitting the artisan fair by the bus station, dancing to Spanish love songs in the street with a stray dog, and a trip to the grocery store before heading back to the hostel. My friends surprised me after our makeshift meal of cereal for dinner with a tub of dulce de leche and chocolate ice cream and singing Happy Birthday to me. I was pleasantly surprised and thanked them for thinking of me. And, the ice cream was delicious!

I’m writing this last leg of this entry on the plane ride back to BA - the alternative to a 40 hour bus ride. Because they were pretty much the same price, we opted for the 3 hours in a plane. Being entertained by Canadian reality shows and eating alfahors is not a bad way to celebrate 21 years of life.

Good trip. =]

Part 2 of 3: Penguinos de la playa

Part 2 of 3: Penguinos de la playa

Later in the week, we booked a took of a nearby penguin colony. Luckily, there were about 350,000 penguins around all posing for their close-ups on this windy and sunshiny day. We walked along the path marked by nothing but differently colored rocks and peeked into the thousands of nests. The penguins, about 44-46 cm tall, could waddle by and fall the short distance to the ground on their bellies to take a nap. A-dorable.

While some were napping, some were standing facing the wind, flapping their wings and honking as loudly as possible. The noise was similar to what I imagine it would sound like to choke a duck.

After the penguins, we stopped in the town of Gaiman, a Welsh village in the middle of Argentina. Their we visited a paleontological museum, MEF, among the best in South America. My favorite was the Argentinosaurus.

We ended the tour in Trelew, another Welsh town that serves as the perfect spot to drink full tea. Included in the spread was unlimited black tea with milk and plates full of buttered breads, scones, cheese with bread, welsh cakes and gingerbread, and other desserts like jellyrolls, cream cheese cake, lemon cake and an apple tort.

Almost all were delicious. My favorite was a tie between the gingerbread (scored big because of the heavenly smell) and the scone, which had the perfect amount of sweetness. The quaint atmosphere of the tea house also contributed to the peaceful afternoon.

We returned to the hostel to make dinner (stir fry) and friends who spoke English. One voluminous redhead, a self described “gap-year traveler” had recently come from Holland to South America to explore the world. Caught between high school and “uni”, he is traveling first through South America, then to Canada to learn how to be a ski instructor. Then, back to Holland to study econometrics... Whatever that is.

Another guy, with a pointy nose and well-loved baseball cap, had a heavy Wisconsin accent despite spending the past two years living and working in Brazil. A Brewers fan, he traveled to AR for his vacation this year, but will return to the US for a week or so in the summer.

Hostels are pretty cool like that - putting you in touch with people from around the world.

On Wednesday, we decided to relax by scaling down a sandy cliff in order to see a colony of elephant seals. The only elephant seal that I had seen before was the one we happened upon while kayaking with the whales. It was alone and Eloise, our guide, told us it was probably dying and didn’t want to be near the others. S/he was grouchy.

But, the elephant seals we saw at this beach were really huge and totally lazy. The rolled over only to get a closer look at us when we approached. Determining that we weren’t much of a threat, they just went back to sleep. We enjoyed getting very close to them and taking about a million pictures. We also saw orcas in the ocean swimming by, which is extremely rare this time of year.

All in all, it was yet again, an awesome experience.

27.5 hours of consecutive traveling later, we had bade farewell to our favorite hostel ever, boarded 3 different buses, and walked over the river and through the woods (truly) to our hostel in El Calafate - a hipster-type, cool kids hostel. We didn’t fit in.

Part 1 of 3: Puerto Madryn in the PM

https://picasaweb.google.com/107885548887151676014/SpringBreak2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCOaotq3eoJ6JXg

https://picasaweb.google.com/107885548887151676014/SpringBreak2011Part2?authkey=Gv1sRgCIbou96wrNyp2AE

^ Full picture links! ^

Part 1 of 3: Puerto Madryn in the PM

It is one week before my birthday and I truly don’t feel it. Typically, as you probably know, I am doing a happy dance and grinning from ear to ear starting the first of October in anticipation. I like birthdays: the desserts, the celebration, the selfishness of it all. So, why now am I not flying high as per usual?

I think it has a lot to do with my location. 5,000 miles is a long way to be from the people I love. My favorite part about birthdays, I’m realizing, is that I get to hang out with my loved ones. They come, or I go and we celebrate together another year in each others’ lives. This year, I won’t get to hug my parents, body slam my sisters or kiss my dogs. I’ve decided it’s okay that this year is not about me, but mark your calendars for October 10, 2012 because I’m throwing a party.

My “spring” break trip was scheduled for Puerto Madryn and El Calafate. The bus, of course, was 30 minutes late, but we were just happy to be on our way. Traveling semi-cama style, we had at our disposal reclining seats and a large, flat foot rest.

Yes, Sarah, I was too long for it and kept having to scoot up to uncurl my legs, but that didn’t stop me from sleeping for a solid 8.5 hours. I didn’t miss much of the 22+ hour ride, though. Fortunately, I had a good book and they showed 4 movies (some dubbed in Spanish, some just with subtitles). Hocus Pocus came on and I was thrilled! Nothing jump starts the Halloween season like that classic.

In the morning, I was awakened by the bus pulling over to the one building for as far as I could see. I exited the bus to stretch and squinted into the morning sun. The bus behind me and the restaurant in front of me, I could see for miles and miles both to my left and right. The land is flat and covered in an unwelcoming prickly brush. Still mildly delirious from just waking up, I walked into the restaurant and stood in line behind the other passengers. I think it’s my Penn State instinct to get into the line before you actually figure out what it’s for. A pleasant surprise - it was cafe con leche y medialunas for breakfast. The driver, who heard us chatting on the way into the restroom gave us a meek “good morning”, and on the way out, was thrilled when we praised his English.

5 hours later our bus pulled over again, but this time, it pulled next to 2 men in pistachio colored uniforms. The were holding the leash to an official looking dog. Within minutes, the 2 men and dog had search and sniffed the whole bus for suspicious packages. I suppose they were looking for drugs, but I don’t really know because no one had any contraband items.

A couple of minutes later we were back on the direct, flat road headed farther south.

2 hours later than expected, we finally arrived in Puerto Madryn. We walked the block from the bus to the hostel. This place was the homiest hostel I’ve ever experienced. There was always someone cooking in the kitchen, so it smelled great constantly. Our room has 2 bathrooms and 2 extra bunks. The first was occupied by a guy from Chicago and the next a chap from London. The next night it changed to a newly graduated guy from Holland and a quiet girl from France. Even they think our Spanish is laughable and prefer to communicate with ease in English. I rarely practiced my Spanish on this trip.

Our first full day of vacation entailed sea kayaking in the bay. I was excited to stretch my muscles after the lazy bus ride. Thankfully, our tour guide provided us with all of the appropriate equipment to fight the cold and stay semi-dry. It was probably in the 50’s, but being by the water made it seem so much colder.

We wore special booties, spray skirts, and life jackets. Many layers of tops helped for my lack of pants (see pictures... Or don’t.). It was Sunday, not Thursday, but Eloise, our guide, suggested I wear only my leggings as opposed to my leggings and jeans combo.

So there I was, in my guchies paddling away in this kayak in the massive Atlantic Ocean.

(PS, I’m depositing Eloise in the Popovich Girl Baby Name Bank.)

Apparently, we were incredibly lucky to have witnessed the diversity of wildlife on the trip. We saw whales jumping farther out in the bay and many mother/child pairs by the shore. Oh yes, I was in the water with HUGE whales less than a volleyball court away. Dangerous, you ask? Yes, but my guide was really clear about when it was time to stop and take pictures and when it was time to paddle away at full speed. At no time throughout the day did I feel unsafe. At first, I was like woah. But, then I felt relaxed by their presence.

After passing 4-5 couples, we saw a huge flock of what I though were penguins, but were actually black and white birds resembling penguins. All but 2 took off from their perch as we passed. The stragglers looked around like - what happened, what happened?

We rounded a sharp edge of the rocky shore to find a pack/pride/group of sea lions. Oh wait, I think it’s a colony.

The one clear male was barking at us and nuzzled one of the females off the rock to go investigate. She approached us swimming just under the surface of the blue-green water, popped her head out and looked at us. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she raised an eyebrow and asked, “friend or foe?”

I guess we passed the because we paddled within 10 feet of the rock with little protest from the rest of the gang. Noticing their was another island a bit farther down, I steered the boat to pay a visit. We didn’t need to get close, they came to meet us! They were the most playful creatures I have ever seen (not including my dogs). They would swim over to the boat, pick their head up to look at us, then do a little flip out of the water. They always checked back in to see if we were still watching. One actually hit our kayak while flipping. They chased us around the bay and were sad to see us go.

Scaring the birds away again, we rounded the bend to see a pod of whales in the bay resting and one flipping like crazy. We pulled off to the side and had our picnic lunch (sandwiches, fruit and tea). It was delightful even before the baby and mama decided to slowly cross the shore in the gently lapping waves.

We were astounded and our tour guide was, too. How was it that I could be in that exact place at that exact moment and experience something so big and powerful in such close proximity? I felt not like I was imposing, but like I was apart of something real and something natural. Except for far off boats, I didn’t see one other person (besides my group) the entire time I was on the water. It was truly the most incredible experience of my life.

Realizing that we wouldn’t be able to top the whales, we took the next day off and hung out by the beach. We walked along the bay (in town) and took silly pictures by the water. We stopped to eat ice cream and empty the sand from our sneakers.

We had a picnic lunch at a random shrine. Leftover carrots and bread.. Mmmmm......