cool dude

i thought that it was about time my abuelita learned a little english so i started giving her a word of the day. two days ago i taught her "cool". yesterday i taught her "dude". and the rest of this week we are working on the appropriate uses of "cool dude". we end dinner now with "cool dude, chau". by the time i´m finished with her, she´ll be the hippest granny in town.

in a couple days i´m headed to the farm a few hours south in el bolson. they make their own bread and jam and beer and wine and everything! i´m stoked to get started with that. when i mention to folks that i´m headed to el bolson they´re like "oh! heepee!" ie it´s apparently a bit of a hippie town. my guide book likens it to berkeley but by the sound bites i´ve been receiving, it´s like berkeley from the ´60s. groovy. gonna be a trip.

refugio frey

today a friend from my program and i hiked up into the andes and up a mountain called cerro catedral. in patagonia, at the tops of many of the mountains are refugios. the refugios are little buildings/hostels with kitchens where hikers can come in and chill. they are run by the mountain organization here called club aldino. i don´t really know who pays for the operation of club aldino (ie the government or private funders) but the refugios are awesome. they are these great little funky hubs at the tops of mountains where you can meet folks and take a load off after a tiring uphill battle.

grrr. this stupid computer or something is not allowing me to post the other pictures and those are the cool ones. bah. i´ll try yet again someother time.

llao llao

today i headed to another part of the park called llao llao. located at the entrance of the park is the llao llao hotel. i am told that there is a list of the world´s best hotels and this one ranks 9 or 10 on that list. hmm. impressive. here is a picture of the hotel.



the park itself is the most delightfully enchanting forest. seriously amazing. sha, it reminded me of that bamboo forest we went through in maui. all these bamboo tunnels that weave through something similar to the prettiest sierra nevada forest you´ve ever seen.

also, as if i weren´t president of the california fan club already, tromping through all these redonk forests just reminds me how spectacular california back-country is. from lost coast to the sierras to joshua tree. just so awesome. oh california, how i adore thee. (stay true to the pact oh loves of my life, my darling biotechs. true to da pact!)

cerro otto

this is me half way up the nearby mountain, cerro otto as well as a view from the top. lake nauel haupi and the town of bariloche.

mis abuelitos

drunk grandmas

last night was amusing. upon arriving home after school i noticed that we had a guest, coquita, a friend of julia. apparently this was a special occasion because tonight they were finally going to drink a bottle of champagne that they had purchased together two years ago. apparently they had been trying to drink it for the last two years but had never found the time or something. i didn´t totally understand. so after dinner jose had had enough of the ladies and left and we proceeded to drink the bottle. apparently two glasses of champagne is about two glasses too many for grandmas because both of them were sloshed. it was late and coquita had to walk home and julia insisted that we would accompany here. it was raining outside but they didn´t seem to mind so off we went, me with a drunk staggering grandma on each arm jabbering away in spanish. i think what really topped off the scene though is the fact that i´m a least, and i truly mean a least, a good foot taller than either one of them. indeed a delightful evening in bariloche. me and the grandmas.

lost

no no. i´m not talking about the show (although i´m not lying when i say that i was hoping my plane would crash on the same island as dr. jack shepherd). i´m talking about how i have spent my last two days. yesterday i decided to attempt the same mountain that i was unable to complete a few days ago due to the rain. i took a very direct trail to the top and have a few pictures i´ll post later. on the way down i felt like taking a different route. unfortunately, i found myself somewhat lost and what i figured was going to take around an hour and a half ended up taking around 3 and half. i managed to come away from the event sans blisters on my feet but my new york winter white skin did not fair as well and i´m currently sporting a new hue of red. it was bound to happen sometime this trip. so it goes. it was a lovely hike nonetheless.
my second lost adventure took place today. i thought i was jumping on a bus that headed back to my neighborhood. i was very very wrong. what was supposed to be a 15 minute ride ended up being about a 2 hour ride. needless to say, i saw many interesting parts of bariloche. i´m currently living in the high-rent district and this bus ride definitely took me through the low-rent district. i ended up riding the bus to the end of its route and was the last one in the bus at which point i explained to the driver that i was very very lost. we had a good laugh and he pointed me in the right direction. he told me to think of it as a cheap tour of bariloche. fair enough.

other than getting lost, my days are filled with one-on-one spanish classes in the afternoon. i´m hoping this whole spanish thing will click soon because the only person i can speak english to is myself and my jokes are getting dreadfully boring.

photos!

above is the view a few blocks from my house, lake nauel huapi, bariloche.
to the left is one of my neigborhood.

what´s cuter than a saint bernard? a saint bernard puppy

and how many saint bernard puppies did i see today? FOUR!! in the main square in town they have guys walking around with big ones and little ones and you can get you picture taken with them and i...have...never...seen...anything...so....cute.

while walking around, these young chaps from brazil, i think, approached me and asked for directions. i told them i had no clue and that i didn´t know town well and they asked me where i was from. i said the US. a smirk appeared on their faces as one continued with, "oh. boosh". it took me a second to realize he was saying bush. they all laughed, shook their heads and walked away. ah, to be either the enemy or the laughing stalk of the world. splendid indeed.

another delightful encounter today was with a poster illustrating a weekly musical performance called "from the andes to the beatles". apparently every week in the main square, a band performs all beatle songs with south american rhythms and indigenous instruments. the poster is an illustration of the beatles dressed up in traditional andean garb. haha. pretty awesome. i´ll have to check that out. i don´t really know what to expect exactly.

here at last

well i certainly never want to see another airplane again. i flew into buenos aires friday morning in order to spend a night there before heading down to bariloche. i met up with this awesome guy who worked in the bay area for 3 years and then decided that he wanted to travel so he loaded up his open top jeep and drove from san fran all the way to tierra del fuego. it took him three years. that was about about four years ago and he hasn´t stopped traveling around latin america since. we had a loooong dinner together and he gave me recommendations on where to go, etc. a wealth of information. he also told me about about this re-forestation type project that he started in some islands off the coast of panama. i´m planning on making that my last stop on the trip in order to help out with what´s going on there.

saturday morning i once again boarded a plane and headed 2 hours south to bariloche at the most north western area of the argentine patagonia. it´s gorgeous albeit touristy. i´m living with the most adorable older couple imaginable named julia and jose. their home is in an incredible neighborhood wedged between mountains and the huge nauel haupi lake. dirt roads, cute wood houses, lots of dogs and horses wandering by, lots of trees. just plain rad. bariloche is actually within nauel haupi national park so there is tons of hiking to be done. i wanted to take pics today to post but it´s pretty cloudy so i´m going to wait until it clears up a bit. i´ll try to post some tomorrow.

this morning i planned a hike up one of the nearby mountains. it rained all last night so i was kinda hesitant to start my trek but at breakfast julia and jose said that i would totally definitely without a doubt clear up and be beautifully sunny. so, trusting their weather knowledge seeing as they have lived in bariloche their entire lives, i decided to head out. from the minute i hit the trail head it started raining. i hung in there for about a half hour but seeing no end in sight and only dark menacing clouds i decided to head back and never again trust my hosts´ weather sense. well that´s about it for now. i hope to get some pics up pronto.