Around the World in 18 Days (or something like that...)

Yesterday I returned from my biggest adventure to date. 18 glorious days- 10 in Peru, followed by 18 in Brazil. My usual second-by-second descriptions aren't going to cut it for this, there is just too much to tell.

Instead, I'll give some highlights and upload a few pictures, and that will have to be sufficient!

1. Cusco. In our first Peruvian city, we manage to evade altitude sickness while getting prepared for our four day trek to Machu Picchu!

2. The Inca Trail! Four epic days of hiking to one of the wonders of the world, Machu Picchu! A challenging, but exhilarating experience, this was an absolute highlight of the trip.

3. Lake Titicaca, the highest altitude fresh-water lake in the world, showed a whole new side to Peru. We stood on the floating islands of Uros, played a game of jacks with the kids on Taquile, and stayed in a hostel that was more home than ho

tel.

4. Arequipa/Lima. These cities in Peru were beautiful, but only used for passing through- as we raced through the south of Peru to get back to Lima and fly out to Rio de Janeiro!

5. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen, filled with diverse people and landscape- the beach, the mountains, but most importantly, the ACAI BOWLS. yum.

6. Paraty was a quiet historical port, five hours

south of Rio. We stayed in a pirate-themed hostel staffed by a Captain Hook look-alike and took a boat tour of some beautiful waters & beaches.

7. Ilha Grande. And it was here that we fell in love with Brazil, in all of its tropical paradise glory. Two hours south of Rio by

bus, and one hour by ferry, this giant island had it all- white sand beaches, waterfalls, rainforest hikes & some peace and quiet :)

Hate to Blog and Run, but...

I think its obvious by the infrequent posts, that life is getting a little hectic as I get closer and closer to the end of my time down here.
This past few weeks in a short summary:

1. Finals at UB and saying goodbye to some very good friends who had to go back to the States

2. My parents came to visit me here in BA, and we traveled down to El Calafate to hike on some glaciers



3. Leaving in a few hours for an 18-day whirlwind Peru/Brazil adventure

Sorry that's all I can give for now, but I promise more detail upon my return. See you in a couple weeks!

My Days are Numbered!

In realizing that this past weekend was the second to last one that I'll be spending in Buenos Aires, I still can't believe how fast this experience has gone. For me, really taking advantage of my last few weeks here in BA doesn't involve rushing around to everything in the city for the "last time." So much of it is just relaxing and taking in the environment that I have come to love. So this weekend was spent doing just that- relaxing and revisiting some of my favorite spots.

On Friday morning, I got my Brazilian visa! Since I am headed to Brazil in a month (less then a month, wow that is hard to believe) and all US citizens need visas to enter the country, it was something I needed to take care of. With relatively little complication (something about them telling me I needed an appointment, but me begging and trying to get everything taken care of anyhow...) I was able to get my visa and the right to enter Brazil for the next 10 years! Exciting.

Friday afternoon was spent in the Japanese garden. A touristy little oasis in the parks of Palermo. It was a beautiful day, and spending time amongst blooming flower in the city never gets old. Friday evening was spent at Chabad. After three weekends of being away, a certainly missed my Friday night Shabbos routine! It was great to see friends and eat a little (lot) of meat at the Chabad House in Recoleta.

Saturday was spent doing...nothing. I read some of my texts for school on the terrace of my house. It was incredibly tranquil and I enjoyed every second of relaxing. Saturday night I headed over the beautiful Colon Theatre to hear the French Philharmonic Orchestra. Beautiful!

And Sunday was spent walking around in Recoleta, working on my art project (taking pictures of buildings that I need to analyze), eating delicious feria (fair) foods, and doing some souvenir shopping (this is a real indicator that I'm headed home soon. yikes!).

Like I said, my days are numbered, but I'm trying to make them count.

A Trip to Pandora

To continue with my travels, this past weekend, I went to the famous Iguazú Falls in the northeast tip of Argentina (border with Brazil & Paraguay).

Honestly, I did not have high expectation. Everyone kept talking about Iguazú, but I have been to Niagara Falls upwards of 5 times, and eh. I thought it would be some nice waterfalls, it would be warm outside, and then we'd go home. Boy, did I not understand what I was in for.

This was one of the trips organized by my program, ISA. After coming back from a week of a trip organized by Rachel, this weekend was looking like it was going to be pretty relaxing. Our group left from Buenos Aires on Thursday night, to take an overnight bus ride to the city of Posadas in the province of Misiones. On the bus ride we watched the movie Jumper (I am only putting that in because I am 98% sure that it was the worst movie that I have ever seen, and I caution anyone who thinks they want to watch it to stay far far away) and after that I slept like a baby until we arrived at 8 am the next morning.

We went directly to Jesuit ruins. These ruins were pretty elaborate, and quite frankly, it kind of reminded me of the types of large stone ruins that I saw in Israel. It was walking around these Jesuit ruins that our group became acquainted with the red clay-like earth of the region. Red that stains clothes, shoes, and anything else that gets in the way! Our tour guide was very amused that no one in the 30 person group was paying attention to him. He remarked that we should probably work on our Spanish so that we could understand him. Little did he know that we did understand when he said that, and that had he been speaking in English, I'm sure the same ADD-esque behavior would have occurred.

After our Jesuit ruins tour, we went to a quaint estancia to relax for the afternoon and to eat lunch. There was a pool, a place to play volleyball and many reclining chairs that alluded to the fact we were about to overeat. Lunch was delicious, salads and MEAT for the carnivores, or pasta for the vegetarians. After eating way too much, we relaxed and then were sheparded to view a yerba mate plant on the same property. Once we got back from our little mate-plant tour, it had been about an hour since we had finished eating, and of course, more food was in order. Freshly made tortilla frita, or fried pieces of tortilla with sugar on top was the death of me, and everyone else. This dessert put us all into a food coma, which we slept off on the three hour ride to Port Iguazú, where our hotel was located. Once we got to our hotel, it was obviously time to eat again. We went to the buffet of our 4 star hotel and ate to our heart's content. It was an early night, since we were all resting up for visiting Iguazú National Park the next day.

Sadly, the next morning brought a cloudy, misty day. But, we were still super excited to head to the falls. After a delicious buffet breakfast (we did a lot of eating on this trip) we headed to the park. We entered what, at first, seemed like the entrance to a zoo- you know, pavilion, paved pathways. But soon, we were walking on bridges in what seemed like the middle of a forest. There are kilometers upon kilometers of these bridges that take you to the hundreds of water falls present. Its such a natural, beautiful, tropical environment. Suddenly, there were these powerful waterfalls before us, and it was absolutely incredible. Seeing all of the falls, the mist, the tropics, the flowers, and the wildlife, I knew for sure that Iguazú was the closest I would ever get to being on the Avatar-land of Pandora. The beauty was just unreal. To finish up the day, we took a small speed boat ride up to the edge of a couple of the waterfalls. We got soaked and had a lot of shriek-inducing fun.

We came home soaked, and exhausted. The night included another buffet dinner, and a rounding up fellow midwesterners for a nice Euchre game by the hotel's outdoor pool.

The next day, Sunday, it was already time to leave. Our last activity of the trip was to stop by a Guaraní (the natives of the region) village, to see how they lived. The Guaraní "tour" felt a bit like a human zoo, as we watched a group of them do a small song and dance to "welcome" us. Nonetheless, it still exposed me to the different groups living in Argentina, more than just the Caucasian-looking Italian and Spanish descendants in Buenos Aires.

After that, we headed to the airport, to fly back to BA. The flight was uneventful. With a laughably low level of airport security, we boarded the plane, watched the mist from the falls shrink in the distance, and the saw the city lights of Buenos Aires welcoming us home.

La Argentina Verdadera y El Chile Turistico

I just got back from an absolutely amazing trip to northwest Argentina and northern Chile on Tuesday, and I'm leaving for the infamous Iguazu falls today! With all of these travels, only two thoughts remain for me: how incredibly lucky I have been throughout this entire experience, and here begins the final stage of my sojourn down here in South America: travel.

Northwest Argentina is a region that has only recently become a destination. Albeit, mostly for internal tourism than extranjeros (foreigners), still, it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. I'll try to keep this relatively succinct...

Tuesday, Oct 5th
Flew out of BA and into San Salvador de Jujuy. The capital of Jujuy was nothing much to see, and I was anxious to move on to our first "real" stop of Tilcara. We arrived in Tilcara late at night...later than anything was open, it seemed. After knocking on our hostel's door was meet with silence, we stopped in another hotel that actually called the owner of our original hostel to come down to the hotel and retrieve us. Hows that for friendly! We got a good night's sleep, exhausted from travel.

Wednesday, Oct 6th
Our first day in Tilcara- we wandered around the pueblo and went to the ruins of Pucara, a several km walk. The pueblo was incredibly interesting, just a few dusty streets. Also, the people were darker, more indigenous looking than Buenos Aires. I definitely stood out with my pale white skin. We explored Pucara, in my opinion a mini mini mini Machu Picchu. In the afternoon, we were supposed to go to some caves, but couldn't find the guide we were supposed to meet. So, we went back to the hostel to ask for another suggestion of activity. There was a couple- an Argentine and Corsican, who lived in BA and another Argentine who were headed to the Cerro de Siete Colores (mountain of seven colors) in Purmamarca, the neighboring town, who invited us along. We all headed over to some of the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen. The mountains were purple!! We just walked and hiked along, chatting in Spanish until we found ourselves watching the sunset and drinking mate on top of a mountain.

Thursday, Oct 7th
In the morning, we found a guide- a guy named Carlitos, who took us to Las Cuevas (the caves). There was about an hour of hiking, over loose rubble that used to be the bottom of a sea until we finally arrived at these hidden, unmarked caves. We had to craw through the pitch dark caves, using candles to light our way. One cave led to an incredible landscape, another to a dark chamber, It was so untouched, and peaceful. In the afternoon, we headed to the Salinas Grandes (Salt Flats) outside of Purmamaca. Salt flats are basically dried salt beds, and create incredibly flat landscapes. We frolicked around, looking at the small mining and taking perspective-altering pics.

Friday, Oct 8th
After inquiring extensively about bus schedules & pick up locations (I will spare you the agony of hearing about that) we finally were able to board a bus to San Pedro de Atacama. About 10 hours, and a border crossing later, we were in Chile! We arrived at San Pedro, a dusty tourist town and we were picked up at the bus stop (no terminal, no signs, just a bus, that had stopped) by our hostel owner, Roberto. Roberto looked like he belonged in Hawaii, with long hair, flip flops and a hakuna matata attitude. He drove us to the hostel in a giant dusty blue van, it was pretty comical. That night, we did a stargazing excursion. We learned about the stars of the Southern Hemisphere, got to see an awesome lazer pointer and look through telescopes at planets (Jupiter!) and nebulas. It was pretty amazing. It was freezing though! The desert at night is not for sissies. Thankfully, the tour ended with hot chocolate and a good night's sleep.

Saturday, Oct 9th
The morning was for relaxing, sitting in the sun, and cooking/eating some delicious breakfast burritos. In the afternoon, we went to Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon). This national park that was named for its unusual looking landscape. As we stood on the cliffs and took pictures, it was very discouraging, because my camera couldn't even begin to capture the amazing sight before me. We hiked along in the canyons and valleys of the park, eventually seeing an incredible sunset over the giant sand dunes and mountain tops.

Sunday, Oct 10th
We had originally planned to the city of Salta on Sunday, but ended up staying an extra day in San Pedro.
We woke up at 4am, yes 4am, to drive two hours away in order to see El Tatio Geysers. I had never seen geysers before, and they were pretty amazing. We stood shivering but enjoying the dozens of geysers around us. Later in the day, we went to salt lakes. Again, beautiful, but they were freeeeezing, which continued the day's them of cold, but I took a quick dip, since I had come all the way to Chile and everything. The day finished with another incredible sunset, on a flat plain instead of surrounded by mountains.

Monday, Oct 11th
We said goodbye to all the people we met in the hostel- the Danish couple, the Indian-German, the American girls studying in Viña del Mar, Chile, and as well as to Roberto, and we went to the bus stop. Again, unmarked stop, no sign, no terminal, just a dusty makeshift parking lot. Our 10 hour ride to the city of Salta went very smoothly, and we arrived around 7 pm. At our hostel, I randomly ran into a girl in one of my classes in BA. How crazy! And we met an Australian who was traveling around the entire world, and we all went out to dinner & ice cream. We listened to his stories, everything from getting robbed by people who gave him taxi money to get home in Tanzania, to using pliers to save his debit card from getting swallowed by an ATM in France. Needless to say, it provided a lot of travel inspiration.

Tuesday, Oct 12th
We spent the morning in Salta, wondering around the main plaza and getting my first ever shoe shine (the shoe shining people just roamed the streets, so I thought, why not). And then sadly, had to begin our trek home. There were a few buses and some rather small pueblos involved in getting back to the airport. But I got there eventually, and flew home to BA without a problem. I got so excited to see my city as we starting flying over it. It was amazing how anxious I was to get back to "my" room, and "my" bed in "my" house. I was lucky to be greeted so excitedly by my host mom Elina, and my roommate Christine. Elina made a special dinner, and we even had a delicious desert-strawberries and cream. Good travels, but good to be home!


And now, I'm headed off to Iguazu Falls! What a whirlwhind, but I'm loving every second of it :)

Dancin' in the Streets

Hard to belive its now October, usually one of my favorite months filled with changing leaves, apple cider, crisp sunny days and of course, wearing cardigans. Instead, its spring here! Trees are blooming, its finally getting warm enough to skip wearing a jacket and we are only plagued with the occasional rainy day.

On Wednesday, last week, I had my last Parcial (midterm)! So now, I am pretty free until finals begin, the first week of November. To take advantage of that "free" time, I'm going to embark on some travels, but more about that in a second.

Thursday night was Simchas Torah! Its a Jewish holiday is supposed to be incredibly joyous and filled with lots of dancing. I went to the Chabad that I normally frequent, Chabad Recoleta to meet up with some friends and have a delicious dinner. Afterward, we decided to walk to a different Chabad, where most of the younger crowd would be. While we were walking there, we saw other Jews on the street and immediately started singing and dancing with them. And, we were just in the middle of Buenos Aires...singing and dancing...on some random Thursday. It was awesome!!! I've never had to live in a place where I've had to hide being Jewish, and I am so thankful for that! The vibrant Jewish community is one of the reasons I wanted to come to BA, and that aspect has certainly not disappointed. We eventually made it to the second Chabad and there was a room filled with a couple hundred young Argentine/traveling Jews, and it was just a very fun night.

This weekend is more of a preparation weekend because on Tuesday, I am going on a weeklong adventure in the Salta/Jujuy region of Argentina! Salta and Jujuy are provinces in the Northwest and they are supposed to contain gorgeous desert (not to mention 80 degree weather!!). The plans even include crossing into Chile while we're up there to check out the Atacama desert. So, I'm trying to make sure I have everything I need (for example, in this country, it is very difficult to find plastic or metal water bottles...) to be prepared for our trip.

After spending a week in Salta/Jujuy, I have one full day at home, then I'm heading off to Iguazú Falls! Therefore, blogging might be put on hold for a bit! However, I guarantee I'll have some great stories when I get back :)

Relaxing by the River in Rosario

Its been 10 whole days since I've blogged last! While I could think about that, and say, "Wow, self. That just indicates that you haven't done anything worth sharing with the world!" It actually indicates that my adventures around the city are so integrated into the normal patterns of my life here, that they feel like daily business.

Quick summary of last weekend/week:
Friday night and Saturday were spent in services, due to Yom Kippur. Sunday was a beautiful day, in which some friends and I welcomed in Art Week in Buenos Aires with some free symphony in el Parque del Centenario and another movie at the secret movie theatre in San Telmo.

(note: I really wanted to upload a picture here, but my internet connection would not allow it)

The week was only a three day week, with Tuesday off of school for "Dia del estudiante." Then, volunteering at Hogar 4 (with the viejos) as usual on Friday.

The highlight of this weekend, however, was a trip to Rosario!

Rosario is the third largest city in Argentina, and four hours away from Buenos Aires. Well, technically, its 4 hours away, but there were some sort of protests on the route to Rosario causing us to take the "long way," or the 5 and a half hour route. I didn't really mind, Argentina has certainly made me tolerant of long bus rides. These days, anything shorter than 20 hours is ok in my book.

On the bus ride to Rosario, I somehow managed to be the only person to stay awake. But the advantage of that was that I got to watch "Nueve Reinas," a great movie that had my favorite Argentine actor, Ricardo Darín, basically the Argentina George Clooney. We watched two movies, on the bus back to BA today as well. Both starring Darín. I guess the bus company bought the box set?

Anyhow, when we arrived in Rosario, it wasn't too sunny, but we did get to go on a boat ride on the river Paraná! This was great fun and there was singing and dancing to Juanes and other Latin American hits that Americans know, like La Bamba. Awesome! We had a free night, and some friends and I ate a delicious dinner in a cute restaurant outdoors, under a large tree with cascading branches. My friend Saba and I shared a giant fish called Dorado and we ended all up eating and talking at the restaurant for over three hours!

Today, it was a sunny, perfect day! We took a city tour this morning, ending up at the gigantic Monumento a la Bandera (flag), since Rosario is known as the city where the flag was born. We had some free time, spent enjoying the coast and the sun and then made our way back to BA in another 5 hour bus ride.

(note: I wanted to post pictures here too, but my internet would not allow it! sad.)

A very short trip, but a lovely one! I loved the beautiful architecture and the laid back, coastal feel of Rosario.