Well if the
first couple days of my time here in Argentina were slow-going, the
past couple of days have been turbo-jet speed!
Shabbat in Buenos Aires was
nice. I met a nice young Israeli guy in
my hostel on Friday and invited him to come with me. That turned out to be good for me because it
gave me someone to hang out with and talk too.
I was the only non-Israeli born person there and the people were
traveling in pretty closed packs. I
don’t want to say that they were specifically unfriendly, but they were not
specifically friendly. Anyway, it was
relaxing and nice and good to have some real food! Shabbat day brought a visit to one of the
other Chabad houses in BA that caters to the wealthy local community. When I got to the backpacker Chabad in the
morning, the Rabbi was waiting outside for someone to wake up inside and unlock
the door! Because no one was waking up,
we (the two of us and another local older man who came) walked the 35 minutes
to the other location to join a minyan and here the Torah reading for Shabbat
and Rosh Chodesh. Despite out arriving
shortly after 12pm, they had just started!
I was happy for the opportunity to see another part of the city that I
hadn’t yet seen and to experience the local community.
Sunday
morning I jumped on a boat to Colonia
del Sacramento, Uruguay
for the day. I met a lovely young
American couple at the port station. It
was basically my first time speaking English since I got here! The ride was just over an hour long. After going through customs on the other
side, I went on a brief yet wonderful and informative walking tour through the
small town with a charming local guide named Fabian. He explained to use a lot about the city and
Uruguay
in general. In truth I’m sorry that I
didn’t plan to spend more time in Uruguay because it was just
lovely! But I was happy to have the
taste that I did. Colonia is a UNESCO
site since 1995 so since then everything has been preserved as is. There is one traffic light in the whole
city. It is a quanit and sweet little
place. Traffic accidents that happen
there are only with motorbikes and the many dogs that run around the
place. The dogs don’t have any problems
with the people, but they run after and bark at all the motorbikes and
cars! The crime rate is Colonia is
almost non-existent and only slightly higher in the rest or Uruguay. The human population of Uruguay is
outnumbered 4:1 by cows and 50% of the population lives in Montevideo, the
capital. Education is free in the
country (even for non-Uruguayans) and surprisingly the public education is
better than the private education. Every
student gets a laptop free from the government.
Colonia is a mix of Spanish and Portuguese influence. Many streets are made of cobblestone. Half of them are Spanish style, rounded in
the middle so that rain trickles off to the side. The Spanish style houses also have flat roofs
made of brick or stone or wood. The
Portuguese streets go down in the middle so that when it rains people can walk
on the sides and the rain goes down the middle, and the Spanish style houses
have slanted tiled roofs. It’s a
beautiful mix to be seen around the town.
There is also a lighthouse that is no longer in use (despite its being a
port city, all the boats now have GPS and there is no need for a lighthouse)
but it provides a really lovely panoramic view of the city, and on a good day
you can even see the tall building of Buenos Aires! This little trip was one of the highlights so
far!
That
evening I returned to Buenos Aires and popped back to the hostel before
catching a bus to my next destination.
Buenos Aires was a nice large city.
It was OK to be there but I was happy to move on. There were A LOT of Israelis. The city has one of the best public
transportation systems I have ever seen and also incredibly inexpensive. Getting around as well as to and from is
quite simple.
I then took
a 18 hour bus ride down the eastern coast to a beautiful port city called Puerto
Madryn. The ride was actually
fantastic. The seats are first class and
you have the option of “Cama” and “Semicama” which are the difference of lying
all the way down or most of the way down.
I got the semicama, and its hard to understand how the Cama would be
much better because it was like sleeping on a bed. And sleep I did – for about 12 hours! I think I was worn out and tired (and a
little sunburned) from walking around Colonia all day so it was easy to
rest. They also play music and show
movies. I saw the same Disney Channel
movie called “Cloud 9”
about snowboarding, twice, and by the end I think I understood most of it… I
think.
Puerto
Madryn is my first taste of Patagonia which
has absolutely beautiful landscapes.
Over the course of my time here I have had the pleasure of seeing some
of those. I’m staying in a fantastic
Hosteling International Hostel called El Gualicho. It is clean, spacious and top quality with
friendly and very helpful staff. There
has also been a great mix of people staying here so I’ve met some cool people
from around the world. My first night
here brought my first group drinking experience of this trip. There is a cool outdoor common area where a
bunch of us had some beers, got to know each other, played a fun drinking game
(5’s… “I would like to propose a lovely game of fives…”) and shared some
laughs. These are some of the fun
memories I have from the first time I did a trip like this. Anyway, on Tuesday I took a day trip out to
Peninsula Valdes with 2 other females and another incredible local guide. One girl only spoke Spanish and I only spoke
English and he did a fantastic job of explaining everything in both
languages. The dual explanations also
really helped with my comprehension of Spanish! Peninsula Valdes is another
UNESCO site with amazing wildlife and views.
Over the course of the day we saw penguins, sea lions and Elephant seals
and these Llama-like Guanaco running all over the place. At one point we even saw an Armadillo running
around! The beaches we visited were
beautiful and the weather was cool and lovely with some sun, and at some
points we even experienced what Daniel our guide called a miracle for this
season – Rain. During the right season
Whales can also be seen but we weren’t fortunate enough to catch a glimpse. I also became really friendly with the other
girl who speaks 5 languages (I’m able to communicate with her and shes been
helping me as a translator as well!) and we’ve been hanging out ever since and
will be traveling to our next destination together as well. Yesterday morning we went to the bus station
to book our bus to Bariloche for tonight.
We then went to the beach where we rented a double Kayak and spent a
wonderful hour paddling through the water followed by a dry-off in the heat of
the sun on the beach. I then rented a
bike and took a nice long bike ride (about an hour and a half) 17kilometers
south of Puerto Madryn to Puerto Loma to see some more Sea Lions coming up to
shore at low-tide. The bike ride was
really nice with gorgeous views, but after the first 4 kilometers about,
the rest of the ride is on a dirt and often stone filled road since they are
re-doing the roads. A lot of it was
slightly uphill as well which added to the challenge. It was a bit difficult but a cool
experience! The view at the end was also
gorgeous and seeing some more sea lions was cool. The ride back was quite a bit easier (another
17 kilometers
back, but more downhill so it only took a bit over an hour) but its been a long
time since I’ve been on a bike and to put it nicely, my backside is quite sore. I got back into town about an hour before
sunset so the views over the water were just incredible. I saw loads of people who drover out to a
lookout point just stopping to watch the sun go down. Needless to say I was pretty physically exhausted
and last nights quite dinner and chill out with my new friend were a great way
to end the day.
Unlike
almost anywhere else in Argentina,
you can actually drink the water here (although I wish I found that out before
buying my usual 6 litre
water bottle upon arrival). They don’t have
a local water source so they have it brought in from a relatively nearby lake
and so it is fresh, clean and cool. But
because water is relatively scarce here, there is no locally grown produce
which means the fruits and veggies here are slim pickins’ and also pretty
expensive. Beef, like in most of Argentina is
the food of choice here because it is plentiful and cheap. Puerto Madryn exposrts Aluminum all over the
world and Peninsula Valdes actually exports sea salt. Puerto Madryn has been
great. Today I’m taking it easy, walking
around the town and experiencing more of the local.
I’m having
a wonderful time and looking forward to the next experiences. I’m meeting great people which is always nice
and excited to be exploring a new place in the world.
Until the
next time, ciao!
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