Argentina to Chile...

¡Buenos días!


I´ve been out of pocket for about a week, but have made some ground and had some incredible experiences as well.  I traveled to the cities of Córdoba, Alta Gracia, Mendoza, Maipu, and Santiago, Chile.  I visited Che Guevara´s childhood house, a Jesuit mission, three wineries, the Andes and other historical Inca sites, and one of Pablo Neruda´s houses.  I also explored all cities and earned a few blisters in the process.

Wine tasting at Lopez Winery

In the Andes!

Self-taken photo at Che Guevara's childhood home.

Snapshots from interesting experiences:


- Lunch to Go - When I buy yogurt, I can pick up a free spoon at the Customer Service desk.  

- Losing my English, but improving my Spanish - When relating a story to two Americans, I conjugated “speak“ incorrectly - it´s “spoke” not “speaked”.  Thankfully, I caught myself.

- Don´t Ask Foreigners - When traveling to the Jesuit mission, I went to the tourist office to receive a map.  After visiting the mission, some Argentinian tourist saw my map and wanted to know where I received it from.  The mother inquired and I answered in perfect Spanish but with my foreign accent.  She immediately said, “Oh, you´re foreign” and almost didn´t listen to me.  Her 10-year-old son heard me and asked, is it the tower over there and I said, yes.  This is progress, at least kids take me seriously.

- Laundry - I dropped off my laundry to be washed.  It took 4 hours and 22 pesos ($5).  When I picked it up, I quickly checked to see if I had everything.  However, I was missing my bra.  Turns out that it must have broken during the cycle and when I checked later, it was in two pieces.  Ridiculous, but I guess it´s a good opportunity to try my hand at sewing!

- Toilet Paper in the Andes - To reach “Alta Montaña”, a 4,000 meter lookout in the Andes, our bus had to curve up a very small and windy road.  Being a joker, the bus driver took a roll of toilet paper and held it out the window at cars passing by going down or up (whichever direction we weren´t going).  I was confused, so inquired.  This is meant to be a joke signaling fear, basically, it made all passing bus drivers laugh and added some excitement to the ride.

- Crossing the Border - when crossing the board from Argentina to Chile on a night bus, we received dinner at 11 p.m. and then coffee at 3 a.m.  I don´t know about you, but that just doesn´t fit with my natural schedule!  Additionally, there is a dog which checks all of our carry-on luggage, by doing a sniff test.  We threw our stuff on tables in front of us and the dog walked around to check everything out.

- Station & Street Dogs - In Santiago, a group of us separately arrived (2 Australians, 4 British citizens, and me) to the bus station.  It was 6 a.m. and none of us could figure a way to withdraw money, so we ended up walking the two miles to our hostel.  On the way, we picked up street dogs or rather, they picked up us.  The first one stayed until the bitter end, using us as protection from more vicious dogs, while also picking up a hodgepodge of friends.  At one point, we had 4 dogs following us.  The funniest part was that after we arrived at the hostel, the original “station dog” stayed at our door.  When there was no space for me at that hostel, the street dog followed me to another hostel.  I have to say, I wasn´t the biggest fan of this at the time, but it was incredibly entertaining in retrospect.

Every day, I have many opportunities to meet wonderful people.  This is one of my favorite parts: the great opportunity to know so many open and interesting individuals with endlessly different perspectives, travels, and experiences.


A few people I´ve met:

- Rodrigo from Montevideo, an studying economist, just finished a course.  Wants to study in Mexico City.

Faku and Sebastian

- Sebastian and Faku, from Buenos Aires, rock band musicians at their church and avid skateboarders, on vacation.  We travel throughout Córdoba with a French Canadian, Kim, seeing sites and museums such as one which honored the 30,000 lives disappeared during Argentina´s dirty war (70s to early 80s).


- Bob and Jenny from Wisconsin, traveling Chile and Argentina; turns our their son lives in Capitol Hill in Seattle!  They also invited me for a lovely hostel-made dinner before I left Mendoza to Santiago.

Andrea and I at the top of a lookout in Santiago

- Andrea from Ireland, living in London, a financial law consultant/lawyer, traveling the world for 6 months.  We traveled throughout Santiago on foot and then shared a lovely dinner, each having two glasses of $2 Chilean wine.

Today, to Viña del Mar and tomorrow, Valparaíso, both beach Chilean beach towns on the Pacific ocean.






Abrazos,
Ashley