I got to Santiago

After  12 hour bus ride that included an hour stop over I arrived in Punta Arenas.  On a whim I dashed to the airport and hoped there would be room on the 7pm flight to Santiago.  There was, and at about midnight I landed in Santiago.  It was a hell of a day starting at 5am, but nice just to be here, and not have to waste a day in Punta Arenas.

When I did get in I got the airport van, which takes you to your door, and just told him one of the addresses in the lonely planet.  Well, there turns out to not be  hostel there anymore, so the driver insisted on taking me to another place.  That place was full.  SO, he insisted on taking me to another place (all the while a girl waited patently to be dropped off herself).  At the third place there was room, but as soon as I went in to check the driver split with my stuff.  After a half an hour or so and time on the phone with the company he returned.  So, all is well that ends well I guess.

Good to be in Santiago!

Ushuaia.

I arrived in Ushuaia 4 1/2 hours late, which was a joy, but I did find a hostel at 1:30 am, and was able to sleep.  I met another American Jew, which was cool, and had a nice enough time chatting with him on the bus and early the next day.  On the following day I went to the nation park and just went on some of the hikes.  Predictably it was really pretty and a very pleasant day.  I then headed back and fell asleep crazy early, as I hadn´t had a good night sleep in quite a while.  Today I went on a small cruise of the area and saw the penguins, which was again predictably cool, and went along with some stunning views of the area.

Tomorrow I leave very early for Punta Arenas, which is where I get my flight to Santiago, and am just waiting to see how that all plays out.

Bariloche and El Calafate

I arrived in Bariloche in the morning, and immediately saw how gorgeous it was.  That day I headed to the lookout point on the top of the hill, and then to dinner with two Israelis and a Welshmen at a famous steak place.  It was good, but the high end one mike and I went to was better. 

The next day me and one of the Israelis along with a Frenchman headed back to the lookout I was at previously and then on a long bike ride along this giant circuit.  It was stunning and amazing!  We had a blast!  It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been.  I was so glad I went.  We then had dinner with some pretty stupid and annoying kiwis, and went to bed. 

I heard the following day on a 28 hour bus ride to El Calafate.  OHY!

I got to El Calafate Thursday afternoon and did nothing.  I met an american and had dinner, and arranged to go to the glacier the next day.  When I did get to the glacier it was really cool.  Maybe not as beautiful as the makers of Bariloche, but way more different than any thing I had ever seen before.  Well worth doing.  When I got back I had a huge shabbat dinner with 7 Israelis and then realized that it was 10:40 and my bus to Ushuaia was at 3am and I now need to figure out how to kill 4 hours..... What fun!

BA #2

We returned to BA and were pretty tired. Honestly we had very little to do. We did several self guided walking tours and kind of just wondered. On the second night we headed to cafe totoni to see a tango show, which was nice, but not mind blowing.  On Friday we went to a nearby weekend spot called tire, which was again nice, but not mind blowing.  Finally on Saturday we walked a lot and went to visit the president's house, which was surprisingly not nice compared to other things in BA.  We also went for a final steak dinner together st a small neighbourhood place.

Sunday we bought a few presents, and sort of lamented him being there just a little too long.  I took the 2pm 22 hour bus to Bariloche and said my goodbyes.

Uruguay

The morning of the 14th we got on a ferry to Colonial de Sacramento, which is a small port colonial city in Uruguay.  It was super nice and charming, but with little to do.  It was picturesque, but that is about all I can say about it.  After a few hours of walking we headed to Montevideo.

Montevideo was a nice small capitol city.  When we got in at night we just walked the main strip along the pedestrian only area and had a steak sandwich for dinner.  We also gawked at all the people having Motta, which was really crazy.  The next day (15th) we headed to the main market to have a giant parilla style lunch, which is more or less as much meat as one can eat in different forms.  It was good, but sickening.  After we rented bikes and roads along the coast, which turned out to be nicer than the rest of the historic district.  Overall Montevideo is a nice city worth seeing if you are in the area, but nothing worth going special to.

The following day (16th) we got on a bus back to Sacramento and then the same ferry back to BA where we would stay until mike leaves on the 20th.

Buenos Aires #1

We got to BA early on the 12th and began to walk around.  We immediately really liked it. While we didn't do all that much other than walk it was apparent what a spectacular city it was.  We did stumble upon the old cemetery, which was really awesome.  We also did a fancy steak diner, which was better than most other steaks I have had in life.

The 13th was hard, because mike was sick, and my feet were hurting. We went to Boca in the morning, and it was cool, but mike was obviously not so happy and wanted to rest.  So we headed back and tools nap.  We then went to the big park in Palermo, which wasn't overly nice, and headed back for a small simple dinner of empanadas near the hostel

Cordoba and Rosario

Mike finally joined me in Cordoba.  It was nice to see him, and we really just spent a day and a half wondering a very pretty city and seeing some nice things.  We had to wait to leave Cordoba until my shoes were re soled and in the mean time we saw a very pretty colonial center and some nice outer areas, but nothing mind blowing.  We also had a huge steak dinner with a bunch of Israelis in the hostel, and headed out in the late afternoon of the 10th.

We got to Rosario and spent the night walking wondering where the people were, as the streets were deserted.  We eventually stumbled upon the flag monument, which was kind of the most impressive urban monuments I have ever seen.  The next day we walked around and changed some money with a strange lady who the hostel sent us to (black market exchange rates are much higher than normal), and went to the beach.  It was a decent beach, but was cool because it was on a river.  We heard back, and went to dinner at a nice enough place and called it a night.

Uyuni

Uyuni is kind of a crappy city.  It was just a hub to go and visit the famous salt flats Bolivia.  So, that´s what I did.  I signed up for a tour which was pretty cool.  Te scenery was really different and well worth visiting.  I was impressed maybe more by the lakes with flamingos than the salt flats themselves, bu the lakes were weird colors and this is caused by the immense amount o sulfur in the ground, so it is sort o one in the same.  I was on the tour with an Australian couple, a Brazilian couple, and this older Italian guy.  It was a nice group an we really enjoyed ourselves despite kind of a crappy guide.  It was just a pleasant 3 days.

We got back to the town to try to head to Argentina, and found that because it was New Years Eve there were no buses, and we would have to spend the night in Uyuni.  I didn´t care, but the Australians were disappointed.  We had dinner, lit a firework, and went to bed before midnight. 

Te next day we got a bus at 6am and headed to the boarder. It was a terrible road, and was really uncomfortable.  It did´t hep that a Bolivian man was yelling at the tourists to get out of his country the whole time.  We finally made it and got another bus on the Argentinian side to Salta, where me and the Australian couple ended up after almost 36 hours of trying.  It looked like a nice city as we entered......