Hola from Mendoza, Argentina!
Just left Bariloche, Argentina, a town famous for mountains, skiing, lakes, chocolate, and ridiculously cheap and amazing food. Ever been to Fogo de Chao (or a similar Argentinian steak house)? Well, think that, but for about $10-15 per person with wine. Unbelievable. We ate our way through Bariloche and spent our days hiking to gain an appetite to adequately be able to appreciate the food.
Bariloche is also where we met up with our friends Katie and Jim. It has been great to travel together, makes it feel closer to home. Check out our pictures from our hike to the top of a 2,200M moutaintop, where we splashed cold water on our face out of newly melted snow reservoir. Kristen at times thought she was going to die as we scaled steep rock faces, but decided that she and heights are soon going to be good friends.
On our last day in Bariloche. Kristen and I decided to do a 3hr hike to a moutaintop that had a chairlift, where we hoped to be able to get a ride down, since we were getting a late start. Problem with this hike is that we had just finished a 10K run and were running low on food in the stomach. To add fuel to the fire, Kristen started developing some nasty flu-like symptoms. Hike was not going well. Needed water and had none. Took us everything we had to make it to the top. When we got there, we had about an hour left of sunlight and thought the chair lift would be still be open. Here is where we learned a couple of key lessons about South America:
1) Never assume anything is open on Sundays
2) Reasoning and pleading (begging) with someone, when you don´t speak the language is not usually successful. Apparently the "Are you serious?" face doesn´t translate well to spanish.
So after the man told us that the ticket office was closed and we couldn´t get a ride even though the lift was still running, we turned around with our heads between our legs and started the 7KM walk down. Very fortunately for us, this potentially very bad night turned out alright, when we made it to the road-side and found out that the thumb is very powerful communication tool. An amazingly friendly Bariloche couple picked us up in their little four-door and we got to practice our spanish all the way down the mountain and into town.
Next couple of days: wine tasting and hanging out with my cousin Kate in wine country.
Just left Bariloche, Argentina, a town famous for mountains, skiing, lakes, chocolate, and ridiculously cheap and amazing food. Ever been to Fogo de Chao (or a similar Argentinian steak house)? Well, think that, but for about $10-15 per person with wine. Unbelievable. We ate our way through Bariloche and spent our days hiking to gain an appetite to adequately be able to appreciate the food.
Bariloche is also where we met up with our friends Katie and Jim. It has been great to travel together, makes it feel closer to home. Check out our pictures from our hike to the top of a 2,200M moutaintop, where we splashed cold water on our face out of newly melted snow reservoir. Kristen at times thought she was going to die as we scaled steep rock faces, but decided that she and heights are soon going to be good friends.
On our last day in Bariloche. Kristen and I decided to do a 3hr hike to a moutaintop that had a chairlift, where we hoped to be able to get a ride down, since we were getting a late start. Problem with this hike is that we had just finished a 10K run and were running low on food in the stomach. To add fuel to the fire, Kristen started developing some nasty flu-like symptoms. Hike was not going well. Needed water and had none. Took us everything we had to make it to the top. When we got there, we had about an hour left of sunlight and thought the chair lift would be still be open. Here is where we learned a couple of key lessons about South America:
1) Never assume anything is open on Sundays
2) Reasoning and pleading (begging) with someone, when you don´t speak the language is not usually successful. Apparently the "Are you serious?" face doesn´t translate well to spanish.
So after the man told us that the ticket office was closed and we couldn´t get a ride even though the lift was still running, we turned around with our heads between our legs and started the 7KM walk down. Very fortunately for us, this potentially very bad night turned out alright, when we made it to the road-side and found out that the thumb is very powerful communication tool. An amazingly friendly Bariloche couple picked us up in their little four-door and we got to practice our spanish all the way down the mountain and into town.
Next couple of days: wine tasting and hanging out with my cousin Kate in wine country.
posted by Jon and Kristen | 6:51 PM
3 Comments:
I have only one thing to say - WOW!!! Mom/Tiger
Hitch-hiking is apparently key in america del sur! good work! quality stories and pictures!
Please try to avoid being eligible for that show on the discovery channel -- you know the one called "I Shouldnt be Alive" ?!?!
Sweet stories....keep the gordonian adjectives coming!!!
-dp
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