TravelStream™ news feed for member nathan.frisch on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/nathan.frisch en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:14:03 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232986320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232986320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232986320/tpod.html Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:14:03 -0500 Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina

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Santa Fe, Argentina

I have a confession to make. We´ve been spending most, if not all of the last two weeks holed up in various one or two star hotels, watching a lot of television. That´s a fact, and I´m more than a little ashamed of it. Trouble is, given the weather down here (I hear y´all are basically subjected to non-stop blizzards everyday, so I´ll try not to rub it in), outside is not really a fit place for human beings between the hours of noon and six. Of course, if you wanted to get anything accomplished in this time frame, you´ll only be laughed at for your efforts, cause it´s siesta time. The further north (hotter places) we´ve travelled in Argentina, the longer the siesta period stretches, and the more draconian the local businesses become about it. Up here in Santa Fe (capital of Santa Fe province), even the grocery stores close for siesta. The largest chain supermarket in town is open for 6, count ´em, 6 hours a day. If you happen to be the unlucky saps to arrive in town on a sunday, the way we did in Parana (capital of Entre Rios province, and only 20 minutes away from Santa Fe, think of them as an Argentinian Minneanapolis/St.Paul), well, you´ll just starve to death. We had to leave after many fruitless (as well as breadless, cheeseless, and foodless) hours spent hunting up an open store. What do you do? You get out and sightsee all you can before the noonday sun, run and buy provisions before the store closes, and batten down the hatches in your undescribably hot hotel room (sorry, I can´t help it), watching BBC news or CNN latino until the siesta gods decree it an appropriate time to open the store.
Nice places, Santa Fe and Parana, by the way, Parana infested with casinos, kind of Buloxi, Mississippi, style, and Santa Fe full of all those lovely historical buildings I´ve been telling you about.
why, look there, it´s some of those lovely historical buildings I´ve been telling you about

Here´s what gets played in the internet cafe while I type you this missive:

Phil Collins-Another Day in Paradise
Brittany Spears-Oops (I Did It Again)
The Police-Every Breath You Take
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1233592440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1233592440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1233592440/tpod.html Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:12:15 -0500 Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina

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Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sorry for the silly title, but I´ve been having a good time imagining how I would explain the whole Groundhog Day routine to an Argentinian. The second of February finds us in Buenos Aires again, head and shoulders our favorite Argentinian city. Too bad we can´t afford it for more than a couple of days-Buenos Aires prices are pretty much in line with Atlanta prices. Hopefully, this way, paying good old-fashioned American prices for goods when we get back home won´t be so shocking. While we´ve been here, Argentina has been experiencing a change (coin) shortage of epic proportions, causing untold suffering and anxiety. Street performers and beggars are starving because loose change is too precious to give to panhandlers, notes too valuable, stores would far prefer to turn away business than to provide change, and buses trundle along the busy streets of Buenos Aires empty, for everyone would rather walk than try to scrape up the impossible fare of one to two pesos all in coins. Many businesses offer discounts to those good samaritans who pay with change. For us, this crisis is slightly inconvenient, but today, we´ve had to hoard up enough moneda (argentinian spanish for coin) to pay two bus fares to the airport. Easier said than done. The collection process involves a good deal of lying "no, I don´t have anything smaller", strategic purchasing "if we just spend five more pesos, and pay with a fifty, then she´ll have to give us a peso coin for change", and a great deal of other underhanded behavior. I think we´ve got it now, so with a guilty conscience and rather heavy wallet, we´re awaiting our time to go to the airport.
Change crisis or not, I couldn´t be happier with our last taste of Argentina. We stayed in the tango capital of the city, the San Telmo/La Boca area, much cheaper and chilled out than the financial distict we stayed in back in November. Frankly, I don´t want to hear or see anything about tango ever again (when Argentinians discover a tourist interest, they tend to go a little overboard), but the neighborhood has been a perfect vacation after our vacation (can one really call it a vacation after the three month mark?) I can barely wait to get back to work and find a kitchen somehow, somewhere so I can cook myself a pot of grits. Polenta just doesn´t cut it.

witness the tragic death of my hiking shoes
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232563200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232563200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232563200/tpod.html Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:16:21 -0500 Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina

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Rosario, Argentina

Remember when I said Cordoba was hot? I had no idea. For our visit to Rosario, Ernesto "Che" Guevara´s birthplace (yeah, they´re making a movie), we even coughed up the extra dough for a real hotel with air conditioning. Sort of. Not really. More like an aluminum box with "The Conqueror" written on the side of it that conquered nothing save my nerves by it´s refusal to put out anything but a half-hearted, lukewarm jet of air. Still, I shudder to think how we would have fared without even the wanna-be-climate-control. Rosario, despite the unpleasant climate (nothing compared to what we´ll be dealing with in Buenos Aires) is quite the charming place. The third largest city in Argentina also boasts incredibly preserved buildings, especially from the nineteenth century commerce boom. This region in general is perfect for architecture nerds, given the average age of settlements (most from mid-sixteenth to late seventeenth centuries) and the paucity of earthquake-related-destruction when compared with western Argentina and Chile. The Paraná River(Guarani for "big as the sea", not to be confused with pirahna) cradles Rosario on the eastern side and continues through the region all the way past Paraguay to Brazil, making it the second biggest river in South America. The riverside, though hardly picturesque (it´s big and muddy, and that´s about it) makes for pleasant walking (once you forget the temperature) and must be good fishing, judging by the ubiquitous poles in the water. The Argentinian flag was raised for the first time here in Rosario by the Manuel Belgrano, the flag´s designer, and the namesake of at least one street in every single city we´ve visited in Argentina. The monument dedicated to this historical event is easily the most impressive we´ve seen in Argentina, if not the most original (borrows heavily from the Washington monument/reflecting pool/lincoln memorial complex in D.C., which predates it by 100 years.)
Rosario is also cheap, which we gratefully took advantage of (our bank accounts are steadily winding down along with the trip) by staying and sweating for a few days.

they even named an asteroid after it
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232385540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232385540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232385540/tpod.html Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:35:15 -0500 Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina

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Cordoba, Central Argentina, Argentina

Despite wikipedia´s claims to the contrary, Cordoba is HOT. Despite what Americans from the north and western parts may say, I find arid, dry heat quite similar to the feeling of suffocation, and would prefer the good ole southern 95% humidity index any day.
That said, it seems only appropriate that we be exploring the hot bed of Argentinian independence during our own presidential inauguration. Cordoba was the original capital of the republic, the second city in Argentina (founded 1573), and is the home of the oldest and most prestigious schools in the country. Think of it as an Argentinian version of Boston or maybe Williamsburg. It´s also the second biggest city in Argentina, at 1.5 million people, give or take, and I have to say it still feels strange walking around a packed, teeming city after spending two months in the vast emptiness of patagonia. Too bad it´s 95 in the shade, because the historical buildings would be enough to keep me here a couple more days otherwise.
oh yeah, that schools I mentioned? 450 years old and they´re still holding classes
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232038500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232038500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1232038500/tpod.html Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:22:08 -0500 Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina

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Mendoza, Argentina

Our very last border crossing. In the past we dreaded them, now we´re experts on which agricultural products may be transported between these two grumpy (with each other) nations who share thousands of kilometers of frontier with each other. For the record, dried mushrooms, ok. Pasteurized cheese, technically ok, but quite likely to make your customs official jumpy. Apples, absolutely not under no circumstances unless you want to go to fruit prison.
In Mendoza, we jumped between a record three different accomadations before we found one bearable. I highly recommend pounding the pavement for an hour or two in Mendoza before you book anything, fellow traveller. A shame we had so much trouble getting settled, I´d rather have been exploring the incredibly fertile (due to irrigation systems) and pastoral landscape surrounding the city proper.
This is unequivocally a Meditteranean climate, searing heat from ten to ten, tempered by pleasant, if sandy winds, with a scant trickle of rain. Otherwise known as grape and olive weather. Mendoza does a bang-up job of growing them both in spades, and it´s quite easy to imagine yourself in Sicily while you´re walking along a deserted, dusty country road with grapevines and olive trees as far as you can see. The suburbs around Mendoza are infested with wineries, so we just took a city bus out to Maipu (a particularly vineyard-intensive area) and walked from old-fashioned family operated farm to multinational exporter. Enterprising businessmen in Maipu have started up a tour-the-wineries-on-a-bicycle racket, but after seeing the other tourists struggling on their sorry beach cruiser style bikes, I´d say your feet are a more comfortable, if slightly slower, option. Even if you´re not into wine, any worthwhile impressionist painter could have a ball out here.
olive oil too, they have everything down here
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1231788240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1231788240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1231788240/tpod.html Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:49:53 -0500 Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina

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Valparaiso, Chile

Valparaiso, officially our last stop in Chile before we return (unless our bus to Argentina breaks down tomorrow morning), has to be seen to be believed. Pablo Neruda, one of Chile´s most decorated native sons, (Nobel Laureate in Poetry) reportedly called Valparaiso "an absurdity of a city", and I have to say I agree. The old town has a dilapidated charm similar to many city centers in Chile, with precise city blocks named for naval heroes, ancient financial buildings that now house shoestores and internet cafés (like the one I´m typing this in), and smartly dressed business people keeping the commerce running. But then, there´s the cerros (hills). Once away from downtown, a maze of staircases and hills awaits you, with houses piled higgledy piggledy on top of one another, shanty town style. To call these staircases steep does them injustice, I´d have to say that they´re Escheresque, maybe. If you don´t feel up to climbing the stairs, try taking the 100+ year old ascensors (jerry-rigged elevators) that resemble small, rattle-trap cattle cars. It´s a little difficult to describe. The only way I can think to explain it to one who hasn´t clapped eyes on it is to imagine that a grand victorian port town (which it was) was in a horrible earthquake (it´s been in several), but was thereafter cut off from all supplies or any other human contact, and was forced to rebuild itself to it´s former grandeur from all the broken pieces, sometimes sucessfully, sometimes failing miserably.
All this mess makes for an incredible city to walk around in. That´s pretty much what we´ve been doing here for two days, just walking around, and I feel as though I´ve only scratched the surface. Streets in the hills either don´t even have names, or change them every block. Seldom linear, most of these paths (calling them streets is sometimes too generous) snake along the ridgelines of several hills, doubling back on themselves and ending in peoples´ living rooms. I pity the stalwart mailman who has to traipse along these endless staircases and climb into ditches. If ever there were a perfect place to hide, it´d be Valparaiso. I doubt you could live here 80 years and have more than a cursory knowledge of the street plans (I guess you can´t really call them plans). Walking along the back streets here gives you the distinct feeling that secret societies lurk behind every cryptic street sign and decrepit doorway. It´s trashy, creepy, beautiful, depressing, and by far my favorite city in South America. The guidebooks just call it "bohemian". Hmmph.
have a look for yourself.
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Santiago, Chile

We´ve gotten some pretty good advice from various characters during our travels, but I´m glad we didn´t listen to everyone who told us not to fool with Santiago. People from here told us not to go at all, other tourists said we didn´t need to spend more than a day on it, and even now that we´re here, touristy types are mighty scarce. What gives though? Santiago´s been incredible thus far, if you´re a dramatic type, it´s thoroughly infested with theatres and performing arts schools, the architecture is all ornate (but at times a bit tacky) art deco or victorian-era french revival, and the people are just the right balance of conscientiously helpful and big-city-I-don´t-care-who-you-are-or-why-you´re-here. After tourist-infested Patagonia, Santiago is quite refreshing, but boy is it hot, and crossing the wide streets can be rather perilous at times. We like it here, anyway.
Here a few shots from day 1 and 2, I´ll post more when we get more, so check back.

seriously hot down here
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Valdivia, Lake District, Chile

Okay, really, it was walnut, but I was blown away how similar the recipe was. They also have watermelon down here, and some of the most beautiful hydrangeas I´ve ever seen (Nathan never wants to hear about them again at this point.) All these random slices of the south pop up in Central Chile, partly because of the similar climate (i.e. HOT, minus the tornadoes, substitute earthquakes) I guess.
Valdivia is a pleasant college town nestled on a river, filled with parks and good stuff to eat. All the museums were closed when we went there, but the fish market was open, selling entire smoked salmons for absurdly low prices, as well as all manner of homemade Chilean herbal remedies.
Like many cities in this area, Valdivia was abandoned during the Mapuche native uprising in 1599, and wasn´t reincorporated into Chile until the nineteenth century, remaining a remote frontier town for much of this time. Germans flooded into the area in the late 1800´s, leaving behind a legacy of delicious pies (maybe they have pecan pie over there too), pastries, beer, and sausages, of course. We liked it here despite there not being much to do except explore the parks.
After Valdivia, we headed to Los Ángeles, where we really should have just stayed on the bus and gone ahead to Santiago. ´Nuff said.
the hanging things are ropes of dried mussels
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1231190580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1231190580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1231190580/tpod.html Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:48:55 -0500 Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina

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Temuco, Lake District, Chile

Always nice to be back in Chile again after spending some time in Argentina (the reverse is true of course.) Our time in Patagonia was wonderful, wouldn´t trade it for the world, but I have to say it´s nice being city slickers again. Temuco, large (227,000) but unimposing (some of the nicest folks we´ve met in awhile), is one of the main market towns for the Chilean lake district, and also a center for the few surviving members of the Mapuche (last we read, about 14% of the population here.) While there are certainly beaucoups of department stores, a truly bizaare sight to us after being in Patagonia for 2 months, and a handful of old-school open air markets, there´s not much Mapuche trading going on apart from a few elderly ladies selling vegetables on the side of the street. Speaking of those, the produce down here is unreal. The Lakes District and Central Valley of Chile are some of the most fertile areas in the world (just check the label of any processed fruit or vegetable product, and I bet you´ll see some indication of Chilean origin), producing incredible grapes, olives, plums, peaches, raspberries, cherries, tomatoes, avocados, ENORMOUS (like the size of my calves) corn, lettuces, walnuts, hazelnuts, peanuts, almonds, zucchini, you get the idea. Pretty much everything except broccoli. And spinach. And a few more of my favorite veggies, but I was planning not to complain in this entry.
The markets here are always an unforgettable experience, especially when you count up your goodies at the end of the day and realize you spent less than you would at McDonalds´ in the states. We scored some homemade cheese, got a free head of lettuce for reasons I still don´t understand, got a king´s ransom (I´d say at least 20 bucks) in cherries for nothing, and bought some streetside sopapillas (here, they´re rich fried dough served with hot sauce, bearing no resemblance to their mexican cousins) for about a nickel a piece.

All this cheap bliss quickly disappears when you eat in a restaurant, however. A small order of fries runs about 3 bucks, a small pizza (enough for two barely hungry people) about 8 dollars, bottled water 2 dollars, you get the idea, U.S. prices. So we try to stick to the market and make sandwiches in our room.

Remember those department stores I mentioned? All crammed slap full of people who shop like they´re going to war. Two for one sales were on in earnest, (the aforementioned liquidacion) and I tried to run with the big shopping dogs to replace one of the rags I´ve been wearing for nearly six months now. I´m not really cut out for it, and came out empty-handed, but I´m sure some of you listeners at home could have really cleaned up.

Here´s a few shots of the city: look out for cool statue, erected to commemerate Chile reaching peace with the Mapuche natives after 200+ years of war, as well as bonus hotel room shots!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1231186140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1231186140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/nathan.frisch/1/1231186140/tpod.html Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:28:03 -0500 Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina

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Junin de los Andes, Patagonia, Argentina

It´s taken us nearly our entire trip down here to develop various little cheapskate schemes to cheat worthy independent capitalists out of our money. After arriving at 1 AM in a decidedly yuppie resort town (a practice I don´t recommend) to find NO affordable accomodation, and ponying up the painful equivalent of 55 US dollars for a hotel room (whoa mama, that hurt) we were feeling a little discouraged on the finance front, but got back on track by spending our sunday at a campground in the more affordable burg down the street. By the way, the smell of an Argentinian campground on Sunday has to rival the most venerated US smokehouses. Literally every campsite has a spit and a grill, both of which are certainly put to good use. Every type and piece of animal is being charred, roasted, grilled, smoked, basted, and of course, greedily consumed (Argentines must eat roughly twice their weight in charred meat, like a mountain lion, every day to survive), at any given time. After all that, we had a fruit salad for dinner. It´s a little much sometimes.
We found a cheap international bus that would take us through 1, 2, 3 National parks, both in Chile and Argentina, as well as over one of the more scenic and tranquil border crossings of the Andes for a fraction of the price a tour group would charge us. We wanted to get back into Chile anyway, so despite the 6AM departure time (lemme take a second and tell you that, in the movies, when they say stuff like "we break camp at dawn" or "we move out at first light" its no joke. those guys are tough) we said sign us up and were at the bus station, bright eyed, bushy tailed, and ready to go. Easily one of the most pleasant bus rides we´ve ever had, complete with lakes, volcanoes, crazy araucaria trees(the ones that look like pine umbrellas), landing us in Temuco, one of the largest cities in Chile outside of Santiago. Check out the pictures (taken out of the side of the bus)lazy man´s trekking

oops, try the link again if it didn´t work for you, i fixed it. disculpe para moleste.
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