Pinguinos.

I´m writing from the edges of Patagonia, in a port town called Puerto Madryn. It was founded by Welsh settlers and apparently you can still find some Welsh people in town, but I haven´t been here long enough to see any. There are other towns nearby that are full of Welsh people and their teahouses, but I haven´t been able to make it there.
But I have been seeing marine life! Patagonia is a totally barren landscape, really dry and it´s so windy that trees don´t have the opportunity to grow. It reminds me a lot of parts of the Californian desert. Most of the colors are the same -- burnt yellow, dead green, dusty red. I came to Puerto Madryn to see two things, the Peninsula Valdes, which is a marine life reserve, and Punto Tombo, which has the largst penguin colony outside of Antartica.
I had met a German guy on my bus from El Bolson and we decided to rent a car for two days and drive to the reserves ourselves instead of joining the overpriced tour groups. What a great idea. Yesterday we spent the entire day driving the complete nothingness of Peninsula Valdes, going from point to point to check out elephant seals, sea lions, penguins, guanacos and more. The penguins were my favorite of course, and they were close enough to touch. Really amazing animals.
But the end of the day was the best part for me. Near the neck of the peninsula is Isla de los Pajaros, a tiny island that inspired The Little Prince author to include it in his book. If any of you have read it, you´ll remember the drawing in the beginning, in which the author draws a funny shape and asks the Little Prince what it looks like. Someone says it looks like a boa constrictor that swallowed an elephant, and this island is exactly what it looks like. We just happened to be hitting that island right when the sun was setting and my god, what a magnificent sight. I have never seen the sky so beautiful. Surrounded by nothing and no one else for miles and miles -- it really put me in a weak moment. The sky became a mix of colors that Ive never seen before. I was so happy for those five minutes, really felt that pure feeling.
The day before that I was in El Bolson, a hippie town if there ever was one in Argentina. I stayed at a hostel that also doubled as a camping ground in a very lush setting, surrounded by towering mountains and hills. I went on a five hour hike solo and saw waterfalls, a rock outcrop that looks like a man´s profile and ate wild berries all along the trail. I did have a scare in the end, in which I took a shortcut back down to the bottom, but it ended being a trail not so traveled on and i almost got lost. It was scary. The trail went along the edge and at the bottom was a cemetery. So all I could think of was that if I slipped, I would fall X feet and land dead on someone´s grave. I eventually did get down to the bottom and tried to hitchhike my 2 km back into town but no one would stop. I was a little insulted, because I hear it´s easy for girl hitchhikers to get picked up. Not that I would ever do it long distance, so stop freaking out, guys! God, I hope Ma´s not reading this part. I ended up walking back into town with a 17 year old kid from Rosario, 30 km away, who was trying to hitchhike his way home with no luck. Somehow we were able to have a pretty funny conversation despite not speaking each others´ language. That aspect of communication never ceases to amaze me.

By the lakeside.

I survived the 19-hour bus ride. Chalk it up to a nicer bus and a seat that went farther back than the one I had on the way to Mendoza. My throat´s acting up again because of the constant change of temperature but I am hoping all the chocolate I´ve been eating since arriving in Bariloche will coat it real good!
Bariloche is a small touristy town on the shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi, which is in the Lake District of Argentina, bordering Chile. There are dozens of lakes in this area. I´ve come here for the trekking, albeit just day hikes as opposed to all-out camping adventures. You guys know me and my fear of plants and bugs (and I guess nature in general), which I am trying to overcome with this trip. Anyway, the place really reminds me of Park City, Utah, because of the small streets and hip feel. It´s surrounded by mountains and the scenery is enough to keep you here for awhile. This is the first place I´ve seen so many surf shops carrying all the American brands we know, such as Roxy, Rip Curl and so on. There are dozens of chocolate and ice cream shops here. I´ve already gorged myself on a bag full of truffles and will be hitting the tiendas again tomorrow. Dianne, I really wish you were here to experience this with me!
I was happy to get off the bus this afternoon. Around 9 am an older couple had hopped on board and sat in the two seats next to mine. They wouldn´t stop making out. It was a criminal case of PDA, worthy of some hard prison labor time. What was really bad about it was that a lot of the great scenery happened to pass on their side of the bus, so when I wanted to check it out through their window, I had to turn their way. How do you handle this type of situation?
My previous day in Mendoza had been pretty relaxed, until boarding time, which I´ll explain in a sec. I hung out all day with a Swedish girl from Stockholm who was going to take a bus around the same time later that evening. On the way to the city´s lush park, we passed through Plaza Independencia, the main square of Mendoza where people hang out and where events are held. We were almost at the middle when I felt a hand on my right buttock. I turned quickly, expecting that someone had run into me by accident. At first I didn´t see anyone but in that split second I also saw a flash of a midget-type person running away. Turns out the culprit of the blatant ass-feel was a shirtless, precocious 8 or 9 year old boy! So now I can´t figure out if he had actually tried to pickpocket me or really grab my butt. Goes to show how quickly you can get mugged though. I almost went after him to give him a slap on the face, but the brat was way too quick for me.
So onto the bus incident that could have turned out badly and cost me a stranded night in Mendoza. It´s a classic demonstration of what happens when you go to a country in which you don´t speak the language. The long and short of it was that I came about 1 minute close to missing my bus ride because the platform the bus was arriving at had changed. I couldn´t understand anything the bus company employees were telling me. Este autobus es tarde? The bus is late? Blah blah blah was what I heard as the response. Finally I walked out and went down the row of buses until I found the bus itself rather than its platform number. As soon as I dropped off my luggage and sat down, the two-story machine on wheels took off. Whew.
I am heading to dinner soon with a girl from SF I met when I got here. So far, it´s been a rare thing that I´m alone, so everyone stop worrying!
Also, on a side note, the steaks here are as good as you hear. I´m pretty picky with my meat and usually stick to filet mignon, but I had an excellent lomo yesterday which I found out from my dictionary to mean the back of the cow. Not sure what that is in plain English. The sirloin cuts, bife de chorizo, are just as good and tender. So someone, what exactly is the lomo cut of beef?

Wine country.

This is going to be a short post. I´m so pooped I can´t even write. Took a 14 hour bus ride to Mendoza, and then upon arriving I took a taxi across the street because I couldn´t figure out to get out of the bus station. Then went and found a hostel and booked myself immediately on a very decent and educational wine tour, got drunk by noon and then sweated it out for the rest of the afternoon in Mendoza. Saw the craziest thunderstorm rage a few hours later. The wide boulevards of Mendoza were flooded and the trees swaying sideways.
I´m getting back on the bus tomorrow, this time for 19 hours, to Bariloche in the Lake District to partake in all that their chocolate shops have to offer me. I need to escape this heat.
But my skin looks great!

Buy yourself a mausoleum.

Whew. I am operating on about 1 hour of sleep. Yesterday night (or more accurately, this morning), I went out with my dorm-room mates, three guys. Before you beyatches go writing to me about this, do know that it is totally platonic and there is no amorous attraction between any of us. Two are from the States and the other guy is a Frenchie who speaks perfect English. Anyway, disclaimer aside, we went out at 1 a.m. in Palermo Hollywood for drinks and to try to gain entry into a bar-club where transvestites put on a notorious show every Thursday. The line for entrada was down the block, totally incredible. There was no possible way we{d get in. We ended up at a nearby bar where we found a mixed drink on the menu that had eggs as one of the ingredients. Sadly, we were all too chicken -- haha, sorry -- to try it until it was too late. Then it was off to another bar, a venue ringing of L.A. with lots of hot Argentinean girls and fauxhawked guys shaking their ample booties to house. I didn{t get too drunk, which was a good thing, and it probably helped that I had my glasses on because that usually deters me from going all-out crazy. Youve never seen a nerd laying outside a bar in the gutter, right? I wasn{t going to be the first one. We all bonded, etc. and now we are friends for life of course, just like what happens when travelers meet fellow travelers.
Today the three of us went to Recoleta, a super swanky part of town that{s not really any different than Beverly Hills. The wide boulevards -- in some parts 10 lanes deep -- reminded me of Wilshire. There was a swath of people walking their tiny kick-me dogs on the sidewalk past Mercedes-Benz dealerships. It was a little surreal after experiencing what the rest of Buenos Aires is like for the past few days. After what seemed like an eternity, we got to the MALBA, the equivalent of the MOCA. I was quite happy with the collection. Its a sad thing that so many Argentinean contemporary artists havent really broken outside of the country. Check out Berni, for instance. His mixed-media stuff is insane.
Then it was on to the Recoleta Cemetery. If only I could show you the photos! This is the graveyard where all the rich Argentineans are buried, such as Eva Peron and a hootenany of other historical figures I don{t know anything about. The entire place is one mausoleum after another. Wander in just past a few rows and suddently it{s you feel like you{re in a mini city, albeit dead. There are also feral cats everywhere, resting on stoops, so the image of a real town is there.
So tomorrow I check out and have to catch the 14-hour overnight bus at 6 pm to Mendoza, which is in the heart of Argentinean wine country. My one hour of sleep comes from getting home late, then being kept awake by how hot the room was because of the humidity, and on top of all that, listening to one of the guys snore like a cow with a cold. A few hours ago the weather changed suddenly, to windy and cool, so I{m expecting a good konk-out in a few hours.
Overall, BA is a great city. I think I{m too overwhelmed to enjoy it all yet but its slowly coming to me bit by bit. I love the cheap prices, the people and the overriding European feel it has. There{s enough character and characters here to rival Disney{s...

I dont heart sweat.

Whenever I go to a new country, I have to relearn how to use the keyboard because the local keys have accents that we dont use in place of the ones we are used to. For example, in place of the apostrophe key I get an open bracket. So expect a ton of weird punctuation marks buried within my future posts and e-mails.
Onto today. I gotta say, sometimes not speaking the local language works out in the positive. This afternoon I walked down Calle Florida, a very long pedestrian street of shops and restaurants in the center of town, and looked for sunglasses because I forgot mine at home. I went into a store and tried a few on. As expected, because I have slippy fingers, I dropped a pair. One of the lenses popped out and the sales clerk ran over and yanked it from me. Five minutes later, I get a tap on my shoulder. He proceeds to tell me something that I dont understand. He uses gestures, points to the glasses, points to the lens that now looks like a sad, unattached appendage and keeps talking. No entiendo, lo siento. Finally after about 5 minutes I figure out hes telling me I have to buy the glasses because I broke them. Even for $5, which was what they were selling for, I was not going to put out. I tried to explain to him that the glasses were defective anyway, why would a good pair of glasses have lenses that pop out if you just dropped them once? This did not go over well. He had no idea what I was saying. After another 5 minutes of bewilderment, he gave up and put the glasses away. I bought another pair of glasses from the store and offered 20 pesos instead of the selling price of 15, but they declined. So was I in the wrong? Probably. Stupido Americano, Im sure they said.
Buenos Aires is something like this so far: Take a bunch of the most diverse-looking people, drop them into one city and turn on the heat. The women are gorgeous, the men are similarly good-looking. The city reminds me a little of Barcelona and Rome put together, because of the particular mix of old and new. Today I walked through the tango heart of BA, San Telmo, and had a great US$4 meal that included chicken with rice and a drink. Im about to head to dinner now and expect to find a whole set meal for under US$6. I also did a few touristy things that are far too common to write about and moreover uneventful, so Ill save you from boring tourist reports.
I am finally cooling down. It was something like 30 degrees Celsius at noon with lots of humidity. I cant figure out why Im always the only one who looks like I stuck my face in my sweaty armpit while everyone else is instead simply radiating from the heat. If my clothes didnt already give it away that Im a tourist, the amount of sweat coming from my pores is enough. And the mosquito bites. I got bit about 8 times yesterday night. So Im starting the garlic pill regimen tonight and will let you know if it works.
I cant believe Im here for five months. My initial trepidation is melting away and the more I talk to fellow travelers about their journeys so far, the more excited I am getting. All of the travelers Ive met so far are solo. Its comforting to know that so many people are traveling independently.