Backpacking South America

One of the amazing things we’ve encountered throughout our journey is the hospitality of Argentines. Whether it’s a free ride, tips and advice, dinners or even free nights in an apartment, we’ve been spoiled by the generosity of this country.

One such example was our recent stopover in Rosario. While in Mendoza, we met Alejandro and Andrea. After talking to them for a while, they offered us a room in their apartment if we ever passed through Rosario. A few weeks later, they dropped us an email reaffirming their offer. They weren’t just being nice, they actually were nice.

So, on our way back to Buenos Aires, we made a stop in Rosario, which wasn’t in our original itinerary, but how could we refuse?

Rosario is the second largest city in Argentina, but is overshadowed by Buenos Aires, a quick 4 hour bus ride away. However, the peace of the city cannot be overstated. With wide walkways through town and along the river, lots of green space and an impressive plaza – Rosario was the calm before the storm that is Buenos Aires.

Our friends Alejandro and Andrea were very gracious and opened their apartment to us, giving us our own room.

While in Cordoba for a short layover, we decided to take a day trip to the nearby (1.5 hour bus ride) Villa Belgrano – a town founded in the 1920’s by some entrepreneurial Germans.  My main interest in visiting the town was to find some good microbrews in Argentina.

As soon as we pulled into town, it was clear that we had arrived at our destination.  The homes and businesses were all built in the alpine tudor style.  Of all the towns built to resemble a foreign place, Villa Belgrano seemed to do it with at least some tact.  While not feeling totally natural, it also didn’t feel overly contrived.   Sure, Main Street survives on tourists, but it didn’t feel hokey.  The only knock was that it was hard to find what I felt was a traditional German sausage…

After casually browsing the city, we grabbed a bite to eat and decided to climb a nearby hill/mountain while the town slipped into the afternoon siesta.  It was an enjoyable hike, but we were a bit amazed by the decision to have the trail go straight up the face of the first hill.  Once on the hill, we walked along the crest to the top of Cerro de la Virgen.

Life is full of new experiences, especially when traveling in a different country.  Usually you should allot twice as much time to get anywhere and anticipate spending twice as much on just about everything, including mail.

Ok, so the post office isn’t a daily venture for me in “real life.”  The mail COMES to my house; I can BUY stamps from a machine; and I usually don’t MAIL things because the things I would MAIL, I would MAIL to the people I SEE.

But, in this life of travel, at times we have come across a few things we really like and would like to buy either for ourselves or for someone else.  However, we’re traveling with only ONE backpack each, so, “think small” – the things we would like to buy need to be small.  Well, over time, we’ve accumulated a few SMALL things.  We off-loaded a few with our friends in Salta, but accumulated a few more items that were impossible to continue to carry with us.  No, it’s not wine, however, I keep telling Jared those bottles really aren’t that big (but when thinking SMALL, we also need to consider weight).  It’s tricky.

After our long, restful week (9 days) in Cafayate, it was time to move on.  The five of us (four adults and one very grown up 4 year old) hopped into a cab heading to Salta.   These were our last 3 hours together with our new friends.   I suppose that since we survived such a journey it goes to show that this friendship could last a long time.  After arriving at the Salta terminal, we parted ways as they were heading west to Chile and we were looking to go east.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to catch the bus out of town the same day and we had to wait until the following afternoon.  So we were stuck in Salta for one night.  I say stuck in Salta because, well, “been there, done that.”  At this point, we were ready to move on to some place new.

Surving The Heat

After a nice, long 23-hour bus ride, we finally arrived in the hot and humid Puerto Iguazu!  We went from a dry, hot climate to a HOT and HUMID climate.  It was atrocious!  It really was nearly unbearable.  (I think sweatbands could possibly be fashionable in this neck of the woods, at least they would be practical.)  We found a hostel with air-conditioning, but they didn’t have availability at their place for the first night.  But they arranged for us to stay with a senora across the street; fan only.  My theory was that if you walked slow or just sat still the humidity (and the mosquitoes) wouldn’t be so bothersome.  So the next morning we woke up early, moved our things back to the hostel to our new room with air-conditioning and headed to the Falls.

Every good plan has it’s setbacks.  Everyday can’t be just “hoops and glitter.”

We have been traveling for about three months now.  For the first two and half months we didn’t have any mishaps, setbacks or unexpected challenges.  Then November arrived and our luck changed.  We never anticipated getting through this trip scot free, but the succession of mishaps this month is fairly discouraging.  First, our iPods started to fritz out, then we forgot some items at a hostel (pocket knife and wine key).  However, the deepest cut was when we lost our CAMERA (or it was taken from our bag on the bus).  November has not been kind to us.

The good news:  nobody was hurt, we still like each other and cameras are replaceable.  Life is full of tragedies, but if our greatest tragedy in this life of travel is losing our camera, then I think we’ll come out on top.

I guess what all this really means is that for the time being, we have to become better writers since we won’t have many pictures for you.  Bear with us as we learn to paint a picture with words.  But please have mercy on us; it’s a work in progress.