Some Pictures

Here are a couple of photos from the past week since we left Bariloche. We spent three days in Mendoza and then took a bus up into the mountains to stay in Uspallata from which it is possible to hike and visit Aconcagua Provincial Park....

(Valle Encantado from the bus leaving Bariloche)

(Kate at the Thermal Spa outside of Mendoza. We also went wine/olive tasting)

(Snack Bar at Puente Del Inca where we waited for the bus back to Uspallata)

(Apparently Aconcagua is right behind me...also note my hair. It was very windy.)

(Puente Del Inca - Inca Bridge - a natural bridge that was part of the Inca Trail. It looked much

crazier in real life)

(Puente Del Inca)

(View walking down from Aconcagua Provincial Park looking at Puente Del Inca)

(Walking the 4 miles back to the hostel from Uspallata)

Piedras Blancas y Milanesa

The sun has returned to Bariloche, well at least it had for the past week and a half or so and thus we summarily tried to take full advantage of the surroundings, though now it hides once again behind a thick layer of gray cloud cover and I'm back on the computer. It is partially because of this change that there's been no update to the blog for some time but I'll blame most of it on the internet being down at our old hostel. That is honestly the reason why more pictures never went up and so I both apologize and will try to get them up a little later on today. One day it was working and then the next it stopped forever, at least for our computer.

As insinuated above, we've been very busy these past couple of weeks both with Spanish school as well as hiking and climbing in the areas around Bariloche. I learned about a climbing area a few weeks ago that we could walk to straight from town and so after buying a small guidebook to the area, we ventured up to check it out. It's kind of a hike as it involves about a thousand feet of gain/descent and 8 miles of walking roundtrip, though it's definitely worth the effort and we've had a lot of good days there. The style of climbing suits us well, for the most part being granite slabs with decent though not unnecessary protection in a range of grades from easy to difficult. It's more of a local crag than a destination so to speak, though that has been perfect for our days after school when we can't actually get going until 1pm. We're still going to the gym as well and have gotten to know some of the local climbers there who've been helpful in telling us about different areas in the region. It actually works pretty well because most of them like to practice there English while I like to work on my Spanish so we just speak in the other's language and eventually manage to figure out what is going on. Next week we'll be leaving Bariloche and heading North where we hope to visit some of the famous climbing areas in Cordoba for a few weeks so we should be pretty well prepared.

Yesterday we finally managed to haul ourselves up to Refugio Frey, a mountain refuge situated six miles high in the mountains along a currently frozen lake and surrounded by rocky spires of burnt orange granite. We'd not planned to climb there on this trip as it is supposed to be impossible this time of year, though yesterday when we got up there we saw two guys working there way up one of the walls closest to the Refuge, likely being one of the first climbs of the season. Everyone seems to talk up the hike to Frey, though we didn't find it too bad and cut the four hour expected ascent time to two hours and thirty five minutes. This was good as that same morning we had checked into our host family for our week long family stay and didn't actually get on the bus to head out to the trail head until around 10. We hung out around the refuge and ate lunch before heading back down, promising that we'll come back to climb someday in the future. Upon returning to Bariloche we had dinner with our "family" who also happen to own a well known restaurant in town so the food was excellent and we had a chance to speak a lot of Spanish outside of the classroom. Thus far it seems like it will have been a good decision to stay with a host family.

Besides climbing and hiking, we've also gotten away from Bariloche to check out a town about two hours South called El Bolson. El Bolson is mostly famous for it's relatively large Hippy population, it's affinity for producing beers (it holds an annual international beer festival in February), and the weekly crafts market on Saturday. We went on Saturday and spent the majority of the day wandering around browsing the many stalls and sampling various delicious foods and beers from the seemingly endless number of local microbreweries who had set up shop in the market. One particularly awesome snack was the Milanesa sandwich, an Argentine speciality, which can come in many forms though in it's most common, and that which I found myself chowing down on, fried veal schnitzel with lettuce, hot chili sauce, garlic sauce and tomato. It was delicious....

(eating milanesa and thus making new friends in El Bolson)

(Kate at Piedras Blancas)

(At Frey)

(Climbing at Piedras Blancas)

November 2nd Update

So I guess it's about time for another update from rainy, stormy, and occasionally blissfully beautiful and sunny Bariloche. I'd guess it's pretty apparent from that introduction, but the weather has continued in more or less the same vein since my last posting. We've had a few nice days that we've luckily been able to take advantage of by going hiking and climbing but otherwise we've been into playing "inside" games. 


Sometime last week a new friend of ours mentioned that the hostel he was staying at was having an asado (barbecue) and that for the mere price of around ten USD we'd be served a couple of sausages, some other meaty animal parts, and something like three or four steaks in addition to various sides and unlimited wine. Not wanting to miss out on the Argentinean cultural bastion of what is more or less a weekly drunken meat binge, we signed our names on the sheet without hesitation. A puddle of drool was practically already forming at my feet in anticipation of what Friday would bring and sure enough, my expectations were fully met. Things started out nicely with a couple glasses of wine around ten thirty at night and a chorizo sausage in a roll. This was followed by blood sausage, and a tasty little treat familiar to the Irish folk at the table called "sweet breads" (or, thymus/pancreas made into little grilled bits). At this point the first steak was brought out and we commenced with the real business of the night: consuming massive amounts of beef. As the night went on, each progressive steak cut was one better than the last until a culmination of something so bloodily awesome that I still salivate in thinking of it. 


Of course this was all good and fun the night before, but come the next morning not only did we require a fair bit of yerba mate (an herbal infusion that the people here drink at all times in all situations with an obsessive mania bordering on full blown addiction), but the very thought of a single bite of steak made me cringe in revulsion. I think I even told Kate at one point that I wanted to subsist fully on raw vegetables and fruit for the day (anyone who knows me can attest that this is a sign of something gravely wrong) and I seriously began to wonder if eating over one and a half pounds of meat in a sitting might have some sort of overdose effect (yeah, yeah, I do realize that it does in fact, and whose sweet name is triple bypass, though apparently all the bases are covered as the yerba mate thins the blood and the red wine does something good too...).


The next night we planned to attend a Halloween party and thus spent the day running errands around town in a sort of meat induced coma and trying to put together some sort of outfit that could be vaguely called a costume. This night though we vowed to go in early as Sunday was forecast to be sunny, clear and perfect for climbing. We went as something that was called a mix between Rambo/Bulgarian Trucker/Myself in Ten Years. In a show of great success we managed to get back early by around one and up in time the next morning for the hour walk or so up to Piedras Blancas, a stretch of white granite towers situated on a hillside overlooking the city. The day was great and we had a nice time finally being able to climb outside. It's supposed to be sunny again later this week so hopefully that will be the case and we can go out again. 


Our daily efforts at Spanish continue on and some audible progress seems to be occurring from both of us. Not that either of us are analyzing Márquez in his native tongue yet, though perhaps with a little more time...


Some pictures will be added later but we're both tired and must be up early tomorrow as usual for running (outside now!) and class.