Alta Gracia / Cordoba

In order to break up the long trip north to Iguazu Falls, we decided to stop off at the quaint town of Alta Gracia.  Alta Gracia is famous for being the home of Che Guevara from 1932 to 1944.  His parents brought him to Alta Gracia (High Grace) because they hoped the dry and clean air would help with his asthma, which he suffered from throughout his life.  At 16, Che left Alta Gracia for Buenos Aires to pursue his education as a physician.

Che's house has since been converted into a museum, where we were able to spend the day.

If you've never had the chance to watch the movie "Motorcycle Diaries", I highly recommend it.  It's about the early life of Che, where he takes the above pictured motorcycle across South America to find himself, going into adulthood.  Beautiful move!

It's interesting that many of our most celebrated human rights activists have had a rather unfortunate histories with the CIA.  The late Nelson Mandela was visiting his home in South Africa, when CIA informed the local government his whereabouts, allowing them to imprison him for 27 years, starting in 1962!  Che met his end in Bolivia, where again, the CIA informed the local government of his whereabouts, leading to his capture and execution!  Throughout South America, Che is still celebrated as a hero - one that fought for a free and united people.

On a totally unrelated topic, check out this bimbo!

Other than the Che museum, there wasn't a whole lot of things to do in Alta Gracia, other than to take in the local beauty (like this drunken donkey).  This is where Lydia and I first learned about the Argentine "siesta" time.  Lydia and I walked around the downtown core at around mid day on a week day, and found that the place was a ghost town.  There wasn't a person or open shop in sight.  What we later learned is that the Argentinians have a much different work schedule than what we keep at home.  They will typically wake up when they wake up; make it to their business at around 9ish, work for a couple of hours; close shop and go home for a few hours to spend with their family; go back to the shop for 'a couple' more hours of work; close the shop when they feel like it, and then drink into the wee hours of the morning.  I couldn't understand why they had a recent economic crisis!  It's definitely the place to be if you want to chillaxe for the rest of your life!  It makes shopping a little difficult though :)

Alta Gracia was also the home of multiple beautiful parks, with really cool old-school playground equipment.

Lydia and I didn't miss the opportunity to spend the day riding horses, meeting the local natives, and fighting octopi!

We also found a vintage public water slide, which we raced toy ducks down!  I won!

We also met a young Forest Gump at play!

Throughout the park, there were lots of grazing horses and ponies, which really added to the experience!

Never seen this kind of horse before!

After a night or two in Alta Gracia, we stayed the night in Cordoba (a major city), before heading off on the final leg to Iguazu.  I can't really say too much about Cordoba, other than it was our first experience seeing copious rent-by-the-hour motels, and that it was the first time we experienced our favourite wine, Tomero - a Malbec from Mendoza.  Soooooo good (even when drank from a plastic cup in a rent-by-the-hour motel)!!!!!

Finally, Cordoba was also our first experience with public street tango!  So beautiful!

Mendoza

I apologize profusely for the 3 year delay; however, since coming back from South America, we've been too busy with things like getting married, moving to Calgary, starting new jobs, buying our first house, traveling to Hawaii and Thailand to see Nigel and Emily marry Yoko and Mick (respectively), etc.  That being said, we were never able to finish the blog (we ended up being virtually stuck in Santiago - not such a bad place).  As it turns out, 3 years later, I finally have some time to myself to finish our South America blog.  Yes, some of the memories might be a little hazy, but I'll do my best to remember the end of our trip.  And so, without further ado - Mendoza

Mendoza was, in my opinion, the most beautiful city of our travels.  It's about the size of Victoria, filled with friendly people and amazing parks, and oh yes, it just so happens to be the wine capitol of Argentina!!!  Not a bad place to setup shop for a while!

Wherever you find yourself in Mendoza, you'll likely be a stone's throw away from a beautiful green space.  One of the first things that I did on the trip was rent a bike and tour around the area with a new found friend Lauren (who we met on the long and winding bus ride from Santiago).

On that bike ride, we saw countless lakes, bridges, fountains, and statues.

While Lauren and I peddled away, Lydia stayed behind to play with her new friends (that helped themselves into our room through the window).  Not seen here is one of the cutest dogs ever, who followed us around wherever we went.  It was so hard to leave him behind on our last day!

While in Mendoza (home of the best Malbecs in the world), it's mandatory to go on a wine tour.  We ended up going to about 4 different vineyards (of the hundreds in the area), plus a olive oil farm.

At each of the vineyards, we were able to taste an assortment of different wines.  Pictured above are Lydia and I with our friend from California (Lauren) in one of the tasting rooms, with the beautiful oak barrels in the background.  I thought it would be a cool project to turn one of those barrels into a wine rack - maybe that's something I can now take on in my free time!

Always remember to stop and smell the roses!

Another tasting area from the wine tour.

A glimpse into the future - Tyrone and Lydia Austen, after buying their Mendoza vineyard... mmmmmm

With the buzz of the wine tour still strong, our group decided to hit up our first parrilla (ridiculous meat restaurant).  If you like meat, Argentina is THE place to be.  Their breakfast/lunch/dinner consists of meat, with a side of meat, with some meat sprinkled on top!  Not only that, but their steaks are to die for, and the food is cheap!  It's heaven for a carnivore like me!  Above is Lauren pictured next to the parrilla grill, where we stopped for dinner - an all you can eat meatstraviganza for around $15 if I remember correctly.  One of the best meals ever!  

One funny thing about this meal was that we had a large group with us from the wine tour, several of the people were really fun, so we wanted to have a night with them.  Also attending the tour though was the stereotypical obnoxious American tourist (*note, the people that we got along with were also American, so nothing against Americans - it's just that this one was like Eddie from National Lampoons vacation).  So when the friend group tried to leave for our night out, cousin Eddie decided to follow us, and we had a bitch of a time trying to lose him.  We ended up walking around for like an hour and a half until he got tired and went home!  lol

That there is steak with a side of ribs, blood sausage, bacon, and something green so you can pretend it's healthy.  Awllwwwwwllwwwwwww (drool)

Argentina also has a huge art scene (which we found throughout our time there).  Our first major Argentine artistic experience came walking home from our night out, when we stumbled upon this street artist.  Cigarette in one hand, and a can of spray paint in the other, this gaucho, dressed all in black, was incredible to watch.  He brooded to his tango music blasting on the radio, while he free styled his works of art.  No paint brushes, only spray paint and torn phone books were used to produce beautiful landscapes that were trapped in his mind's eye.  We loved him/his work so much that we stayed there and watched him for over an hour, buying 3 different pieces of work (one for us, one for Nigel, and Lauren bought a one or two pieces too)!

Watch and enjoy!  You won't get a more authentic Argentina experience from a video clip!  *Also note that we have a video of him jamming to Bohemian Rhapsody as well!  The guy is the boss!

Here's the final product of the painting he was working on from the video.  This now hangs proudly in our bedroom.

After a few days in Mendoza, we had to move on north, as our travel budget was starting to run low and we still had a lot to see.  In hindsight, I would have loved to spend more time in Mendoza.  Out of all the places we traveled in South America, Mendoza is the one place where I could actually see Lydia and I settling down to.  I can't think of a better place to become an alcoholic - OH the WINE and MEAT!!!!

Santiago

We crossed the Bolivia/Chile border and made our way to San Pedro de Atacama - a little desert town surrounded by arid valleys that bloom into a carpet of bright flowers for a short while after the spring rain. We didn't get to see these flowers, however, as Tyrone was fighting off black-lung symptoms left over from the Potosi mines, which were then exacerbated by the near frostbite from our Salar tour. Also, we weren't there during the blooming season, so the valleys were dry and dusty.

We didn't care much, as we were only making a pit stop on our way down south to Santiago. You see, we had purchased some tickets to see a fast-approaching Paul McCartney concert. After a stop in uneventful Antofagasta (no pictures necessary) and a visit with Amelia at her observatory in the Atacama desert (post to come later), we made it to Santiago... and saw...

Paul McCartney!

He was an amazing and unbelievably energetic performer. He still has pipes... and pipes.

I can see why all the ladies love this Beatle - Sir Paul is also extremely charming. And his acoustic rendition of Blackbird had everyone singing along (which kind of ruined it because we couldn't hear him - but it was a different kind of experience)!

A view from where we stood - amongst 40,000 people or so!

There is so much to do and see in Santiago. This is part of the historic square where we spent a lot of time watching buskers and artists.

The city is full of beautiful statues and sculptures that were gifts from this old King, or that country... This statue/fountain was a gift from Germany. The City disabled the fountain aspect of it, however, because too many children (and drunk adults) were using it as a water park!

There is a little mountain in the middle of Santiago with some beautiful look-outs, and of all things, their zoo.

After walking around all day, we were lazy and took the gondola up to the zoo.

At the entrance, we found a little lemur checking out the city view.

We also found a family of maras...

...a pretty pacing tiger...

...and this jaguar that was surprisingly perky when a baby next to us started to cry. We were almost close enough to see the drool.

Here's a wise baboon showing off his colourful assets.

And here's another baboon posing in front of the late afternoon view. We always found our direction in Santiago based on the tower behind my head - it was modelled to look like a cell phone and sticks out like a dirty thumb (albeit a very architecturally pretty thumb) wherever you are in the city.

Tyrone waited patiently by these flamingos for what seemed like hours to me in order to get the perfect picture. I'm not sure if this was it - but I think it's fierce.

This little guy is doing the Mona Lisa - I don't know if he's smiling or what. But unlike Mona Lisa, he's adorable.

Once I finished contemplating my meerkat friend, I found Tyrone playing peek-a-boo with a polar bear.

One of the first things we noticed about Santiago, other than the smog, was that it has a vibrant arts culture. Everyone paints or makes crafts or dances or sings... And there are markets all over the city showcasing these talents.

We found some of the most beautiful graffiti on random walls all over the city.

And Santiago has some of the best wine in the world! We made it to this beautiful bodega nestled under the Andes (yes, those are mountains in the background, behind the smoggy haze).

We seriously considered eloping at this vineyard ; )

This little guy was a strange fondant dessert with a candle sticking out in a curious fashion... he was supposed to be angelic (what with the wings and halo).

We went on a free walking tour of the city and were joined by these two furry body guards. They introduced us to the concept of the Cafe con Piernas - "coffee with legs" - cafes that littered the downtown core. They are like Starbucks, but with Hooters waitresses, and they're on every corner with their mini-skirt clad ladies serving all the Santiagan businessmen.

There are also cafes con piernas with dark windows... which are the previous, mixed with strip clubs! Which brings me to explain the "Happy Minute"... This is when you are at one of these coffee shops and the doors are suddenly locked for one whole minute and all the waitresses remove what little lingerie they have on and dance for you! The only problem is that these "coffee shops" don't serve any booze. Just coffee. And if you're lucky, a Happy Minute.

After we discovered the cafes con piernas, we were introduced to the TERREMOTO! This translates to "earthquake" in spanish, as this drink will apparently move the ground out from under you... and it's true. A true terremoto is a pitcher filled with one litre of sweet white white, a few shots of fernet (a hard alcohol that's about 45 proof and nasty), and a few scoops of ice cream. We went for the drink by glasses, instead, and definitely felt the earth shake...

Some time later in Santiago, we made it to the Chilean Comicon. It highlighted a lot of local comic artists, which was pretty cool. There were a lot of really talented makeup artists... and this guy scared the bejesus out of me!

Tyrone decided to audition for a role on the new X-Men TV show... However, his power of "gun fingers" didn't impress the directors and he was cut.

Our little dino, Licky Skittles (if you don't recall, we adopted him in Peru), made friends with Amelia's stuffed animals when we were staying at her lovely apartment in Santiago!

Here's the view from Amelia's 14th floor condo. It had rained that day, so the smog was washed out of the air and onto the pavement below. Thus, we got a lovely view of the newly snow-capped Andes!

During our stay, we got to experience an earthquake that was about magnitude 5.9 - luckily the condo was build to code, so it only swayed from side to side for around 20 seconds. It was kinda scary all the way up on the 14th floor!

We went a couple of times to the Dominicos craft market where we picked up some beautiful hand carved masks and other souvenirs. The highlight of the market was not the handiwork, however, but the friendly shop cats that lived and played in the market square.

We thought it was strange that all the locals told us we had to visit Santiago's cemetery. So we made the trip one day and were amazed at how beautiful and intricate the graves and tombs were. Some were like small mansions, others were built in stacked apartment-like complexes. We were also shocked by the number of visitors wandering around the giant graveyard with fresh flowers and families in tow to visit their passed loved ones.

We were also extremely shocked to find some sort of santa muerte ritual in the centre of the cemetery. We're curious to know what a glass skull sitting atop of a pile of popcorn, surrounded by a pentagon of candles means.... we also realized that a few of the candles were still burning... so we had just missed whoever had put them there.

It was set in front of this cross with well-wishes, etc., posted all over its base.

There were about two hundred more photos we could have posted on Santiago - these are just a good sample! It was an amazing city - very modern and full of culture. The people were friendly (if you could understand them - I forgot to mention that Chile has nearly a different dialect of Spanish that took some getting used to), the sites were beautiful, the food was delicious, the wine was cheap and plentiful, and other than the smog, we would definitely consider living there!