Valparaíso, Chile

The coastal city of Valparaíso (Valpo) made for the perfect location for us to finish our trek across the Southern Cone. We arrived in Valpo before sunrise on the 31^st of December. After resting in the morning we spent the afternoon grocery shopping and preparing dinner for New Year’s Eve. The V Region sits on the Valparaíso Bay and is composed of the cities of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar (both about 300,000 inhabitants) and surrounding communities. This region is famous throughout South America for having one the world’s best fireworks shows; remember in the Southern Hemisphere that New Year’s falls right in the heart of summer. After preparing our food we climbed up the hill overlooking the city and bay and spent a beautiful summer night relaxing and enjoying our picnic in a park. As we looked down into the bay we could see many boats as well as what appeared to be floating docks a kilometer or two offshore. There were actually about twenty of these docks stretched out over a fourteen kilometer distance. As midnight approached we, along with everyone else in the park, prepared to open the champagne and begin the countdown. At the moment the clock struck midnight the entire city went dark amid the screams of children and the popping of champagne bottles. After a couple minutes of joyous hugging in the dark the sky exploded into a wash of colors. Every single one of those docks was a platform for fireworks. From our vantage point we enjoyed the bright and shiny fireworks display from as many as ten synchronized platforms at once. Never in my life have I seen such a brilliant horizontal fireworks display. We sat in awe of the exploding fireworks that not only spanned the entire bay but also went around and beyond the heads on either end of the bay. This amazing show continued until 12:30 at which point we walked down the mountain towards the waterfront and danced until eight in the morning on the historic shipping dock.

Other than the New Year’s fireworks, the biggest summer draw on the V Region is the beaches of Viña del Mar. Not only did we start our vacation on an Atlantic beach, but we also finished our vacation on a Pacific beach. I’m sure you can imagine what it is like to relax on the beach in the middle of the summer so I will not go into much detail here.

Valparaíso city’s most famous tourist attractions are its elevators. The Andes Mountains start only a couple hundred meters inland from the bay and so once Valpo started to grow into a port city the majority of the population began to live up in the hills surrounding the bay. For this reason there is a series of about fifteen elevators throughout the city bringing people from sea level to the residential neighborhoods twenty meters away. All elevators were built over one hundred years ago and frankly are not very exciting. The stations have fallen into disrepair, they are more expensive than taking a public car or bus up the hill, and it is actually faster to walk up the stairs underneath the elevator than to take the elevator. Nevertheless, taking an elevator really gives one the opportunity to explore the real neighborhoods of Valparaíso.

During one such exploration in a random uphill neighborhood a lady came running down the hill at me yelling things that I would rather not translate into English. I tried to ignore her and keep walking, but she eventually caught up to me and interrogated me as to why I was breaking into her house. I had done no such thing (I actually hadn’t even walked onto her block), and told her that I was just wandering around and taking pictures. At this point she got really confused and asked why I would be taking pictures. I told her I was on vacation and wanted some memories from Valpo. She told me she thought I was Chilean (and a thief), but became very happy that I was from the US. Apparently she and her husband lived on Long Island, New York for close to ten years in the 1990’s. We got to talking and she told me all about how she loves Americans and how during her time in the USA they were always so wonderful to her. She talked about her family and how she has a daughter that has sole United States citizenship. I thought this lady was very pleasant and really enjoyed meeting someone who can be openly critical of our government but still love our people.

After a while this conversation began to run on and I was ready to go. I was just about to tell her that I had to get going and find my friends when a man comes sprinting down the hill with a terrified look on his face. I thought this was somewhat odd until I saw another man also sprinting down the hill with a knife in his hand. I heard the first man bang on someone’s door around the corner, but apparently they did not open it as I heard him and the second man yelling and arguing and struggling below us. At this point the lady I had been talking to invited me to her house to meet her husband and daughter. I was a little wary about going to her house, but I figured that was a much better option than walking downhill into the knife fight.

At her house I met her husband, who was equally gracious and loving of Americans. Once he realized that I spoke Spanish we also talked for a long time about their lives in the US and about my work in Ecuador. They even made me a sandwich, and I really like to eat so that was pretty awesome. It is very refreshing to know that there are friendly people that just want to share in their happiness with others. After we conversed for a while I met their daughter. She is an adorable little eight year old girl with an interesting identity (that she does not even really comprehend). Although she does not speak English, she is an American citizen, having been born on Long Island to legal immigrant parents. These people showed me all their old New York State driver’s licenses and work ID cards to help ease my concern of going to a strange Chilean home. This girl lives in Chile with Chilean parents and speaks Spanish, but she is not a Chilean citizen; her parents actually had to earn a resident visa so they could bring their daughter home. The question, however, is if having an American daughter and absolutely loving the people of the United States, why would this family return to Chile? Everything changed for this family on September 11, 2001. Rather than living in happiness and security, all of sudden this family began to live in fear and confusion. Their baby daughter was only a year old (she does not even remember the attacks on the World Trade Center) and she was (and is) the most important thing in the world to them. With the increased national pride rampant throughout the country, they began to hear stories of American citizens being separated from immigrants (documented or undocumented). Despite the life they had made for themselves in New York, they were terrified that they would be deported and their daughter would be sent to a foster home in the US. Eventually they felt that the only way to keep their family together was to leave the country.

Despite the fear instilled in this family by our country that eventually caused them to leave their entire way of life to completely start over again in Chile, this family still loves the United States. The father is already talking about how once his daughter graduates from high school that he is going to send her into the US Air Force so that she may continue her education, gain job security, and learn about her country.

Mendoza, Argentina

More than any other city we visited on this journey, Mendoza has been engineered by man. On the face, the two most defining characteristics of Mendoza appear to be completely contrary to one another: (1) 60% of Argentina’s wine comes from here and (2) Mendoza is located in the middle of a desert. One does not realize this, however, upon walking around the city. Though only about 130,000 people (again a tenth the size of the last city we were in…), the city is inundated with parks, plazas, and tree-lined streets. I do not use the word inundated lightly either as this natural beauty would not exist without water. For thousands of years, humans in the region have diverted the waters of the streams and rivers coming down out of the Andes (strongest in the summer snow-melt season) into an elaborate system of irrigation channels that not only line every single city street in Mendoza, but also provide each and every vineyard the life-giving power of water.

Though nature fanatics would be struck by the stunning number of trees and parks that line this city, Mendoza is not a natural city. Though many modern humans would be saddened by the overgrowth of modernization and globalization, at a loss to the simpler, more traditional indigenous way of life, Mendoza has never been a simple traditional region. For thousands of years Mendoza has been engineered by man; historically by darker skinned immigrants from the North and Asia, and only recently by lighter skinned immigrants from Spain and Italy.

Our time in Mendoza was highlighted by two events: wine tasting and outdoor adventure. I will talk first about the later. We spent one morning rafting down the Mendoza River. Though we only spent about one a half hours on the river, we were in for quite a ride with a crazy guide. At one point some of our group tried to form a mutiny and put Seth, an experienced guide in Colorado, at the helm. Our revolt, however, was unsuccessful, though we did manage to survive unscathed despite the wild antics of our guide. Nevertheless, not every boat managed to make it down without incident. On the largest Class IV of the river, one boat absolutely missed (or hit?) the hole and flipped four times! All the other boats went into rescue mode and, since we were in the front, we took off screaming down the river in search of oars and people (fortunately we have experience with hard-paddling thanks to our days in El Chaco). The first item we came upon was a semi-shocked person. We pulled him into our boat and, I kid you not, he did not move or show any sign of awareness for a good ten minutes, which was slightly awkward since he was sitting on Seth who was trying to paddle. We did not have time to check on him because we continued hard downstream in search of oars. We managed to recover six of the seven paddles before relaxing and realizing that our new friend was actually alive.

That afternoon we climbed to the top of some cliffs and rappelled down. Fun!

Enough excitement for one town…The next day we decided to relax and take a bike ride through wine country. We rented some bicycles and spent the entire afternoon riding around from winery to winery. We visited mostly small, family owned vineyards that do not export. The employees at each vineyard were very gracious to us. They offered tours of the vineyards and wine-making facilities. They also offered detailed wine-tasting experiences and taught us how to examine the different aspects and qualities of wines. I really feel like I learned a lot about how wine is made and how doing different things in the production will result in a different kind of wine. The only drawback is that I feel very informed on wine in Spanish, but I am not quite sure how much of this I would be able to translate into English. Nevertheless, this was a very good day spent with very good friends.

Córdoba, Argentina

Córdoba is the second largest city in Argentina; nevertheless, at the only one tenth the size of Buenos Aires it makes the third city of 1.3 million people that we have visited in the past ten days (Montevideo and Quito being the other two). The definite highlight of our time in Córdoba was the hospitality provided by our hosts at Tango Hostel. Their graciousness never stopped from taking us out to play soccer, pointing us in the right direction of an outdoor swimming pool, taking us dancing until eight in the morning, or merely just hanging out and getting to know each other. Their most gracious event, however, was the incredible Christmas dinner they prepared for us. There was a large conglomeration of Americans, Europeans, Australians, and Canadians all together with nowhere to go for Christmas Eve and Tango Hostel prepared a three course meal complete with pasta, pork, sushi, deserts, wine, and champagne at midnight. I have to admit I missed not having fondue, but I am really appreciative of how this hostel went all out for us at Christmas.

The region of Córdoba is most famous for being a UNESCO World Heritage Site as it was the center of the Jesuit evangelist movement of the southern cone of South America. As many of you know, I am rather critical of evangelist movements, but I have to admit I was impressed by the methods employed by the Jesuits in this region: Their two fundamental principles were education and sustainable agricultural production. The Jesuits came offering education, paying jobs, and food for the natives in exchange for their faith. This may or may not be a fair trade, but I am more accepting of this type of evangelism rather of the kind that forces one to convert under fear of persecution, violence, or damnation. Evidence of this Jesuit power is still evident in the many impressive churches, farming estates, and universities built by the Jesuits and still in use today.

Another highlight of our time in Córdoba was our visit to the village of Alta Gracia and the childhood home of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Che is an interesting character that tends to be either idolized for his unrelenting pursuit of justice and equality or hated for the amount of killing and destruction he caused throughout the Americas. Interestingly this museum seemed to only focus on the former, inclusively treating the Cuban Revolution as a triumph of justice, rather than a bloody war which left a dictator that has since been in power for 49 years. Regardless of your opinion on Che, I highly recommend the movie Motorcycle Diaries which recounts a young Che’s journeys through South America atop a motorcycle. Not only is this movie stunningly gorgeous but one can really see the nascent passion for justice in this character that will eventually become “Che” Guevara. I have included a picture I took at this museum with the following (translated into English):

ethics coherence liberty

revolution ideals

equality courage dignity

sacrifice struggle

Citizen of the World

Buenos Aires, Argentina

After leaving Montevideo we took our first of four night buses of seven to ten hours in length. Although the buses were expensive, they were relatively comfortable with wide reclining seats and we were able to save money by not having to pay for a hostel for these four nights. Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, we were blown away by the sheer grandeur of this city: at 13 million people it is the second largest city in South America (behind Sao Paulo, Brazil) and the economic and social center of the four countries making up the southern cone of South America (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile). At first, one is struck by the immensity of the avenues (and the traffic they contain) present in the city. Buenos Aires is home to the “world’s widest avenue”: At 21 lanes Ave. 9 de Julio takes a good quarter of hour to merely walk back and forth across. This avenue, however, is not singular in its grandeur. Throughout the city there are countless other twelve and fourteen lane two-way avenues, as well as nine and ten lane one-way avenues.

In addition to its wide avenues, Buenos Aires is equally famous for its Casa Rosada (the Pink House) where Argentina’s president (Cristina Kirchner) lives. This house is most famous for being the place where Evita addressed her citizens in the Plaza de Mayo. After Evita’s death, the Plaza de Mayo became even more famous in the 1980’s as Las madres de la Plaza de Mayo began their weekly protests, which continue to this day, in which they demand information about what happened to their “disappeared” children. Thousands of young people (with views not in agreement with the government) were abducted and killed with no record of their whereabouts and the government still refuses to disclose what actually happened.

On a lighter note, Buenos Aires has some of the best steak and ice cream in the world. Though one does not necessarily associate these two foods together, Argentina is generally accepted as the world’s greatest producer of beef, and we definitely ate our fair share. We even saw one steak that was three inches thick and two feet long and was cut with a spoon. After being back in Ecuador for a week now, I am reluctant to eat beef because I know it will not compare to that which we ate in Argentina. In addition, the ice cream, as I mentioned in the Uruguay entry, is influenced by Italian gelatos and was definitely worth buying every single day.

You’d figure that with lots of red meat and ice cream (and then add in the fact that people regularly stay out until seven or eight in the morning) people would be dieing all the time in Buenos Aires. Now I don’t know how true this is, but for those who can afford to die in luxury, there is one final resting place very popular with the tourists: The Cemetery of Recoleta. You can kind of think of this as the place to check out the “Deathstyles of the Rich and Famous” as it is one of the largest collections of elaborate and distinguished mausoleums in the world.

Another highlight of our time in Buenos Aires was heading north of the Parana River Delta, where we witnessed an unprecedented flood. We were not entirely surprised that a delta region would be flooded, but after talking with the locals we soon discovered that the roads are generally not covered in water. Nonetheless, we passed a very relaxing day exploring the river channels and enjoying a picnic lunch on the water.

My favorite neighborhood of Buenos Aires is La Boca, home to South American soccer power and defending Copa Santander champions (South American champions league) Boca Juniors. As great as this team is, and as fanatical the people of La Boca are for their soccer, the Boca Juniors are only the second most famous aspect of this neighborhood. La Boca is most famous for its brightly colored houses. One can walk for blocks and blocks in all directions and continued to be amazed by the brilliant colors that relentlessly dazzle the eyes.

Montevideo, Uruguay

Our first stop on our (uhh…summer) vacation was Montevideo, Uruguay. Montevideo is a city of 1.3 million people (the same size as Quito) located on the northern end of the River Plate where it enters the Atlantic Ocean. What immediately struck us about Montevideo was the exorbitant amount of trees. Those of you coming from the Northwest and the Carolinas probably wouldn’t even notice these trees, however, as it is not uncommon for cities to have streets lined with shade trees. Nevertheless, Quito absolutely does not have shade trees; there are a few small shrub type trees here and there, but nothing like what we saw in Montevideo.

Once we got over the excitement of being able to breathe the oxygen filled sea air we made our way to out to explore the city. Montevideo is a beautiful city filled with parks and plazas (and not an overwhelming amount of traffic) in which people relax with their mate (a dense and strong herbal tea drunk with a special sifting straw). Although generally associated with Argentina, Uruguay has the highest per capita consumption of mate of any country in the world. One such park is Parque Rodó, a huge urban park right on the water filled with trees, lawns, statues and monuments, artisan vendors, and ponds. We spent several hours here, just reading and relaxing (oh by the way, Seth and I both read books 1, 2, and 3 of the Harry Potter series on this vacation).

Another such plaza is the Plaza Independencia (where the government palace is located) where we saw strong evidence of the progressive nature of the Uruguayan populous. One night in Montevideo we stumbled upon a large rally of young and old mate drinking Uruguayans. Always looking for excitement we decided to stick around and see what all the commotion was about. We were soon surprised to realize that this actually wasn’t a political demonstration in favor of (or against) any local politicians (as are so common in Ecuador), but rather a demonstration in favor of Hugo Chávez, the liberal president/almost dictator of Venezuela and fierce critic of the United States government. Not only were these Uruguayans showing their strong support for Chávez, but they continuously evoked the image of Che Guevara (Fidel Castro’s right hand man in the Cuban Revolution and protagonist/narrator of the amazing book and film Motorcycle Diaries).

After some time at the rally, which seemed to be more like a relaxed gathering of hippies than an organized movement for change, we decided to head out to dinner (Uruguayan and Argentine restaurants do not open until after 10:00 and regularly stay open until past 1:00 in the morning). On the way out of the plaza, however, we stumbled upon a plaque on the ground with the following quote (translated from Spanish) by Gustav Radbruch:

“The idea of Justice supposes an equal treatment for those who are equal and an unequal treatment for those who are unequal, in accordance with the same guidelines, but without being able to tell us who should be treated equally and who should be treated unequally nor how should be treated those who are equal and those who are unequal.”

Finally, one cannot talk about Uruguay without talking about the beaches. In Montevideo alone there are six amazing beaches each with their own character: one famous for windsurfing, one for its sunsets, one for its immensity, one for being the hotspot of Montevideo’s rich suburbanites, etc. Our favorite, however, was Punta del Este: a small point jutting out into the Atlantic filled with expensive high-rise condos and luxurious resorts. This point alone has four beaches, two on the calm River Plate side and two on the rough Atlantic side, perfect for both board and body surfing. We spent the day surfing and relaxing on the beach which was capped off by an amazing meal of fresh fish and pasta at La Fonda del Pesca, the only reasonably priced restaurant on the whole point, but is exceedingly popular for its superb food and gregarious owner and staff. The only thing that could have made this meal better would have been dessert, oh wait, they gave us a free piece of cake to share. And then, oh yeah, we got ice cream next door. Uruguay and Argentina have some of the best ice cream in the world due in large part to the extensive waves of immigration from Italy to these countries. I think I actually ended up eating ice cream everyday that I was in both Uruguay and Argentina.

More from Argentina coming soon :)