Argentina and Beyond...

hello everyone! i figured after a few months, it was high time for an update. i've almost been avoiding it because there's almost TOO
much to tell! my mind and my eyes have soaked up so many amazing things and amazing people, almost to the point of saturation, i can hardly hope to convey it all in a simple email. but i shall try...

before skipping ahead to my coffee trials in chile, i left you in costa rica, where i spent a good bit of time on the beach, as every
good tourist should do, even tried out surfing. my last few days i made a last-minute decision and hopped on a bus to nicaragua where the prices were cut in half and i was reminded that, ah yes, i am in the middle of the developing world. poverty is visible everywhere and i'm riding on charming, rikity old chicken buses again (aka old american school buses that my parents probably rode to school), and the catcalls become familiar again (they're actually making rapid progress on this particular front...instead of actually whistling they now have mechanized whistling sounds installed in their vehicles at the push of a button). it's an interesting contrast crossing from the relatively developed world of costa rica into nicaragua.

i spent a few days in granada, a colonial town that looks more like new orleans than central america, and isla ometepe, a very poor, beautiful, virtually untouched island in the middle of lake nicaragua where the primary mode of transportation is still the horse, and the people are absolutely beautiful and open in spite of their incredibly impoverished situation. their isolation on an island has rendered them relatively untouched by the violence in nicaragua, especially during the 80's, and made for an interesting contrast from mainland nicaragua.

crossing from central america into buenos aires was even more of a
stark contrast. i might as well have arrived in europe--paris, madrid, rome, take your pick--the thought actually occured to me...did i get on the right plane? cafès everywhere, old european architecture. even the coffee spanked of europe, a proper expresso served up in those cute tiny little cups on a saucer, a little layer of foam at the top, served with a cookie on the side, cloth napkins, tablecloths, waiters in smart uniforms. you can sit in a cafè for hours sipping on a $1 cup of aforementioned coffee and not get dirty looks from the waitress trying to turn your table over. you can get a steak as big as your arm for the price of a mcdonald's extra value meal and the wine is incredible and costs the same (sometimes less) as water. i tried out my two left feet at tango dancing and fell in love with it. it's an intoxicating dance, still a true art form here.

i went to an argentinian soccer (futbol)
game...they take their soccer so seriously there that my seat in the
fan section was borderline dangerous. my friend vivi and i were a rare sight as women braving this notorious section. she was at a game last year where they had to call in the riot police and they fired smoke bombs into the rambunctious crowd to clear everyone out. this game was a bit more tame, although the sight of the fans above us relieving themselves onto the opposing team's fans below was a first for me. gracias a dios, i was sheltered by the overhang. (although at one point a highly suspect substance dripped on my head from above. don't want to think about it, don't want to think about it.) apparently there was a sighting of diego maradona on the field at one point, a worldwide soccer legend. not so exciting for me since i wouldn't have known who he was if he came up and starting chatting with me on the street, but apparently it was a big deal. bodily fluids and rioting aside, it was a blast.


and the people...this is always the thing that ultimately makes or
breaks a place, isn't it? travelers and argentinians alike, they were amazing. from the argentinian husband and wife i met at a tango show who invited me and a friend over for dinner to meet their kids who are my age and musicians as well, to the great travelers i met in my hostel, to the kind waiter in the cafe on the corner, my experience was unbelieveably positive. i'd actually heard rumors about the "snobbishness" of argentinians, and reports of it being a dangerous country given the financial crisis it was hit with three years ago and are still pulling out of, but in my experience nothing could be further from the truth.

after almost three weeks, i finally pryed myself away from buenos
aires for mendoza, argentina's wine country, where i tried out
paragliding for the first time and spent an amazing few days in a cabin in the mountains with some friends. then a brief stint in chile, then back to the south of argentina. i'm in bolivia now after wrestling with the flu for the past couple weeks (not fun), and am headed for peru soon for a few weeks. i know your eyes must be glazing over right about now so i'll save all that for later, i'm not going to try to tackle too much in one email, even though i could easily go on and on.

if you're interested in checking out more photos. http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=62x8zgbr.24t8ne8f&x=1&y=-z1tdn6

valparaiso, chile