New Adventures

Alright I know I havent updated this in about 10 years and so much has happened in that time--parents came, saw whales and glaciers, said adios to precious argentina--but i will update that later and start now with where i am--QUITO, ECUADOR!!!!!!!!!!
I left ba yesterday morning to embark on more crazy adventures--quito, ecuador then cusco, peru, macchu picchu, bolivia, then flying home from lima on the 28th of december!!! i am traveling with my friend lucy, a girl from wales whom i met when i went to mendoza. shes great--very fun, open to great things, well-traveled...so my last night my friends decided i needed to go big before i left...we went out and then went straight from the club at 4 am to my house, where i hopped in a a cab for the airport. our flight left at 8 am to bogotá, where we had a layover...after a few hours in the fabulous airport (NOT) we flew to quito.
allow me to describe the scene coing into quito--we are flying low before we land and all you can see is the most brilliant green--with mountains and gorges and houses teetering on the edges of cliffs, just patches of habitation. we get off the plane and go through customs, get our bags and walk out into a mob of literally thousands of people...id never seen anything like it. hundreds of families waiting for their loved ones to step out the door--balloons, flowers....i really dont think i have ever seen so many people in such a small space. it was so clear from the first second how different it was from argentina. we stuck out like sore thumbs and i finally felt i was in the heart of latin america. i will write more asap but i only have 15 minutes on this computer. love you alllllll!

Mendoza

I figure while wasting time instead of reading the book i have to read, entitled "Operación Masacre" (guess what that's about), i might as well write about the trip i took this weekend to mendoza, the wine country or argentina. as you can see, mendoza borders chile and is at the foothills of the andes. being that it was a three-day weekend here in honor of Día de la Raza (Columbus Day), i went with my friend, Brooks, with whom i also went to iguazú. After a mostly sleepless 13 hour bus ride on a semi-cama (NOT as amazing as the super cama), we arrived in mendoza on friday morning to discover that the hostel i had booked for us was actually four hours outside of the city. so we hopped in a cab and asked him to take us to the main drag where there were likely to be hostels...he laughed and told us that we were never ging to find a place on the friday of a long weekend. then i punched him in the face. just kidding.
we found beds at the second hostel we tried and we happily took showers (13 hour bus rides do not exactly complement the aromas of the skin) and went to lunch as an arabic restaurant with our new roommate, a guy from northern ireland named stephen. then brooks and i walked around, took a nap, walked around some more--mendoza is an absolutely beautiful city. the weather was absolutely perfect, which made it even better. the city is centered around a main plaza, with four smaller plazas several blocks down on each side of the big one. because of the weather and the weekend, there were lots of people hanging out, mulleted boys playing soccer...picturesque indeed...minus the mullets. i will post pictures soon but the plazas were so lovely--full of painted tiles and fountains and huge trees and rainbows and unicorns and sunshiny smiles....ok maybe not rainbows or unicorns but definitely all the other stuff. in any case, in the evening we went with stephen and three other people we met at the hostel--Carina, a german girl, Lee from Manchester and Marcelo, a creepy 39-year-old argentine chef who came to get wines...and stay in a hostel...weird. anyways, they had these things called "flights" which is where you pay 45 pesos (like $15) to try 5 wines. we all decided to share two flights. it was really fun--the woman serving us explained so much about wine, it was very interesting. then at the end one of the people we were with signed up for the club thing where they send you all these wines throughout the year so one of the flights was comped so we each ended up paying 8 pesos (less than $3) to try ten wines. yay exchange rates! after that we went to dinner...then to a bar...then to a boliche (club)...at 5:45 AM we all stumbled back to the hostel. the thing was, brooks, carina and i had planned to take the 7AM bus to arco de las cuevas, the place were we had originally booked the hostel, four hours away and way up in the mountains. soooo we figured it was pointless to go to sleep for only an hour because we would never wake up, so we stayed up, left at sunrise and took the 7 am bus to las cuevas. please note that i had gotten less than three hours of frequently interrupted sleep the night before on the bus.
i slept for maybe an hour on the bus to las cuevas. the ride itself was absolutely stunning--similar terrain to that of jujuy or utah, lots of big red rock and low vegetation. four hours later, we got off the bus to find ourselves on a mountain the temperature of the arctic tundra. we had intended to spend the night at the hostel we had originally booked, but soon realized that the only way to get anywhere from it was to take one of the two buses a day that go to it. it was literally one building in the middle of nowhere intended for serious, experienced trekkers, or at least people who had foresight enough to bring coats. 15 minutes later, we got back on the bus which was turning around and got off at the first stop, a mineral formation called puente del inca (incan bridge), which is literally a bridge made out of bright yellow mineral sediment. it was amazing. there was a little feria and two hostels right next to the puente del inca, where we booked a night and put our stuff down. the hostel we chose was a "converted" train station, but believe me when i say that there was little about it that had been converted. it was a large shack with no insulation and a wood-burning stove in a place with snow on the ground. in any case, we had lunch, bought some postcards and set out to hike. we had to walk quite a ways up the road to the trailhead, but wow was it worth it. you could see the largest mountain outside of the himalayas, mount aconcagua, and there were all these lagoons that had been formed but glacier movement during the ice age. amazing. it was a good thing we had bought gloves, though, because man was it cold. the hike was short, only like half a kilometer, so we went back to the hostel after that, where we realized how much we didnt want to spend the night there (read: freezing our asses off) ten minutes before the bus left. whew. not having slept in two days and having spent the whole day schlepping, we retired fairly early that night.

we spent the morning walking around the plazas and ferias with carina and a couple from los angeles that we met at the hostel as well. the weather was a little cloudy and cold, though, so we part ways with the couple and the three of us had lunch at the best pasta place ive been to in argentina with two girls from amsterdam. after that we headed to an irish pub to watch argentina get beaten by south africa in the last final before the final final in the rugby world cup with our other new friends, lee and stephen. the game ended and we just stayed at the pub... for SEVEN hours. new people just kept coming in, inluding about 67826784264867856 irish people and by that i mean like 10 which was so fun because they were all drinking and started singing all these irish songs...oh man it was great.
then the next day brooks and i went with carina and the two dutch girls to maipú, a town 40 minutes outside of the city full of wineries. for 20 pesos (like $7) we rented bikes for the day and rode from vineyard to vineyard, tasting and touring. the weather could not have been better--not a cloud in the sky, beautiful colors...it was so amazing. we met these two israeli guys who were hilarious...all good.
that evening we took the bus back to buenos aires. it was SUCH a great weekend, made better by the fact that brooks and i have become really close and we met so many awesome people from all over the world.
i am finally caught up with the blogging, and will sign off here before i get carpel tunnel syndrome. operación masacre, here i come!

What's Going On

Well, a couple more weeks have gone by and my life here has not slowed down a bit. a lot is going on right now in the country. Last week there was an extremely historic court ruling. to give you a little bit of background, the argentine president through most of the 90's, Carlos Menem, an extremely corrupt and self-serving man, had a law passed granting amnesty to all those involved in the military dictatorship, ie the disappearance and torture of 30,000 people, among other atrocities. The law came after several people had already been implicated, including several of the main head honchos, such as the dictator Jorge Videla, but all had recieved minimal sentences (5, 10, 15 years) under house arrest--never prison--and because they had robbed the country blind they had estates in the country with acres of land. cool. 2ish years ago, the current president, Kirschner, repealed the law, a very popular move, for the most part. anyways, last week was the first time an arbitrator of the Dirty War was sentenced with the possibility of hard prison time. In general, there were many sketchy connections between the dictatorship and the Catholic church at the time in argentina, ie the church was on the whole frighteningly complicit in what was going on and moreover benefitted tremendously from its cooperation, both economically and politically. the guy on trial, whose name is von Wernich, was a priest during the Dirty War and was found guilty on all charges, which included 7 third-degree homicides, 3 kidnappings, and 31 instances of clandestine detention and torture. he recieved a life sentence mainly in solitary confinement. what was so historic about this case was not only the fact that this is pretty much the first time someone is being held 100% accountable for their actions during the dictatorship, although that in itself was a huge triumph for organizations like the one at which i work and indeed for the entire country in achieving justice. It was not only the fact that von Wernich was the first Catholic clergyman to recieve a life sentence for "crimes against humanity." It was the fact that his actions were indeed referred to on public record not only as crimes against humanity but also as part of a genocide that occurred from 1976-1983. the use of that terminology in the court was certainly one of the biggest victories in the whole affair. needless to say, it was amazing to be a part of familiares at this time--several members went down to where the trial was held in La Plata to see the sentencing.
in other news from down here, there is a vegetable crisis! ahhh!!! ok well not as much of a crisis as a problem. but still ahhhh! As it stands now, a kilo of tomatoes costs more than a kilo of beef. and the price of beef has not gone down. there is a tomato boycott not because the price is so out of control. in fact, food in general has begun to cost more, and to combat inflation, the government is considering a 5% decrease on all supermarket products in the whole country. i had no idea they could do such a thing, and neither did my friend brooks, who is an international business and finance major at georgetown, but apparently her host mom said they used to do it all the time when she was growing up. in the words of my friend sophia, pretty much all of latin america's economic history can be summed up by saying "you just dont think this stuff through." oh well. at least the price of strawberries has stayed the same...
also my mom is coming on saturday and i am so excitedddddddd! i cant wait to show off my mad skills in this town, ie fancy things like hoe to use the subway and where the best empanadas are...you know, important things. among the list of things she is bringing are knitting needles, because the only ones they sell and use here are literally more than two feet long (apparently women like to knit with the needles under their armpits...im not kidding, the guy at the yarn place told me that) and olive oil, because i have come to understand the difference between regular and extra virgin olive oil which i had never though about until i came here where they have nothing but the olive oil of the plebes ie nasty non-virgin olive oil, or slutty olive oil, as i have come to refer to it. they dont believe in salad dressing here, unless you consider corn oil and vinegar or mayonnaise and ketchup a salad dressing. really, once i ordered a caesar salad and they brought out oil and vinegar. i hate to be a snob, but really guys? its olive oil.
also there are elections next week. we asked my teacher yesterday about the platform of Cristina Kirschner, the wife of current president Kirschner, the current candidate poised to sweep the elections. he responded by saying that he couldnt really say for sure because nobody really reads or pays attention to the campaign platforms because everyone knows that what they say before the election says absolutely nothing about the reality of their administration post-election. i mean, cristina definitely has the prettiest face of all the candidates, and considering the fact that its everywhere you look now, its no wonder she will win. ah, latin america....at least people here know that politicians are all corrupt and self-serving, whereas in the us people maintain the pretense of altruistic leaders. different strokes for different folks i guess.

Cordoba and Human Rights

Two weeks ago I went on the second program trip to the province of Cordoba, kind of smack dab in the middle of the country. We went to a town called Mina Clavero, where we spent the time doing a lot of hiking and chilling out. It kind of felt like a vacation from a vacation...the place where we were had lots of rivers, but with an arid climate. we hiked to three different parts of the water where we swam in the FREEZING cold water and sunned ourselves on the rocks. then the last day we also went horseback riding, which felt so strange considering that the last time i have been on a horse was utah! so fun though. we also went to this amazing museum that is pretty much a warehouse for some crazy french guy's collections--everything from silverware to bones to bugs to dresses to car parts to cameras. the pictures pretty much speak for themselves. and, being from the family i am, one of the best parts was eating the alfajors, which are famous in that region-little cake-snacks with dulce de leche in the middle...aMAzing.
This week has been extremely eventful for Argentina...and for me. Because I have mostly been writing here about my trips I haven´t been telling you as much about my daily life here in Buenos Aires. This week I finished my intensive spanish course (in which i got a 9 out of 10--see mom and dad? i do study!) which means that i have no class monday wednesday friday and my earliest class is at 4. yup, life's hard when youre yael.
Probably my favorite thing that i do in buenos aires--well, other than spending all day in the park--is volunteering as part of my class entitled aprendizaje y servicio ("service-learning"). The actual class is nothing special but the organization at which i work is absolutely incredible. It is called Familiares de Desaparecidos y Detenidos por Razones Políticas ("Relatives of the Disappeared and Political Prisoners"). the organization's mission statement has three parts: honoring and remembering those that were disappeared or detained during the Dirty War of 1976-1983, finding out the truth about what happened to them, and bringing the arbitrators to justice. when i was visiting it for the first time just to check it out, and they were explaining their mission and what they do, i asked whether everyone that worked there was a relative of a desaparecido. "primeramente," the guy said to me, "nadie trabaja acá¡. nosotros nos pertenecemos" ("first of all, nobody works here. we belong here"). and yes they are all relatives of someone who was either disappeared or taken as a political prisoner--mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, cousins, siblings, aunts and uncles...the youngest person that "belongs" there is 55. this means that there is an organization doing cutting-edge, often risky activist work and organizing that is composed almost entirely of people older than my parents and grandparents. you walk in and the place is just covered in posters from the past 30 years, books about both argentina and the dirty war and human rights in general, papers, ashtrays, yerba mates...they have a large archive of original archives that are catalogued solely by date. my project for the next few months is to organize, label and categorize their video "library" which consists of 100 or so mostly unmarked tapes that range from documentaries, to news programs to first-person testimonies, to photomontages...they need me to watch the tapes, label them, categorize them and alphabetize them. it goes without saying that this is a fantastic exercise for my language skills. but to watch all those videos? i can hardly think of something more fascinating and worthwhile to be doing here. though the work is interesting, it can get very tedious, and the real reason i love it is that i am able to interact and form connections with the people who work there. i cant even convey to you how amazing these people are--theyre only doing this so they can sleep at night. on my first visit, it came up somehow that i was jewish and my mother was israeli...big surprise there. this one little old lady who is in her mid to late eighties starts telling me about all the german families that lived on her street growing up and how during the war they had big maps of europe in their dining rooms and would mark off every country that germany invaded. the jewish kids and the german kids got along swell in school even though their parents were either jews of european descent or nazis. another woman informed me that jewish desaparecidos were given "tratamiento especial" and when i asked what especial meant she said they were tortured more harshly. after a long pause she turns to me and says "mi marido era judío" ("my husband was Jewish"). really, at that moment i wanted to cry. what these people are haunted by every moment...they sit around this table laughing and joking and poking fun at each other, asking me about what im studying and where i live, and then every once in a while the conversation turns serious for two minutes and there is a recognition of why they are there. i just cant imagine. I was also sitting the other day watching a documentary called the Aeropuerto Trelew the quality of which was extremely poor so i asked one of the guys that works there to give me some background info about what happened at Trelew airport to cause a documentary to be made about it. It turns out that in there is a large federal prison in the town of Trelew, a 13ish hour bus ride from Buenos Aires. In the 70's there were many political prisoners there and about 60 or 70 of them planned an escape. unfortunately, it went somewhat awry and only 20 or 30 of them got out of th prison and were taken by their collaborators to the airport at Trelew to get the hell out of argentina. after several hours of the prisoners being trapped in the airport, the army went in and gunned down all but 2 or 3 of them...keep in mind that these were almost all students in their early 20s who had been arrested for "crimes" such as distributing pamphlets, posting signs, leading discussions, and speaking out against the government repression. when the guy from familiares, whose name is Ramón but everyone calls him Mono (monkey) finished telling me the story, he added that one of the victims was a childhood friend with whom he had attended school from kindergarten through high school. and oh yeah, he knew other people that were killed too but wasnt as close with them. later on, monica, the woman who coordinates my visits, was telling me that she wouldnt be in on wednesday because she had a doctors appointment and Mono starts getting on her case about how she goes to the doctor for every little thing...monica starts bickering with him about how he never goes to the doctor and at his age he needs to and mono just goes "you know, its funny, the only time in my life i saw a doctor regularly was in prison." it turns out he was in prison for 10 years from 1974-1984, during which time he never saw his son and his wife was disappeared. monica pulled a book off the shelf goes "oh you should read this its his autobiography." of course. let me just say that there is a big difference between knowing that i work in an environment with activists who were likely to have been imprisoned, and having someone tell you they were in prison for 10 years. Had i not known this fact, i would NEVER have guessed that this had happened. he is one of the most warm, welcoming, kind, calm people i have ever met, always giving me big hugs and willing to explain anything i dont understand.
yesterday i saw four men who could not have been younger than 75 putting up posters near the congreso nacional about poverty in argentina and upcoming protests. people are so empowered here and its such a privilege to witness. there is such a sense of interconnectedness that i think comes from such deep trauma...its so unique and special.
Needless to say, all this has caused me to do a lot of thinking about my own life, and what im doing and studying...im thinking about shifting my humanties focus a little. i took a very long walk the other day through the city and i think what humanities is all about for me is human rights. the reason i am interested in peace and conflict studies really because i want to study how people are affected by the peace and conflict. i am studying humanities because i want to study humans. and i am starting to think more and more that what i need to be doing is studying and working to attain human rights. obviously i am not expecting to leave school, don my cape and fly off into the sunset to save the world, but im telling you, when the words human rights came up in my head i felt like it had been under my nose the whole time and it seemed so obvious that thats what i want to do. what "studying human rights" means, i really dont know. i know its one of those phrases that is so big and overbearing that everyone thinks they know what it means but nobody can define it. i just feel like im in the right place at the right time, and when i walk into familiares i know that thats exactly what i am supposed to be doing right now. i was trying, on my walk, to pinpoint why that place is so touching to me, and i really think its because these people believe with all their hearts that everyone deserves justice and a life worth living. I can only hope that i remain as concerned about the world around me in 50 years as these people are.

To see my photos of Jujuy and Córdoba, click the link below:
Jujuy and Córdoba

HooHoo-ee

it seems i have been getting out of the city so often over the weekends that ive barely been writing about what im doing normally! Last weekend I went with th program to Salta and Jujuy (see above alliteration) with t he program. they split us up into two groups--half of us went to jujuy and the other half went to the province of córdoba and next weekend we switch. the trip was absolutely incredible. it is very far away (see visual), so we took a plane which was about an hour and a half trip. despite the fact that our flight was delayed 4 hours, we got there safe and sound, stayed in salta for a night, and went to jujuy the next day. we stayed in these cabins that were essentially rectangular little buildings with two separate rooms. The first thing we did, after wating a deeeeeeelicious lunch of tamales and the best chicken ever, we saw this reconstructed incan village built and maintained by the history department of the university of buenos aires. was interesting, albeit a little boring, but there were these enormous saguaro cacti everywhere that were just beautiful. also, we saw llamas, which makes any trip worth it. that night we just kind of chilled out, all very tired and the next day we went on a short hike and then they took us to a small town called humahuaca. there was a really cool artisans market, as well as an amazing cemetery and man, what a view. let me just put it out there that utah has nothing on argentina. these mountains literally looked like they had been colored with crayola crayons. bright purple, bright yellow, green, red...some of them had horizontal stripes of color across them. amazing. it was also cool because its kind of the off season there so we saw hardly any other tourists, which believe me when youre already traveling in a group of 70 is a blessing. i tried the native staple munchie of coca leaves, which the (mostly indigenous) locals chew like gum. its really not that exciting, not that i wanted it to be. it really just tastes like leaves, but they say its good for altitude sickness so we all had some. the third day was my favorite--we took a spectaular three-hour drive through the mountains, which were golden and contrasted with the brightest blue sky i have ever seen in my life. there were lots of formations too--lots of mesas, canyons, etc. amazing. anyways, we go through the mountains to Las Salinas Grandes- the biggest salt flats in the world. at first i was not expecting much--oooh a lot of whiteness. but oh. my. goodness. it was so amazing. miles and miles of flat white land in every direction, and the salt had formed hexagonal formations across the whole surface. they kind of just gave us an hour of free time there, because i mean, how do you take a tour of or do an activity on the salt flats, so i took a long walk on my own, which was great because it would be practically impossible to get lost. just look for the only non-white thing or mountain on the horizon. anywho, then my friend anna and i did a photo shoot on the salt flats, which went a little something like "ooh now lets take some of the two of us with the self-timer" "ooh lets pretend we are stranded in the desert for weeks," "ooh, lets go into fetal position in the hexagons." you know, the usual think you do on the salt flats. the thing you dont realize is that the salt hurts! the whole ground is like a field of tiny knives because the salt is pretty much rock hard. fetal position, it turned out, is not the most comfortable salt-field pose, take my word for it.
after that we went to another little town and had lunch and took a beautiful hike and went to the little flea market there. and THEN night fell upon the andes. we had a big dinner at the hotel, complete with an andean band! it was so great! they were all wearing these big ponchos and some of them had the little bowler hats like in bolivia. instruments included pan flutes, mini-guitars (not ukuleles but mini guitars), drums, and this huge horn thing similar to the ones in the ricola commercials. intense. they kept swinging the hors over our heads--they were like 9 feet long. so great. we danced our little patooties off and then left the next morning for the airport in town. on the bus ride, which took like an hour and a half, like 7 or 8 of us started playing the game mafia...oh man. FIVE HOURS of playing later, as we finally boarded the plane, we decided that mafia may have overstayed its welcome.
it was such a great trip--i am also obsessed with the staff of the program, even more than i was before. the whole thing was just so relaxing, and it was really nice to get closer to some people with whom i hadnt had a chance to get to know yet. im very excited for cordoba.

three days in paradise

So last weekend i went with a friend to Iguazú Falls, a series of gigantic waterfalls all the way in the north of the country, right on the border of both brazil and paraguay. i had made tentative plans with two people to go this weekend, because we wanted a weekend in ba before heading on the program trips next weekend, but both flaked out on me when it came time to actually buy tickets and make reservations. i was seriously considering going alone, as i didnt want to wait until after the program trips, since by that time it would be unbearably hot and humid, but at the last minute this girl i really like who goes to georgetown but didnt come to bariloche agreed to tag along. we made our reservations for a bus that left thursday night and arrived friday afternoon (it is a 16 hour bus ride) and then that left iguazu sunday afternoon and arrived monday morning in ba, so neither of us would miss any classes. now, thursday night i have a class from 4 to 7, and our bus was leaving at 8:45, which really was plenty of time considering i had already packed. but you know, after class i just HAD to stay around and talk for a few minutes and then the night was so warm so i walked home, and then i had to peel and cut the carrots i had bought for us as a snack...long story short, i left my house at 8:00 when it takes 40 minutes to get there by public transport. a smart person would have taken a cab which would take maybe half the time, but to be honest it didnt even occur to me. to make a long story short, picture me running at 8:41 through the sketchy market outside the bus station with my huge backpackers' backpack that had both my and brooks' stuff in it. at 8:42 i come flying around the corner of the ticket booth, where brooks was pretty much already making plans to stay in ba for the weekend, and we made the bus with two minutes to spare. whew. i have to say though, it made the victory of arrival that much sweeter.
anyways, we arrived in puerto iguazú at around 1 on friday and took the bus to our hostel. let me just say that the hostel was nicer than many hotels i have stayed in. it used to be a casino and they converted it into a hostel so there was this huge beautiful pool out in front and the inside was absolutely pristine, with huge windows everywhere and an entire floor as a common area- very conducive to hanging out and meeting people. by the time we had checked in and changed and were ready to go it was like 2 so we decided not to go into the park that day, but rather to go to this lookout poing called tres fronteras ("three borders") which was esentially a cliff from which you could look across the intersecting rivers and see brazil and paraguay. it was very beautiful, and really just cool--you can see the falls from brazil as well as argentina and it would have been great to be able to view them from there as well, but we werent about to pay $100 for a brazilian visa to see the falls for a day. anyways, at tres fronteras we started talking to this guy from our hostel from cambridge, england named john and then the three of us went into town and sat at an outdoor cafe and just hung out for a while. as we were sitting, we also started talking to these three australians that were also staying in our hostel--it was just cool to meet people from all over the world and just hang out. then john and brooks and i went to dinner and played cards for the rest of the night at the hostel. so fun.
the next day brooks and i failed in our attempt to get an early start and got to the park at around 11, which turned out to not be so bad because it was right between the morning and midday rush of tourists. we essentially did all the trails there were--becuase it is all cliffs and waterfalls, pretty much all the trails are simple catwalks that just wind around the cliffs offering different views of the falls. i wish that you could all just see in my minds eye what it looked like--absolutely awesome. the sheer force and volume of the water is such a powerful reminder of how insignificant we really are in the grand scheme of things, not to mention the fact that the weather was absolutely perfect (I was wearing sandals and shorts) and the place is a tropical paradise. the constant mist from the waterfalls creates rainbows everywhere and there were incredible butterflies everywhere you looked. needless to say, it was extremely green and lush and the smell in the air was just flowers and freshness--so amazing. as we walked the trails, it seems at every moment that you are getting the most amazing view of the falls and then you walk five more feet and it just gets better. what was really cool about it too was the variety of tourists there. because the walks are so unstrenuous, it is extremely accessible--several of the walks are even wheelchair accessible. what this meant was that in addition to all the backpackers and travelers my age, there were a ton of families with little kids, senior citizen groups, and everything in between. even though this may be the best time to go weather-wise, it is not the peak season so it wasnt that crowded and even though it was touristy, you didnt get the feeling that everyone was trying to sell you something ALL the time.
so as you can see on this maps layout, we did the upper and lower circuits first (blue and yellow), which offered great views of the falls as a whole. then after that walked a trail that is not actually on this map but would be if the map extended more to the right. that trail was so great because even though it didnt lead to the main falls, it was pretty much devoid of any other sightseers so we had the place to ourselves, and it ended in this beautiful (albeit tiny compared to the falls) waterfall with a large surrounding pool. brooks and i had heard about it before and had brought our bathingsuits, but the two people we were hiking with that were also from the program just swam in their underwear--it was so amazing. the water was, of course, FREEZING, but absolutely refreshing, as we were so hot from walking all day. we swam for probably less than an hour and then sat on the rocks to dry out for a little before heading back. man there was something about swimming there though--putting my hair under the waterfall and floating on my back so that all i could see was the blue sky and falling water...priceless.
the two people we were with, of which i was not the biggest fan but whatever, were staying for longer than me and brooks so they went back to the hostel while brooks and i took the train in the park to the garganta del diablo (devils throat), the location of which you can see on the map in pink. we got on the last train there at like 4ish--the sun was jsut starting to sink a little and after a full day of all that amazing sightseeing we thought it would just be another cool fall. im telling you though, seeing that literally brought tears to my eyes. i will post the pictures up asap so you can sort of see what i mean, but no picture could ever really capture how incredible it is. it was so huge and so powerful that when you looked down you couldnt even see the river, which was completely obscured by the mist that rose almost 50 feet in the air. the light at the time was absolutely perfect and because it was the end of the day there were maybe 15 or 20 other people there...the perfect end to a perfect day.
then at night the hostel had a parilla (argentine version of a barbeque), and for 20 pesos (about 6 or 7 dollars) we had an all you can eat buffet including all the different meats and unlimited caiperiñas, this brazilian cocktail that is deeelicious. also, there was like a show with these two brazilian dancers wearing carnaval costumes ie sparkly bra and thong and huge feathered headdress that led all these dances. included in the 20 pesos was also transportation, entrance and a welcome drink at a club in town. i ended up only staying for like an hour, maybe a little more, because i was so tired, but considering that we left the hostel to go out at almost two, i think i did pretty well.
the next day brooks and i got up, packed our stuff and headed to the park, where we made a beeline for the boat tours that take you out and under the falls. let me just say that going under those waterfalls was nothing less than euphoric. it was absolutely unbelievable, definitely the perfect sendout from iguazú. after that we spent about half an hour on this little island in the middle of the river before heading back to the hostel to shower and then to the bus.
the bus ride home was wonderful, as brooks had insisted that we upgrade from the cama ejecutivo to the tutto letto super cama for 25 more pesos, since the seats recline completely flat. i was griping about it but then we got on the bus and let me tell you, it was almost as amazing as the falls. ok not quite but definitely marvelous. something very weird happened, though. we had been on the road about an hour when we stopped at this checkpoint at which neither brooks nor i remembered stopping on the way there. anyway, this army checkpoint guy in a uniform comes on the bus and asks to see everyones passports, which we happily obliged. then another guard comes on with a dog, which i can only assume was a drug/bomb-sniffing dog and goes up and down the aisles. we were sitting in the second to last row and there was only one guy behind us, and the guard holds up this black duffel bag sitting on the floor next to the seat behind us and asks whose it is...we had no idea, the guy behind us insisted it wasnt his...the next thing we knew, the guy behind us is asked to get off the bus and they took all his luggage out of the compartment. it was bizarre- he was coming from iguazú, this tiny town where the only thing to do is the falls and he had four huge suitcases on wheels, and was traveling alone. anyways, they searched all his bags outside the bus (brooks and i got neck cramps from straining to watch), then packed them all up, put them back on the bus, the guy got back in his seat and away we go. very strange. very very strange. welcome to latin america.
all in all, i think it was my favorite trip of all the ones i have been on. it was so nice to be in nature, out of the city, but also to be in the company of someone i could talk to and trust. i really like that brooks is so different from me--a business major at georgetown, preppy mcprepperson, because despite that we do have a lot in common and she is very smart and open-minded. it can be refreshing to have friends that are different from the people you normally hang out with. anyway, i will get the pictures up asap; iguazú is definitely something you should all see once in your life. it will blow you away.

To see my photos of Iguazú, click on the link below:
Iguazú Falls

land of the free, home of the che

okok so i know it was more than two weeks ago at this point but i have to write about my trip to rosario. rosario is a city about four hours away from buenos aires (see left), and we went there because we had a three-day weekend but didnt want to travel too far. i went with three girls from the program (read: american), and we booked our bus tickets and hostel only a day or two before we left. the thing was that there was only one hostel in the city with room left because of the fact that it was a three-day weekend. anyways, after an uneventful bus ride we get to the hostel only to discover that old reliable hostelworld.com was down and they had not recieved any of the reservations from the past week. as a result, they were already overbooked by six people because of the same situation, and had dug up mattresses for them to sleep on the floor. the people at the hostel were extremely apologetic and called every hostel and cheap hotel in the city to try to find somewhere, but everything was completely full with the exception of a four-star hotel. they gave us the option of sleeping on the floor for three dollars the first night and said that we would have beds the second night because people were leaving. so we had a quick huddle and decided we were young and adventurous enough to sleep on the floor of a hostel for one night, BUT before we make any decisions the hostel people told us that there were 31 boys staying in the hostel and three girls. they were like look, we feel really bad and youre more than welcome to stay here but there are all these boys that are smelly and loud and will bother and annoy you like you wouldnt believe so its up to you. at that point we had decided to just make the best of it and resist breathing in the odor for as long as we could. we split up and me and my friend dena went for a walk through the city and to the small art museum while the other two girls hung out at the hostel. by the time we got back, the other girls had already gone out so dena and i went to dinner and back to the hostel and spent some quality time with our 6781627641786 new roommates.the plan was to drink a little and go out at like 2:30 (which believe me isnt that late here) but dena and i had a leetle too much cheap wine and were in "bed" ie on the floor with army blankets by like 3. the boys were all loud and drunk and annoying though so we moved to the living room to sleep and i had the pleasure of spending the night on a wicker couch with cushions. not exactly the lap of luxury but for three dollars it was a roof over my head.
the next day we walked around some more--rosario is home to argentina's first flag and there is like a shrine built for it with this huge tower and plaza. i forgot to mention that joining the four of us was this crazy tall venezuelan guy named carlo who had all kinds of shells and knicknacks in his dreadlocks and made a living by selling these tiny whistles made out of straws. so random. anywho we saw the view from the tower and the other two girls went on a boat tour in the river that runs along the city, but it was raining so dena and i passed and went to lunch where we ate the most delicious paella in the history of the world. not exaggerating. it was amazing. we walked around and went to this cultural center and then went to the planetarium which was so relaxing and fun. the reason for this entry's title is that che guevara was born in rosario and they dont let you forget it for a second. there are pictures of him evvvvvverywhere and it was all the guy could talk about at the cultural center. what's funny is that che guevara lived in so many places throughout argentina and south america that every town or city has that pride, but as the cultural center guy said, he was only born in one place. haha or jaja as they say here.
after the planetarium we bought food to make pasta and salad back at the hostel and then cooked for ourselves and by ourselves i mean the four of us and every male inhabitant of the hostel that smelled food and came to reap the fruits of our labor. i mean really, what could we have expected. we went out that night but not till too late and then the next day went for a long walk to the river, which was beautiful because it was the first sunny day there. there was a really cool flea market where i bought earrings for four pesos (like $1.30). because it was a holiday the whole park along the river was full of families and people playing soccer and kites flying and fishermen catching trout in the river. so great. after that we just got ourselves to the bus station and went home. it was very nice--a lot like buenos aires but mini and not so intense, perfect for a weekend away. what was also cool is that we met so many people from BA and also other foreigners studying here that we had a whole new group of people to hang out with when we got back which was so fun, expecially because they were from europe as opposed to the us. i was glad to come back to BA though--there is nothing like being packed on that subway like sardines in a can with the whole day ahead of you.

also, here is the link to my photos!! the album is both bariloche and rosario...and some miscellaneous stuff thrown in as well, just to keep you on your toes.
click this sentence to view my photos!