Where to go?

Okay lets see who is really reading this thing. We are now in Europe (LOVING Barcelona) but more on that later. We have not planned our whole time here and are open to advice. Here is the rough plan:

Greece
Stoupa
Athens

France
Nice
Privas (small town south of Lyon near Valence)
Paris

Holland
Amsterdam

England
Glastonbury
London

These are the places where we have already set up places to stay (except for Paris). We like staying for at least three nights in a place.

Remember we like art, nature, hot springs, food, history, museums and ruins. Dave would like to hit a festival or two. I am up for another yoga or meditation retreat, or any interesting alternative community experience. Anika wants shopping, fashion, art and Internet access.

Any ideas? Places you loved? Things not to miss? We look forward to hearing your ideas.

BA- Three Times not the Charm or Three Strikes and We are Out

Pink house where the Argentine president used to live. It is still used for government purposes. Anika loved that they have a female president who has a pink house. The fence is to protect it from constant protests and rallies.

Buenos Aires

In total we spent almost two weeks in BA over the course of three visits. It was two weeks too many.

Now I had heard a lot about BA before we got there and I have to admit my expectations were kind of high. Over a third of Argentine's live here, it is one of the top 15 most populated cities in the world. And it is supposed to be one of the most fun cities on earth. And yes, the people know how to party. Especially if you like to go out at 2:00am when the bars open and stay out till 7:00am. Of course you are drinking matte all the time, smoking cigarettes and having some Red Bull, which helps to do this. This is not my idea of a good time. The city has a very strong constant buzz of energy, like it is always rushing and vibrating.  Lots of big cities have this but you can usually find some spots of clam and relaxation.  So along with the dog poop all over the broken side walks and the run down look of former grandeur, came my feelings of disappointment. Many places we went were being repaired or partly closed down or just plain run down.

BA is famous for its dog walkers. This one only has five dogs, you can see one person with as many as 15 or more. Don't know if they pickup the poop, Someone sure is not picking it up.

There was an interesting mix of modern and old architecture that reminded me of NYC. Our first visit was with Paula and Ward. We had a fun day in the San Telmo neighborhood and some good non Argentine food. (They are crazy about meat here and it is not easy to find other options.)

Invisible street performer

Famous weekend antique market

And some tango

We also had fun at a party Liliana, Paula's new friend had for us at her house. Here we had a chance to see how people really live. Liliana and her family had just moved into a new apartment. Her two college age children live with her and her husband. This is the norm here. Their apartment was small and simple by American standards. But they knew how to make us feel at home and have a good time!

Partying at Lianna's

We did a hop on hop off bus tour around BA with Paula and Ward. These are often a good way to get the lay of the land and decide where you want to spend more time and you learn interesting history and facts about the city. This one was terrible.  I won't go into all the problems but there was almost a mutiny on the bus when it started to rain, hard, and the bus skipped some of its stops and the people up top got soaked. This is one of the only really negative reviews I have ever written for Trip Advisor. The only really god part was getting to see the colorful "La Boca" neighborhood.

Dave got this shirt as a gift at Liliana's party. When he wore it to the La Boca neighborhood he did not know he was walking into the other teams area and he got a lot of good natured jokes thrown his way. He is standing next tot a painting of  Messi the current Soccer great form Argentina

Famous colorful La Boca buildings

Or last meal with Paula and Ward before they left.

The day Paula and Ward left my brother Maynard arrived. We only spent a day in the city with him. before heading to Iguazu falls. We went to the MALBA, contemporary art museum, that looked like it would have been good if 2/3 their collection wasn't in NYC. Our last visit to BA was for our final three nights in Argentina. We have found that before changing countries and continents its good to have a few days in a big city where you can take care of business if you have to.  So we did laundry, printed documents, did Internet business and packed.  Now we are off to Europe! We arrived in Barcelona April 22. But that story is for the next blog.

End of the A-Salta and Eco Yoga Park

 Salta - The End

Quebrada de Haumamuca - view from the bus ride between Cafayte and Salta

We came back to Salta for three more nights. We continued to feel disillusioned and kind of out of it. Salta is a pretty big city, half a million people, and it just didn't do it for us. There is great colonial architecture around the central plaza and downtown area. Lots of museums and art.

We did have one day where we went to an interesting archaeological museum about high altitude archeology. They have found human sacrifices, accompanied by all sorts of preserved artifacts, at amazing altitudes from Inca times. this museum was very well presented and interesting, including the mummies. The museum of contemporary art had a retrospective of a local artist that was fantastic. Below are a few examples of his work. We were very impressed with him and he was there when we visited so we got to meet him too.

Hummingbirds made out of wood and individually painted

Watercolor

Collage

We happened to walk out of one museum about local history into a changing of the guard ceremony with horses,uniforms, speeches and a brass police band. Seeing this series of cultural positives improved my mood for the rest of the day.

Marching out

Riding off

The band plays on

But, all in all our lodging (hostels) were noting special, the food choices were limited and we were happy to move on. But before we returned to BA and we took a break at Eco Yoga Park.

Eco Yoga Park
We were at a point were I thought we needed some good vegetarian food, peace and quiet. Yoga and meditation wouldn't hurt either. We needed to be out of the city and be in nature. I had done some net surfing and looked in Lonely Planet and Eco Yoga Park sounded like it could fit the bill. This is a farm about an hour outside BA run by Hare Krishna people. You can go as a volunteer and work four hours a day or pay a little more and just hang out. There are yoga and meditation classes everyday.they grow most of the food they eat right there.

One of the structures you can stay in, not where we stayed

Temple for meditation, talks and yoga

What made this a good experience was the other guests. Unlike our last Ashram experience in New Zealand, the residents lived quite separate from the guests/volunteers. Except for cooking, and teaching classes, maybe doing maintenance  work around the property, you didn't see them .The Swami gave talks every few days about Hari Krishna traditions. The yoga classes were not so great. The food was excellent and just what we needed. The lodging was just s cut above camping, not super comfortable.. Actually I have had cleaner, less smelly, camping bathroom experiences. So that was a drag.The flies, smells and dogs made us wonder if they were trying to recreate Indian village life in the Argentine country side.

Btu we met a lot of other really cool travelers. There were a couple of good yoga classes taught by a woman from the US. And there was Ashley a man from Britain who had been there almost a year and acted as an activities director, organizing the volunteers and making sure all the non residents knew what the days activities were. He showed documentaries almost every night, organized a "quiz" game and was generally host like. He was a former University professor in Japan where he taught critical thinking. Very intelligent and interesting guy. And we met a bunch of other younger travelers who we really liked. They took Anika under their wing and she had a good time. One night she organized her own quiz game with all arts related questions. I came in as she was quizzing the group, (25 people) about Dali and Van Gough, music and literature. Everyone was supportive and happy to do this with her. It was very cute and I felt proud of her.

Everyone eating lunch

So it wasn't quiet as comfortable as we had hoped but we did have quiet, some yoga and good food. Plus meeting cool people is always the best. It gives you hope for the planet.

Cafayate- Hitting the Travel Wall and Hitting it Hard

Cafayate-  Where the Touring had to Stop

Our third tour day our same guide arrived but the same cool women did not join us. Instead it was a very quiet couple from Spain. We drove though green country side and up high again and through a cactus forest, to the village of Cachi where we had lunch. This would have been enough. But from there we took a curvy, washboard dirt road for five hours to get to Cafayate, pausing at churches viewpoints and geologic formations. Anika got quieter and quieter and she stopped getting out at the various stops for churches and views along the way.this should have been a clue she wasn't feeling well but we didn't pick up on it.

Green valley we started out in before climbing to Cachi

The long and windy road. At least this part was paved.

Forest of Cactus in a national park. I have never seen this many tall cactus any where, not Mexico, or the US Southwest.

Street in Cachi

Court yard of old hacienda we stopped at

The pepper harvest was happening and there were places where they were drying the peppers.

Famous geologic formation

Almost as soon as we drove into Cafayate Anika started throwing up. And she kept throwing up until 4:oo am. We got to our hotel and they were very kind and helpful. Dave and I went out to eat and I knew it was a mistake as I was doing it. By the time we got home to the hotel I was throwing up. But mine was short, Anika's lasted almost all night. Dave got going in the morning. We spent the next day in bed and cancelled that days tour. We were weak the following day. We stayed in Cafayte for four nights to recover and just slow down. none of us wanted to go anywhere

Luckily Cafayte is a really nice small town. The town is in a valley surrounded by colorful mountains ans hills It is one of the hubs of the wine making industry here and vineyards surround it. Many people come here to do wine tasting. You can walk to wineries, ride bikes or drive. Of course there are guided tours too. (Not that we could do this while we were there with recovering stomachs!) We were there during the harvest so trucks were going in and out of town piled with grapes. It is a tourist town to with enough infrastructure to be comfortable but with also enough other things going on that it doesn't feel like its all about tourism. The town plaza is big and shady, a good people watching spot. Besides wine they have wine flavored ice cream. It really sorbet and we tried it right before we got sick. It was very good.

Cafayte town Plaza

Interesting building in Cafayate

Vineyards and mountains surrounding Cafyate

As you can imagie as we got better we were ready to eat something very light. This is a concept hard to explain in Argentina. I just wanted some soup or plain rice. We had to work had to find a restaurant to do this and convince them some nice meat would not make us feel better. We started to really get tired of the meat, cheese and white bread diet. We fund a restaurant that had several soups, something that was hard to find in Argentina, and that helped a lot. One thing that is different in Argentina than say Mexico is that in Mexico I could explain our situation and ask for almost anything food wise and if they had or could get the ingredients they would make it. Not and option any where we found in Argentina.

When we were better we had one day of adventure here. Dave and I rented bikes and road out to Rio Colorado. When the road ended we hiked to a swimming hole. It was a gorgeous spot. It took us along time to get out there as we had to go slow since we were still kind of weak. But it was worth it. (Dave would not let me post any photos of him climbing around naked like spider man so you will have to use your imaginations.)

Swimming spot

View from Spot

I really liked our four quiet days there. Cafayate was my favorite town in the Salta area. We learned that you should ask for details about tours before you book them. How long is the day, what kind of roads are you on, how often do you stop, is there a lot of altitude change? I think we are not really the tour types as we like to go at our own pace. We never would have tried to drive that much in those conditions day after day. Our poor driver/guide, no wonder he needed all that coca. And after a while you can't take anything in and it all becomes a blur. well another travel lesson learned.

Salta- First Two Days

Salta

We flew to Salta. Salta is in the Northwest of Argentina near th eboarders with Bolivia, Peru and Chile. As with Iguazu Falls we had decided to have help from a travel agent. The same one as arranged our Falls trip arranged this trip including lodging, tours and transportation for the first five days of our ten days there. After that we had to find our own lodging but we figured we would do that once we were there and could see which small towns surrounding Salta appealed to us. Things did not turn out exactly as we had planned.

Tour Overload

Okay this is where we all three hit the travel wall at the same time. We were assaulted by Salta. Not that it wasn't a nice place with amazing surrounding areas. No, it had a lot to offer but we did not ask enough questions about the tours, as you will see, and maybe it was just time after eight months to get sick and have to slow down. We have each hit the travel wall at various times during the trip but I think this is the first time we all were there at the same time. When you hit the travel wall you just don't want to go any where or do anything, the food where you are doesn't taste good and you start to want to go home. Often when I get to this point I just don't want to go anywhere, but I still don't want to go home. Now even I was thinking about home longingly.

Route to the clouds

Along the route, amazing colors and geology

Tour Day One

Our tours started at 7:00am the first morning. Anika was too exhausted from traveling the day before to join us. We said stay home and rest for tomorrow. We were so glad we let her do this once we were into our first day of touring. We saw so many things and made so many stops in one day we couldn't remember it all at the end. It was a blur of stimulation, one beautiful and/or interesting sight after another. We went up the route of the Train of the Clouds to Santa Ros, a small village, to see a museum and crafts, then San Antonio a town in the Puna, for lunch.

Museum exterior

Museum interior

Part of the funky collection

Bike made out of cactus

 The Puna is the high altitude desert that is shared by Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. I think at the highest we were at 12,000ft. We saw a very different way of life from the rest of Argentina. The communities up here are poor and mostly indigenous people related to the Inca (who conquered this area) and the peoples that were here before them. They still farm and raise llamas. The food in Salta in influenced by the environment and indigenous traditions so there were some interesting additions to the meat diet. And there was goat and llama meat to go with the beef and lamb.

Salt Flats

Road side alter made out of salt and slabs of salt

We also went to the salt flats, saw vicuna (another wild species of llama), And lots of stunning landscape. But it was along day on dirt roads much of the time up and down in altitude.

Vicuna by the side of the road

We were very high up

The road down from the road to the clouds

 Tour Day Two
The next day was long too and Anika joined us. Luckily there were less dirt roads and altitude changes. We went to some pre Inca ruins that were very similar to what you find in the US southwest. We visited a couple of small towns and churches and stopped at many view points to take photos. Both days we had great partners on the tour, some women from South Africa and a woman from Montreal. The guide was also very good. He was chewing coca all day and encouraged us to do so or to drink the tea. It is supposed to help with the altitude. Coca is the matte for this part of Argentina although we saw people drinking mate too. Coffee, cigarettes, matte and coca these people like their stimulants!

Pumamarca and the Seven colored Mountain

Crafts in Pumamarca

Pre Inca Ruins Tilacar

We were in Humahuaca right before Easter. They were preparing these stages of the cross out of clay just for the event. Adults and young people worked on them together.

Like Dave's new hat?

This was a fun day but it started at 7:00 and ended at 9:00pm. We had dinner all together with the other people from the tour. Again we saw a lot and tried t take it all in. Each night we returned to the city of Salta. Every where we went was very crowded because of Easter coming and the traffic was pretty bad in some places. We were getting tired. But we had one more tour day to go.