Eating and drinking our way through Buenos Aires

March 10, 2017

Today's blog is a collaboration between me and Bunny, my BFF who came for an amazing week in Argentina! Here is what she has to say about Buenos Aires....

Hola chicas!

I’m on my flight home from and AMAZING trip with Kate and just realized that my total travel time is 20 hours. I thought it was only 15 (which doesn’t even make sense, womp womp). My flight left this morning at 6:15 which meant I had to be at the airport by 4:15—way too early for anything productive to be happening!

I arrived in Buenos Aires a little before Kate— she was meeting me there after a great week in Bariloche. It was perfect that I came in the afternoon and she arrived in the evening, because the first thing I did was take a long nap and then freshen up for our first night!

I didn’t know what to expect at all for Argentina. Looking back, I probably should have done more research on the culture but I just knew it was a fun place with great food and great wine, and that’s all I needed to hear to be convinced to go!

Kate and arrived and the first thing I noticed was she is SO TAN! South America has clearly been treating her well. We stayed in a darling Airbnb in Palermo Soho, which is a happening neighborhood…and actually reminds me a lot of SoHo in NYC. Lots of boutiques and great restaurants, we spent a lot of time just walking around in the VERY humid weather window shopping and catching up.

I was surprised by how many dogs there are in Argentina as pets (and also strays, sad). In BA the most popular breed by far seems to be the poodle, clearly they haven’t been introduced to Chihuahuas which is unequivocably the best breed and I think everyone agrees. In Northern Argentina there were lots of street dogs, mostly big mutts but we also saw purebred dogs like a dalmation, a lab, and a hound dog…all living on the streets! I have no idea where people in these rural communities are getting these animals.

Our first stop was a cute little place called Bartola for a bottle of rose and a snack around 7PM because we had 10:30 reservations at a “closed door” restaurant called iLatina with Briel, who Kate met in Bariloche.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Kate taking over the blog post from this point!]

iLatina features a seven (I think?) course tasting menu of Colombian-inspired food. It was definitely better than any food I ate in Colombia, though! We had a great time at dinner savoring all of the flavors and tasting a bunch of different Argentinian wines.

The following day, we continued the food theme with an Argentine cooking class, with chef Norma. She is a psychiatrist by trade, but started doing cooking classes at her home after some friends enjoyed her lessons. We learned how to make a traditional lentil stew, empanadas, and alfajores, YUM!

Teaching us how to fold empanadas....Bunny is like "I already know how to do this because I'm a master baker"

Following our cooking lesson, we met up with Briel again, and checked out El Ateneo, a famous and beautiful bookstore. We don’t read Spanish, so it didn’t take us too long to breeze through and then had a leisurely walk to the Recoleta cemetery, with some shopping stops along the way.

The cemetery is famous for its interesting tombs, including those of some famous Argentinians like Evita. We got there not too long before closing, so enjoyed a brief walk among the graves (which feels weird to write).

Bunny’s husband Jake has some friends who are living in Buenos Aires for a few months, so they invited us to meet up for drinks that evening. We had some delicious cocktails and some so-so tapas at a very cool place called Milion. It’s in a cool old mansion whose bar was super bumpin’ when we were leaving, since Argentinians start their evenings when Americans are usually going to bed!

We spent our last day in Buenos Aires checking out some local shopping. First stop was the huge San Telmo market. On Sundays the streets are closed for blocks and merchants line the way selling all souvenirs, art, and clothing. We stumbled upon a little restaurant midway through that had some live music, beers, and empanadas, so we stopped to enjoy some tunes and a beer!

Then, we headed back to our adopted neighborhood for a delicious lunch of salads at La Panera Rosa, a cute-as-a-button bakery and restaurant with huge cakes on display. We passed on the cakes and instead went in search of gelato, since it was still about a million degrees outside. We didn’t have to walk far to find Tufic, with the helados of our dreams! We did some more shopping in Palermo and Bunny picked up some cute new outfits (I was too hot/tired/full of ice cream to be interested in buying much!)

Naturally, after a day of shopping, the only thing to do in the evening is to drink a pitcher of ice cold champagne with fruit, which is exactly what we did!

To follow up our champagne, we walked over to Palermo Hollywood to finally get Bunny some Argentine steak at Miranda.

Don't worry, there were way more fries on the side

The next day, we were off to Salta, which you can read all about here, since I have done my blogging out of order this week!

But, since I’m on the topic of Buenos Aires, I’ll talk about the other two days I spent there after Salta. I was supposed to go from Salta to Iguazu, but when that flight was canceled, the alternative flight would have meant that I would have had to stay up all night, which didn’t feel like a good way to visit the waterfalls. So, I instead opted to skip Iguazu, and fly to Buenos Aires for two extra nights.

Luckily, this week the weather was MUCH cooler and more enjoyable. I decided to take these couple of days as a rest from exploration and just take it easy. The airline put us up in an adequate hotel the first night, and the second night I used some accumulated hotels.com points to stay at Home Hotel in Palermo Hollywood. It’s so amazing that I regret staying there because it will be hard to go back to hostel living for the next 3 weeks!

There isn’t too much to say about what I did the last couple of days, I just strolled around the neighborhood, relaxed by the hotel pool, and got a much-needed pedicure. I ate some amazing pasta at Cucina Paradiso, and had a very disappointing steak at Las Cabras, a fun neighborhood spot, and, my last meal in Buenos Aires was a healthy salad at a cute cafe called Ohsawa, a macrobiotic place that would fit right in in LA!

And now, off to Peru!

Epicly long blog post about Salta

March 7, 2017

After an indulgent weekend in Buenos Aires, Bunny and I flew to Salta, a province in the north of Argentina. To be honest, I pretty much knew nothing about it, except that some friends said they’d loved it, and some quick reading of message boards called it out as a highlight of people’s Argentina travels. Sometimes my way of traveling is “let’s just show up and someone will tell us what to do here.” Which is exactly what happened! And it was definitely a highlight of my travels!

We flew in to the city of Salta which was pretty much dead because we got there during the celebration of Carnivale, where everyone takes to the surrounding towns to celebrate, leaving the usually-thriving city extremely quiet. We checked in to our hostel, Las Rejas, and had a lunch of empanadas and tamales, (which this region is especially known for) at a place nearby called La Criollita. YUM

As you can see, these empanadas are very tiny so we obviously had to order more

I’d decided after extensive (10 minutes of) Internet research that renting a car was the way to go. So first order of business was to find a car to rent. Almost every rental storefront in town was closed, but a guy saw us looking in the windows, and ushered us into his office. Just as I’d hoped, this guy told us exactly where we should drive, what towns to stay in, and what we’d see there.

[BTW for anyone going to Salta who wants to rent a car, I can HIGHLY recommend Alpha Rental Car, Armando the owner was extremely reliable and great to work with every step of the way, even gave me a free ride to the airport! His cell is +54 9 387 4829473]

Do I remember how to drive a stick shift after 10 years of driving automatic? Yes, I do!

With that business taken care of, we did a little sightseeing, riding a funicular up to a nice viewpoint, where they were selling wine and popcorn, and then continued to eat lots of good steak at a parilla called El Charrúa, which was luckily open despite the holidays.

First stop on our gringa road trip was Tilcara. We loaded our stuff up into the car, I remembered how to drive stick shift, and we were on the way! We made a pitstop in Jujuy, not very cute, and also very closed due to Carnivale, and had a nice lunch and stretched our legs before continuing on. We swung through the town of Purmamarca (more on that later) on the way to Salinas Grandes, which are some salt flats in the wayyyyy North, almost to Bolivia. It was a steep and winding drive about 2 hours from Purmamarca but totally worth the journey! The drive there was beautiful! I was jealous of Bunny’s passenger-seat view, but managed to take my eyes off the road a few times to enjoy, and of course we stopped for some photos along the way.

After two hours of twisting roads and views, we reached Salinas Grandes! It had rained a bit the previous day, which gives the flats the appearance of a mirror, and makes for great photos.

After our photo shoot, and picking up some salt/llama themed souvenirs, we departed the salt flats and headed to our hostel in Tilcara (Antigua Tilcara). When we arrived, the Carnivale partying was still going strong! We had take some detours since the streets were completed packed with revelers. For dinner, we checked out a spot recommended by our hotel, La Picadita, where we had a shepard’s pie made with llama meat (very common there as there are tons of llamas), and an amazing bottle of local wine.

The next morning, we hit up some ruins in Tilcara. They date to before pre-Incan times, and also offer some nice views of the surrounding mountains. To me, they weren’t the most exciting thing in the world, but a nice way to spend the morning nonetheless.

Afterwards, we took the opportunity to browse the souvenir offerings in the town square (llama stuff galore!) and had yet another scrumptious meal at a restaurant recommended by a local shop owner, called A la Payla.

It'd be hard to overstate how obsessed with these balls we were. They are. EVERYWHERE. At first I thought they were lame then ended up buying some because Bunny convinced me they're cool.

Tummies full, it was time to hit the road again! We headed north, with the destination of Humahuaca in mind, where our map showed a cool viewpoint of some more cool rocks. Unfortunately, we were not very successful in seeing said viewpoint. First we drove up some wrong road, then we came back down, and found what looked like the correct road. We started driving, and it started raining. Unfortunately that road is made of something like clay, which then turned into mud in the rain. When our car started hydroplaning, we decided to turn around before things got worse. I’m sure the viewpoint is great on a sunny day, but sadly we’ll never know! [There are no photos from this part of the trip because even Bunny, the photo queen, was too scared to take her eyes off the road/my driving]

Slightly discouraged, we headed straight for our hotel in Purmamarca (Colores de Purmamarca) and headed up to a viewpoint to take some photos with the town’s famous Seven Colors Hill. In town, I noticed post cards with way better views than what we were seeing from the viewpoint, so I asked a woman working in one of the souvenir shops where we could take THAT picture. She showed me on my small map, and we were determined to check it out.

We had dinner in town at a place called Tierra de Colores, because our first choice restaurant was closed, and it turned out to be super fun and lively. They had a live band and the singer asked every table in the restaurant where they were from….everyone but us and one other table was from Buenos Aires!

The next morning, we got a somewhat early start and walked about 3K around the Los Colorados (the seven colored mountain) and obviously did a cool photo shoot on the rocks:

Then we went in search of that viewpoint from the postcards. It was actually really easy to find. We had to cross the freeway (there aren’t that many cars so it was safe), walk across a dried up river, and hike up about 5 minutes. And then, voila! The views we’d been craving!

The BLACK pen with the squiggly at the end is how you get to the viewpoint. This is pretty accurate to how we navigated the whole of Salta.

Satisfied with our views, we got in the car and drove North again, to the village of Uquia, where we were able to do a small hike in Las Señoritas, stunning red rocks. We stopped at the “information center” which is like, one dude who has a gift shop, and he told us how to get to the hike, and directions to what is probably the one restaurant in the whole town (Doña someone) where we had what I expect was a very authentic meal (and also there were tons of flies).

The hike was an easy one but, as usual in this area, incredibly impressive! We loved the contrast of bright red rocks with green shubbery here and there.

That evening, we had a pretty long drive back to Salta. Now that Carnivale was over, the town was back to normal, and was a super bustling city. Believe it or not, it was harder to park in Salta than in San Francisco! I ended up keeping the car in a garage overnight, not wanting to drive around endlessly searching while angry Argentinians honked at me. Feeling pretty tired we, decided to have our last dinner together back at La Criollita.

It was so sad to say goodbye to Bunny after an amazing week together (and actually I didn't say goodbye, because she left at 4 AM and I was asleep), but alas, it was time to get on the road solo again!

My first stop was Cafayate, a pretty substantial drive from Salta. I took about 4.5 hours to get there, with frequent photo stops. The first part of the drive was nothing to write home (or blog) about, just some small towns you have to drive through, then, all of the sudden, you find yourself driving through scenery that gets more beautiful at every turn. I kept stopping about every five minutes to take a photo! At one moment it looked like you were driving through a lush red canyon, and the next looked like something from another planet. Unfortunately I don't think my camera accurately captured the awesome-ness of the scenery, but here are a couple photos to give you an idea:

Garganta del Diablo "Devil's Throat" rock formation

Rocks near El Obelicso (a big rock that I found less impressive than the stuff around it).

Vineyards and mountains as you drive into Cafayate

I arrived late in the afternoon, so settled in to my hostel, Casa Arbol, and walked around the sleepy town a bit before enjoying a local wine flight and dinner at a restaurant called Bad Brothers Wine Experience with a great patio.

The next day, I was considering a visit to some ruins, but wasn't really in the mood to drive a bunch more, so decided to partake in one of the most popular activities in the area, wine tasting! I met another girl from San Francisco in my hostel, and she joined me for tours and tastings at Domingo Molina and Piatelli.

Domingo Molina was a small, laid back winery with a beautiful outdoor space where we enjoyed a leisurely tasting.

Sorry Napa, but I think Cafayate is prettier!

Piatelli was a bit more upscale and reminded me a lot of Napa (but way cheaper- tour + tasting was about $7!). They have a beautiful restaurant where we enjoyed some lunch among posh Argentinian tourists, and then joined a tour where we got to see some of their wine making in action since they just began the harvest.

That evening, I ate ice cream for dinner and called it an early night! The next morning, it was time to head north on Route 40, a mostly unpaved road that I was a little nervous to drive. It turned out to be totally fine, just slow going. You may have started to notice a theme here: the drives are jam packed with jaw-dropping scenery. This drive featured some more intense rock formations, but in subdued, desert tones and with huge mountains further away (the camera never does a good job capturing those). It was easy to stop and take photos, because there was almost no one else on the road-- I probably saw 20 other cars the whole day.

I stopped for lunch in a town called Molinos. I think there are two restaurants in the town, and I happened to pick a very cute one in the lone hotel in town (Hacienda de Molinos). There was a small group of tourists from San Francisco also dining there, and one of them even owns a building on my block. Small world!

Amazing salad in the most random of places!

It was lucky I ran into them, because they were on their way to a winery called Colomé which ended up being a Salta highlight. A friend of mine works at a winery in Napa and he recommended Colomé to me, but I wasn't sure I'd make it since it was about a 60 minute detour from my route. But, not really having anything else to do, and seeing that these San Franciscans were excited about it, I decided to go. Their tour guide called to make a booking for me, because I guess you need an appointment (also lucky they told me that!)

To get to Colomé you take an even more unpaved road from Molinos for about 30-45 minutes (45 if you drive slowly like I do). You go through two small rivers, and pass no one else coming or going. When you start to wonder if you are actually going in the right direction, finally you see a couple of signs, and then a big metal gate where you buzz and are let in (if you have an appointment!). Then, you are shocked to find that the winery is super modern, and that there is a James Turrell museum on site.

It's kind of hard to explain how cool it was to find this winery there- LITERALLY in the middle of nowhere, it comes as a complete surprise. But let's actually talk about the museum. When I heard there was a museum there, I wasn't that excited, but it's a collection of nine James Turrell works, and they are freaking MIND BLOWING. They don't allow you to take anything inside, so I don't have any photos, but the coolest works basically feel like magic in your eyeballs- like you're staring into infinity or floating. Super cool.

We also had a short tour of the winery, and an expensive tasting ($20 for two tastes, but well worth it for the whole experience).

These vineyards don't look like anything too special, the cool part is how hard it is to get to!

The only downside to visiting Colomé is that I was a little stressed about getting to Cachi (where I'd stay the night) before the sun went down- the road is not only unpaved but of course also unlit, so not a place you want to be driving at night. I made it to my hotel, only to find that they were booked up, despite the fact that I had a reservation, but they sent me over to their sister hotel a couple blocks away. The room was nice, except for the bathroom which smelled horribly of mildew and had a "shower" that was a small dribble of water. Oh well, for $45 in the middle of nowhere you can't have too high of expectations!

Cachi is a really small town that I didn't get much time to explore, since I got in late and left early. It has a cute little square, and hotels and restaurants for tourists. I had dinner at a vegetarian pasta restaurant (so un-Argentinian of me) called Ashpamanta, which was friendly and delicious.

The following day, I left Cachi early (for me) at 8 AM to return to Salta. Surprise! The drive was gorgeous, and the scenery again totally different from the previous day: snow covered peaks in the distance, and huge, lush green mountains with clouds resting among them.

In case you're wondering how we navigated our way through Northern Argentina, it was ALL this map. And some help from Google offline maps :)

I dropped off the car in Salta and had an afternoon to spend walking around, which turned out to be super boring, because everything closes down for siesta, so I spent a lot of the time in McDonald’s using their free wifi to do some trip planning.

Last night, I was supposed to fly to Iguazu Falls for a day to check out one of the wonders of the natural world. Unfortunately, the flight was canceled, and the airline’s plan was to fly everyone to Buenos Aires (arriving at midnight) and put them on a flight at 5 AM to Iguazu, which would essentially mean sleeping 2 hours or not at all. Since I would only have one, exhausted day at the falls (before flying to Peru), I opted to skip them, and just fly to Buenos Aires, which is where I am now. I had a free night saved up from Hotels.com, so checked myself in to the LOVELY Home Hotel, where I am currently relaxing and catching up on things like blogging, which require reliable internet. Tomorrow I’ll enjoy some more time exploring Buenos Aires before I fly to Lima in the afternoon, to spend my last couple of weeks of sabbatical in Peru!

A break from solo travel in Bariloche

February 25, 2017

Last week, I enjoyed a nice break from traveling alone in Bariloche with a group of old and new friends.

My friend Lisa, a sorority sister from college, “accidentally” won a silent auction for a week at a vacation home in Bariloche. She placed the opening bid never expecting to win, but there were no higher offers! Since I was on the same continent, I decided to join Lisa and five of her friends in the mountains of Argentina. Even though Colombia and Argentina are both in South America, it was quite a journey to get to Bariloche, three flights over two days, but well worth the effort.

Bariloche is a huge spot for all kinds of outdoor activities- in the winter it’s all about skiing, but we were there at the end of summer, where people enjoy the beautiful lakes and mountains. There are picture-perfect views in every direction, and we never tired of the amazing scenery!

We managed to pack a ton into our week there, and what I loved about it is that we did some great outdoorsy stuff followed by luxurious activities (often both in the same day!) I was a terrible part of the group because the other girls literally planned everything, and I just showed up and enjoyed it all (and also they took most of these photos). Thanks guys!

First, let’s talk about the house. It was AMAZING- I will probably never stay somewhere that nice again. Definitely a change of pace from hostel life :) It’s in a private resort area called Arelaquen, and had a huge, beautiful living area with stunning mountain views. I think there were six bedrooms in total- I ended up in what I dubbed the “kids club” - a room with six twin beds, all for me!

Day 1

Most of the girls arrived a few hours before me; they’d reserved a rental car only to discover that none of them could drive it because it was a stick shift! I know how to drive stick, but by the time I got there, they’d already arranged some taxis. After setting in, we headed into the downtown (about 20 minutes from our place) to visit some of the famous chocolate shops of Bariloche. I’m not sure exactly why there are so many, but I wasn’t complaining! We sampled some cakes at Mamushka and popped in to a few others.

We walked down to the lake but it was super cold and windy, so headed indoors to a bar call Manush, for some drinks and fries. Afterwards we hit up a traditional Parilla, El Boliche de Alberto where we ate TONS OF MEAT. Except for the vegetarian in the group who ate grilled cheese. Not a sandwich just literally cheese, cooked on a grill.

Day 2

Our second day there, the weather was not cooperating for enjoying the outdoors. It rained pretty much the entire day. Even though it wasn’t how you picture ideal vacation weather, it gave us a chance to relax and enjoy our palatial home. We cooked a big brunch, and then just hung around reading and chatting (and I managed to get in an indoor workout for the first time in a while!) When it finally stopped raining, there was an amaaaaazing rainbow! We headed back into town to have a casual dinner back at Manush (great burgers!)

Managed to shower and get out of the house to eat burgers

Day 3

On our third day, we headed out for some adventures on the lake. We booked an all day boat excursion through Turisur. Unfortunately, the weather was still not great in the early part of the day. We went to Puerto Blest, which is supposed to be beautiful, but was pretty clouded over. We still managed a fun rainy day photo shoot!

After lunch though, things started clearing up, and we were able to do a ~45 minute hike to a stunning waterfall and lake before heading back home on the boat.

Very happy that it stopped raining for a bit and we could climb to a cool lake

That evening, we got dressed up to visit Butterfly, the nicest restaurants in town. We had a seven course tasting menu, everything delicious, with the steak and dessert being my favorites.

At this point, I should give a major shout out to one of our trip highlights, our driver JULIO, who helped us get to and from all of these activities. Since we abandoned the idea of the rental car, we got connected to Julio, a driver with a van large enough for seven ladies. He was always on time, and had a great sense of humor and knows everything there is to know about Bariloche. He helped us find places to rent camping gear, made some reservations for us, and even found a masseuse to come to our house (after I left, sadly).

Days 4 & 5

On Tuesday, it was time to abandon the luxury lifestyle for a big hike and overnight stay in a cabin a called Refugio Frey. For the trip, we rented some sleeping bags and one more big pack (in addition to mine) at Del Cruce Outdoor Shop.

Since I had been so out of it with the planning, I had no preconceived notions of what the hike or accommodations would be. The hike was described by multiple sources as “easy” which we all disagreed with. I’m not a major mountaineer, but I’ve been doing 3-4 hour hikes about every week, and this one was HARD. It took us about 5 hours to get up, and the last hour was especially taxing as it was mostly uphill on rocky terrain. It was beautiful though, and I thought well worth the effort (even if, as Lisa says, the light was draining from my eyes for the last stretch).

Enjoying the views despite being SO TIRED.

Refugio Frey is a small accommodation at the end of the hike- set next to a beautiful mountain lake, with bunks and a “restaurant” (not really a proper restaurant, they had pretty good pizza as the dinner option when we were there) and sleeping arrangements that surprised us all. We had booked a reservation for the seven of us (DEFINITELY needed) and walked upstairs to a room with basically one huge bunk bed against the wall. It looked big enough to accommodate about 20-25 people, everyone sleeping next to everyone else. We were able to grab the last spots on the top bunk, but they don’t turn away people without a reservation, so by the end of the night there were probably 40 people there, including covering the entire floor. I wasn’t as horrified as I think some of the girls were- having slept in hostels for the last few weeks has toughened me up a bit, but it was definitely not comfortable, and I probably ended up sleeping only about 4 or 5 hours.

We got up early as we were eager to get back to our comfortable accommodations and hiked back down, which took a good 4 hours, during which I was super tired and not having a great time. Once we got to the base (which is a little ski village), we were disheartened to find that taxis were not readily available, but Lisa was able to manage to get a van to come pick us up. So note to anyone doing this hike- try to have transportation back arranged ahead of time.

Despite the uncomfortable night’s sleep, I had a great time at the Refugio and was really glad that my friend Lisa planned that activity for us.

That night, we definitely rewarded our hard work on the trail. The girls had arranged for a private chef, Lucas Mallmann (nephew of the famous chef Francis Mallmann) come to the house and cook for us. The weather was so perfect that we were able to eat out on the deck, and all of the food was delicious. After a long hike it was so amazing to just sit back and relax at home with someone else doing all the work of cooking and clean up. I could definitely get used to that lifestyle!

Day 6

On Thursday, we went on a horseback riding adventure organized by Briel, one of the gals who grew up riding horses. She found a great trip with Ariane, who lives in a magical cabin with horses and five super sweet and friendly dogs. We spent about an hour and a half basically riding through a postcard- the scenery was (as usual) breathtaking, before enjoying delicious homemade picnic lunch beside a river. We loved seeing the different personalities of the horses, the one female horse was a bit of a rebel who wanted to take her own way; mine was named Wayne, and we kept making fun of him because he refused to walk at the same pace as the others, and Briel was on Simon who, we learned, LOVES to eat bread!

After showering off the trail dirt, it was time to get dressed up again for high tea at Llao Llao, the fanciest resort in Bariloche. It’s a beautiful place that reminded me of the resort at Squaw Creek in Tahoe, but with better views. They had a buffet of cakes, and obviously we tried every single one of them. A healthy choice for dinner, to be sure.

YUM (this is like 1/3 of the total desserts we ate)

We explored the grounds a bit after dinner and took some photos. I also bought a hat that I am SUPER excited about, because I hate the white hat that I brought on this trip. It was time for an upgrade!

We thought we’d hit up a bar after Llao Llao, but we unanimously decided we’d rather just chill at home and a few of us were excited to watch The Bachelor, which I’d downloaded on my computer :)

Sadly on Day 7, it was time to pack up and head out for the next leg of my adventure! One of my best friends in the whole world is meeting me in Buenos Aires, where we’ll spend the weekend, and then head to the north of Argentina to explore Salta!

Welcome to my blog!

South America...and beyond!

In early 2017, I took a 3 month sabbatical from work to travel in South America, and blogged about it along the way. Since then, I’ve taken a few more noteworthy trips, and am sharing my experiences with you here!

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