Beginning Our Journey Home

The next day was clear and beautiful again. We got ourselves packed and hit the road by noon. We were sad to leave such a beautiful place, but happy to be heading back home again. We’d been gone for almost three and a half months, and our cups were full of many wonderful lifetime memories and cherished experiences.


Our beloved cabaña that made our stay in Pucón so comfortable.


The kids couldn't resist a roll down the hill in front of our cabaña.

We had decided to stay for the night at Casa Chueca again as it was at our midway point between the Lake District and Santiago. We arrived in time to swim, take a walk, and relax. The next day we checked out at noon, and since it was only about a four hour drive to Santiago and we didn’t want to be stuck in a hotel room in the city any longer than we needed to, we opted to take a side trip to some waterfalls. It turned out to be a really long side trip as we had to drive the last 45 km or so on a dirt road, but we did see some more beautiful waterfalls and a completely different part of Chile.


One of several lovely waterfall.


Another waterfall that we hiked into.

Danger!

We arrived in Santiago quite late and headed to bed. Tomorrow we would be flying to Buenos Aires and then taking the Buqueus back to Montevideo.

More adventures in Chile

The next day was a rainy one and we all took it easy with the exception of a shopping trip to Pucon to buy food and look at the local crafts. We stayed one more day at La Colina hotel before deciding to move towards Pucón at the other end of Lago Villarrica. Our hosts had recommended some cabañas overlooking the lake where we would have the ability to cook and spread out a bit. We had thought the view at La Colina was gorgeous, but the view from our cabaña was unbelievable! We decided to make this our home base for the next week and settled in. Sadly, I also came down with a nasty cold. I can’t, however, imagine a more beautiful place to be sick. I spent a day in bed resting, but that didn’t mean I was deprived. The view out my window of the lake and the mountains in the distance cheered me up and made my sick time more bearable.


This is my view out the bedroom window!


Another bedroom window view.

On Monday Andrew took Chris and Elli fishing, catching two good sized rainbow trout. We cooked them for dinner and were amazed at how pink the meat was. It almost looked like salmon. We were told that this was because of what they ate. Everyone concluded that it was some of the best fish we had ever eaten.


Elli and Andrew on their fishing trip.


Chris with his fish.

On Tuesday, I took Elli, Chris, and Julia on a horseback riding trip and then to the hot springs, while Andrew took Morielle and Fiona to climb up the volcano. Fiona and Morielle have written about their experiences on their blogs, so I’ll just post my favorite picture of them at the top. The rest of the kids and I had wonderful day riding on the back roads through the mountains. In addition to the stunning views, I particularly enjoyed my saddle. The traditional gaucho saddle has got to be the most comfortable, practical one I have ever used. If I could have figured out a way to bring one back home with me I would have. As always, the volcano was almost always in view, but it was amazing to think that while we were riding, the rest of our family was somewhere up on that looming mountain.


Elli and her horse.


Along the trail.


We took a quick break at this lake during our horseback riding excursion.

Southern Chile at Last

The next day we hit the road again and made our way south into Chile’s beautiful Lake District.
The closer we got to the Lake District the more beautiful the landscape became. Looming majestically to our left during our entire trip south, the Andes mountains kept us in constant awe. Now, however, the vegetation gradually changed into pine and deciduous forests, and an array of wildflowers painted the meadows with many hues. At the town of Freire we left the Pan-American Highway and headed southeast toward the Andes. Our destination for the night was a hotel run by an American couple from Montana overlooking the Lago Villarrica and Volcán Villarrica.


Dinner at La Colina, a Bed & Breakfast run by an American couple who have lived here for 17 years.

We arrived just in time for a delicious dinner at their restaurant. The weather was decidedly cooler and we were glad we had brought our jackets with us. The next day we headed out to go exploring. Our hosts provided us with detailed maps of the area and we decided on a hiking trip to some waterfalls and then a swim in one of the many termas (hot springs) that can be found in this area. Sadly Julia wasn’t able to join us as she had come down with a nasty cold and needed a day of rest.

Hiking into the waterfall


This waterfall was tall and beautiful. Unfortunately my camera couldn't catch it all in one shot.


Hiking in the forest


An old steam engine we happened upon.


Relaxing at the hot springs after our hike

As we drove the back roads and took in the vistas, I quickly came to the conclusion that this part of Chile is perhaps the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life. I’ve always been a “mountain girl” having lived and spent significant time in the Sierras of California, the Cascade mountains of Oregon, and the mountains of Montana. In all of these beautiful places, however, only plant life that can tolerate severe cold survives. In the Lake district of Chile it is much more temperate and a remarkable variety of flowers, bushes, and trees are found. And because of the year-round rainfall, everything is verdantly green and lush. It almost looks tropical in places yet there are numerous pine trees and snow covered mountain peaks at every turn. Dominating the landscape, however, is the Volcán Villarrica, an active volcano with streams of smoke pouring out of the top. It is absolutely stunning! I could go on and on, but I will stop here and post pictures instead.


Happy cows


These beautiful yellow flowers were everywhere. Unfortunately, we found out later they are a pernicious non-native weed.


Volcán Villarrica - If you look carefully you can see smoke coming out of the volcano.

On Our Way to Southern Chile

Chile is a very long, narrow country and our destination in the Lake District was at least a ten-hour drive. We therefore opted to make the trip over a two-day period. This gave us a chance to appreciate the sites along the way. As we traveled back inland on our way to the I-5, we were again struck with how similar the landscape was to the central coast region of California where we live. Here in Chile there is also a coastal mountain range with small towns dotting the valleys. The climate is mediteranean and the land fertile. As we drove, we passed hectare upon hectare of grapes and other fruits growing, and saw an abundance of family farms growing an assortment of vegetables.

About mid-afternoon we began to get hungry. There were no major towns ahead on the map so we pulled over next to a gas station at a rather run down looking restaurant that served the local clientele. I wasn’t impressed by the outward appearance, but by this time everyone was famished, so we went in. In the States, if you stopped at a gas station restaurant you would be assured of finding canned, fried, or microwaved food items. Here there was no menu, only the three or four lunch offerings for the day. Not really knowing what we were ordering we got a couple of each of the items they had available, including something called cazuela. When the food arrived, however, we were all duly impressed! This was real home cooking; nothing was canned or microwaved as it would be in a similar type of restaurant in the states. I for one decided that in Chile you can’t judge a restaurant by its exterior. Cazuela, a delicious traditional Chilean soup was to become a favorite during our stay in Chile.


This restaurant didn't look particularly promising, but the food was great.

At one point during our journey south we got lost in a small town and accidentally took a one-way street going the wrong way. A police car just happened to be passing at the time and pulled us over. We had had several encounters with police in Argentina, all of them positive, but we didn’t know what to expect with Chilean police. The officer spoke no English, but was polite, explained that we were going the wrong way, gave us directions to our destination and sent us on our way.

Around 7:30 we arrived at a place I had found online called Casa Chueca. It turned out to be a very nice, somewhat rustic German-run hosteria in the country just outside of the city of Talca. We settled into our rooms and some of us had a relaxing swim before enjoying a simple vegetarian dinner with our hosts and the other guests. After being surrounded by Spanish for the past three months, it was a little surreal to hear everyone speaking German. Many of them did speak some English so we were able to meet an interesting group of world travelers and trekkers. The next day we would complete our journey to the Lake District of Chile.


The German owned Casa Chueca in the country outside of Talca.


The view from Casa Chueca

From Santiago to the Pacific Ocean

We left Santiago and headed towards Viña del Mar on the Pacific Ocean. Fiona's birthday was the following day and we decided it would be nice to spend a couple of days on the coast before heading south towards the lake district of Chile. We were now in a new country and enjoyed noticing the similarities and differences between Chile and the other places we had been. The first thing we noticed was how remarkably clean, well-kept, and high-tech Chile was. There were very few bars on the windows, and the homes and yards were generally well cared for, (at least in the areas we drove by). In fact, we felt like we were in California much of the time. The plant life, the topography, even the smell reminded us of California. There were even California poppies lining the highways. And then there was the autopista, the South American extension of I-5 and part of the Pan-American Highway. This was the reason we had opted to go to Chile initially. We hadn't wanted to drive for 20 or so hours on the narrow highways of Argentina to get down to the Lake District. After six weeks in Argentina, we were quite happy to drive on Chile's well-maintained divided highways.


Elli with California poppies. We saw them everywhere.


Are we in the U.S.? Gas stations along the autopista were quite upscale. This one had granite counter tops in the bathroom. The prices are in pesos per liter.

Viña del Mar was pleasant, but a bit too touristy for our tastes. We did the typical tourist things like eating in a restaurant overlooking the ocean, shopping in the artesenal booths along the streets, and taking a ride in a horse drawn carriage to see the local sites. The latter activity was quite embarrassing for some members of the family. Christopher and Elli, however, were thrilled because the driver invited them to sit with him and let them drive the carriage through the streets. This was definitely something that would not have happened in California due to "liability issues."

Fiona's birthday lunch on the ocean


Our touristy jaunt in a carriage driven in part by Chris and Elli


Elli at the reins


Fiona on her birthday with the lights of Viña del Mar in the background.

Unfortunately, what we had hoped would be a relaxing few days became somewhat stressful when we discovered that Morielle had picked up a nasty lice infestation. It had been almost 15 years since I had dealt with lice and they’re never fun, but trying to deal with them in a hotel in a foreign country was definitely challenging. Since we had all been living in such close proximity I automatically assumed that everyone had them, but amazingly enough, after multiple inspections, it was determined that Morielle was the only one.

Finally on Monday we were ready to begin our journey again. We headed south along the coast, passing the famed city of Valparaiso with its steep hills and elevator cars (the “San Francisco of South America”) on the way, before heading inland again through wine country. We had a long day ahead of us.


It is hard to see in this photo, but there are two cars on the tracks. Because the city is built on steep hills overlooking the ocean, these tracks and cars are everywhere.

Over the Andes into Chile

Having determined which bus we wanted to take into Chile, we had to figure out how to get to the bus station in downtown Cordoba. Remember, our car fit only our bodies, not all of our stuff. We finally decided that the best plan would be for me to drive Andrew and Christopher to the bus station with all of our stuff. After we bought our tickets, I would drive back to Alta Gracia and pick up the four girls. We would then return the rental car and take a taxi to the bus station, leaving plenty of time to spare. Everything went according to plan, except that with traffic and few other minor problems by the time I arrived back in Cordoba, we were running about an hour later than we had hoped. I still needed to return the car, but we had allowed extra time, so I wasn't too worried. I had the address for the rental car agency and a good map. Unfortunately, we discovered that the agency wasn't actually at the address listed the internet. What to do? I tried calling them, but my phone was having some type of technical problem that wouldn't allow me to make the call. Now I really started to get worried. I retraced my steps again thinking that maybe we had some how missed it. Unfortunately, as I tried to retrace my steps, I got lost in the maze of one-way streets in the downtown area. As we drove down a busy main street, Morielle shouted out that she saw a sign for Alamo. Frustratingly, due to traffic, I couldn't get over and had to go back around again. More one-way streets and I found myself lost again. Finally, we located the sign and sure enough it was an Alamo; not the one listed on the internet, but still an Alamo. I pulled over and went into the hotel where the office was located. It was closed! Now I was really in trouble. Our bus was leaving in less than an hour and the only other place I could return the car was at the airport a good 30 minutes away. I talked to someone at the front desk of the hotel in my best Spanish and he offered to call the Alamo office at the airport for me. The guy on duty turned out to Martin, the man who we had filled out our initial paperwork with. Fortunately, he spoke fluent English. I explained my dilemma and he told me to just leave the car there at the hotel and he would take care of everything later. The man at the hotel desk informed me that the bus station was only seven blocks away. We'd make it, praise God!! We grabbed our stuff, walked rapidly to the bus station and arrived with about twenty minutes to spare. If Morielle hadn't "accidentally" noticed the Alamo sign, I don't know what we would have done.

Our bus was scheduled to leave at 10:00 p.m. We were grateful to have been able to get tickets because the bus drivers were planning to go on strike at midnight (the second time that week), and any buses scheduled after that wouldn't be running. 10:30 rolled around and we were still waiting. 11:00 passed and still we waited. When it passed 11:3o we started to worry. What if the bus didn't arrive before midnight? Would it still leave? Finally, at around 11:50 our bus showed up. We all climbed on exhausted but relieved, and got ourselves settled for our 16 hour bus ride.

I thought the younger kids would fall asleep right away, but for some crazy reason they decided to show a cartoon until 2:00 a.m. It's pretty hard to sleep when there is a movie playing right in front of you. Finally, after the movie was over, we all fell asleep. The bus had "semi-cama" seats, which meant that they reclined quite a bit. It was not super comfortable, but was better than trying to sleep in an airline seat.


Sleeping in our semi-cama seats

When we woke up we were coming in Mendoza, the last major city before heading up into the Andes. We got a quick break at a gas station to stretch our legs and brush our teeth.


Andrew & Chris in front of our double-decker bus in Mendoza. Our seats were upstairs.


The Andes appear in the distance.


Driving up into the Andes


A really tall mountain.

We climbed back in and started our climb into the Andes. I was excited. I have wanted to see the Andes for as long as I can remember and now, here they were!!! I quickly decided however, that I had best keep my eyes on the mountains not the road. Remember my description of Argentine drivers? Well, our lives were now in the hands of an Argentine bus driver who passed trucks on windy mountain roads with a sheer drop off on one side. Lots of prayers went up over the next five hours and at one point I looked down one of these drop offs and saw a truck that hadn't made it. The truck was completely destroyed and they were in the process of trying to get the driver out as we drove by. I can't imagine that he survived. It was a sad and sobering moment.


A truck and truck driver that didn't make it.

One of the challenges I faced as a parent as we drove over the Andes was the graphically violent and sexual charged R rated movie they chose to show as we traveled. I finally had to have the younger kids cover their heads with a blanket and look out the window. I just don't understand why people show this kind of material when there are children present. What are they thinking? The imagery was horrific and instead being able to totally enjoy the beauty out my window, I had to deal with unhappy kids who didn't enjoy having to travel with blankets over their heads. This was one of the reasons I had hesitated traveling by bus in South America. A friend had warned me that the movies were usually pretty bad, and now I was having my own first hand experience. At least the view out the window was pretty. They both finally fell asleep. My other kids ended up sleeping through most of the movie as well, so we survived.

At last we reached the summit and arrived at the border between Argentina and Chile. We passed through customs with out any real difficulty even though two of our bags had to be searched. Then we began our decent in to Chile. For those of you who have never seen the Andes they are simply amazing. We took lots of pictures, but none of them do justice to sheer magnificence of these mountains.


The border of Chile was at the summit.


Another view of the summit.


Safely in the valley looking back at the Andes

Finally we arrived in Santiago. We were exhausted but grateful to have made it safely. The next challenge was trying to figure out how to pick up our car. As we stood there looking very much like confused tourists, an incredibly helpful Chilean woman who spoke English quite well came up and offered to help. Since our phone didn't work in Chile, she offered to call the rental car agency from her cell phone. Once we discovered that it was more than a half an hour away from the bus station, we realized that our original plan of sending either Andrew or me to pick up the car and then get the rest of the family at the bus station was probably not a good one. Unlike the bus station in Argentina, there really wasn't any place to comfortably hang out while waiting; and unlike Argentina, we really stood out in the bus station with our lighter hair and fairer skin. There was no way we could pass for locals here. We decided that our best bet was to all take taxis to the car rental place. We enlisted the help of the guy who appeared to be assigned to the task of matching riders with drivers. He took stock of us and our luggage and went to talk to the taxi drivers. They decided that we would all fit in one taxi, luggage and all. We couldn't believe it. It was just too funny. But sure enough, with his roof rack and trunk, all of our stuff fit. Andrew sat in the front seat with the driver and the rest of us climbed in the backseat of yet another car that was designed for only five people. This time, however, instead of trying to cram five people into the backseat, we were cramming six!!! But, hey, were in South America. Here can you get away with piling eight people into a five passenger car. We all got very cozy and off we went.

When we arrived at the rental car agency, we were thrilled to find out that they had another Hyundai eleven passenger van waiting for us! Finally we could spread out a bit and fit all of our stuff comfortably. We now were ready to begin our adventures in Chile!!

Our Last Few Days in Argentina

It's hard to believe that it is already December 13th and that I am writing this post from Southern Chile! Since I am more than two weeks behind in my posts, I've decided to post several shorter posts in an attempt to get caught up before we actually leave for home. So first let me wrap up our time in Argentina.

As I mentioned in my last post, Andrew arrived to join us for our final month in South America. Before his arrival, I spent many hours attempting to solve our transportation problem. It's one thing to fit seven people into a small car, but cramming six people in a backseat designed to barely fit three just wasn't going to work. Besides, we wanted to be able to see more of South America. Fortunately, right before Andrew's arrival one of our local friends, upon hearing of my car woes, helped me to locate a larger car that we could afford. It wasn't big enough to fit us and all of our stuff, but it did seat seven, a big improvement! This would work for our remaining time in the Cordoba area. But since our goal was to travel to the Bariloche area of Argentina, we needed to figure out the best way to travel there with our family and all of our luggage. Having already experienced the "joys" of traveling on the rural highways of Argentina, we decided that we would rather travel into Chile and go down the nice four lane Panamerican highway instead. That way we could see Chile on our way before crossing over the Andes again into Argentina through Chile's lake district. After countless hours on the phone and online. we were finally able to locate a van large enough fit us, but it was in Santiago, Chile. We just needed to get ourselves and all of our stuff from Alta Gracia, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. Flying was out of the question due to the cost, so we opted to take a bus over the Andes.

Genevieve had found an opportunity to volunteer at an orphanage (a dream of hers since the age of 14) and decided to stay behind. Before we left, we decided to visit her at the orphanage and say our final goodbyes. We also wanted to visit some friends of a former neighbor of ours in Garden Farms. She had grown up in Argentina and had many fond memories. It was our first chance to visit the area north of Cordoba. We headed north and spent a lovely hour or so with our former neighbor's childhood friends. They showed us typical Argentine hospitality and baked a cake in anticipation of our visit.


Our former neighbor's childhood friends

We then headed even farther north to a small town where the orphanage was located. It is run by some nuns and provides a home to girls who have lost their parents or who have parents that are no longer able to care for them. It was a sweet visit as the girls prepared homemade pizza and threw a party for us. Some of them performed traditional folk dances for us and we took turns singing for each other. Fiona had a chance to play the piano for the first time in three months (although some of the keys didn't work anymore), and we stuffed ourselves on pizza. It was a lovely afternoon, but the inevitable moment came when we had to say goodbye to Genevieve, not knowing for sure when we would see her again. In addition to the job at this orphanage, she had found an additional job at another orphanage with infants where she planned to work at least until January. We all hugged and kissed goodbye, and headed back to our cabaña. The next day we would begin our journey to Chile


The three sisters that run the orphanage for girls


At last a piano to play! Fiona entertains the girls


The sisters, their helpers, and some of the girls with our family

Thanksgiving in Argentina

Andrew returned on November 23rd. Since he wasn't with us on Thanksgiving day and because many of our friends had inquired about Thanksgiving traditions in the United States, we decided that a wonderful way to show our gratitude to some our new found friends, and celebrate Andrew's return, would be to invite some friends to our cabaña for a Thanksgiving feast. We were excited but had some hurdles to overcome. First, as much as we wanted to invite everyone that we had met, we had to limit ourselves to under 30 people, which was challenging, as everyone had been so kind and welcoming. Our next hurdle was locating a turkey. Could we even get one? Turkey is not a common food in Argentina, but I went to my local carniceria and inquired about whether he could get us some "pavo". He asked me what size, did some checking, and sure enough, was able to find one. We wanted to make pumpkin pie, but alas it is spring in Argentina not fall and canned pumpkin is not available here, so we decided on apple crisp instead. Potatoes are readily available, as are "batatas" (sweet potatoes), so we added mashed potatoes and candied yams, both very traditional in our family, to our menu. I usually make my candied yams with maple syrup, something that you definitely can't find in South America, so I had Andrew bring a small bottle of maple syrup with him on the plane. Of course stuffing was simple to make. We also decided to serve carrots as they were easy to buy and prepare. Another one of our family favorites for Thanksgiving is sparkling apple cider. Amazingly, as we were walking through the main isle of the supermarket we noticed an end display with, of all things, sparkling apple cider! Our needed list of ingredients for our feast was complete.

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, we had moved from one cabaña to another slightly larger one next to a river. The first cabaña had had no oven but fortunately the new one did, albeit quite a small one. Unfortunately, it was only able to cook on one temperature - very hot! There was also no hot water in the kitchen, only in the bathroom, so any dishes we used had to be washed in the bathroom sink. Since we didn't have enough pans, we borrowed some from our friends. We knew that this would be quite a challenging meal to make due to our limitations but remarkably, everything came together almost perfectly.


Stuffing the turkey - I had to use a needle and thread to hold it together!


Apple crisp prep with a little helper


Not the most elegant looking Thanksgiving spread, but an accomplishment for us given our limited resources!

Our dinner was a big hit and we had a wonderful time sharing Thanksgiving with some of our new friends. We wished that we could have invited all of them, but with our limited space and ability to cook, the size group we ended up with worked out perfectly. It was a lovely, fun-filled evening, and a perfect way to show our thankfulness for our wonderful friends who had made our stay in Alta Gracia so memorable.


Our attempt at a group photo - sadly some people didn't make it into the camera's range.


Everyone had a great time.

Three Weeks in Alta Gracia

After I arrived back in Argentina from Uruguay, I rented another car. Andrew and I had returned the large van in Buenos Aires because we didn't think that it was necessary to have a car that seated 11 while he was gone. Unfortunately the only cars available in Cordoba that weren't exorbitantly priced had five seats, and even with Andrew gone for a month, there were still 7 of us and our all of our luggage. This meant that we now found ourselves limited in our ability to travel. We had been planning, at some point during our trip, to study Spanish for three more weeks, and so I located a Spanish school in Cordoba. Since the school was unable to house a group of our size and we really didn't want to stay in a big city, we opted to rent another cabaña, this time in Alta Gracia. We found one on a lovely stream, close to a big park and moved in.

Since Alta Gracia is about 30 kilometers from Cordoba, we had to drive in for class in our minuscule car. This forced me to submit to what I viewed as the very unsafe but extremely common Argentinean practice of piling lots of people into small cars without seat belts. I wasn't happy with this plan, but try as I might, I just couldn't locate a larger car that we could afford. The price almost doubled if you wanted a car that fit seven people.


Making the best of our little car

The town of Alta Gracia itself wasn't particularly remarkable. It is a World Heritage site because of the Jesuit Estancia in the center of town.


An unremarkable picture of back of the Jesuit Estancia's church in Alta Gracia

But the real draw of Alta Gracia for us was the people we met there. With the exception of the beautiful Mass we attended at the monastery in Merlo, we hadn't been impressed by our experiences with the Catholic churches in Uruguay, or in Lujan for that matter (priests changing the words of the liturgy, guitars playing out-of-tune cheesy songs, and just a general lack of reverence and enthusiasm on the part of the people). There was a church in Alta Gracia with a sung Latin Mass - something that some of us had never experienced before - so we decided to go. It was not a large church, but it was filled to capacity with with lots of vibrant, large families and many young adults. The music was celestial, and I for one felt like I had died and gone to heaven. After Mass everyone came up to meet us and lots of besos were exchanged.

We were invited to numerous people's homes, but ultimately, we accepted an invitation to the home of the grandma of some of the people there. The house was filled with her adult children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Later in the afternoon, Chris was invited to play soccer with a bunch of the boys, Elli had a new found friend named Rosario to play with, and the older girls were invited to go to the river with the teens and young adults. The girls were gone for hours, and their arrival was heralded by the sound of Argentine folk music complete with guitars. Two cars and one truck pulled up completely filled with young people. The music was coming from the back of the truck where there were quite a few people with guitars playing and singing at full volume (some of these same people were cantors and had the most amazing voices.) It was a beautiful and charming scene.


Some of the group arriving back from the river

Thus began our sojourn in Alta Gracia. The next three weeks were spent studying Spanish and getting lots of practice speaking Spanish with all of our new found friends who generously opened up their homes and hearts to our family.


Elli with some of her new friends

Chris and his friend Jose - They enjoyed the bike course at the local park

During the next three weeks, because of our small car, we limited ourselves to site seeing in Cordoba and visits to various places close to our cabaña. The one exception was a day trip we took to San Carlos Paz, a city on a large lake that our tour book had recommended avoiding. Probably because it was not yet summer, we actually found the place relatively quiet and quite scenic. We stopped at a lakeside heladaria and bought ourselves some ice-cream cones which we ate overlooking the lake. Then we did some exploring. The town's architecture was quite charming overall, with one notable exception, one of the local Catholic churches! We had thought that the new cathedral in Los Angeles was a monstrosity, but this one was in our opinion, was even uglier.


What on earth was the architect thinking?

Enjoying ice cream by the lake in San Carlos Paz

We weren't initially impressed with the city of Cordoba, but once we found a parking place and explored the center of town where the school was located, we were impressed with some of the beautiful old architecture (there are some absolutely amazing churches there) and were charmed by the design of the downtown district with it numerous pedestrian only areas overshadowed by canopies of flowering trees, and filled with a plenitude of interesting shops.


One of many amazing churches, but sadly the only one I have a picture of.

Our time in Alta Gracia passed quickly, and before we knew it, it was time for Andrew's return.