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.

From Merlo to the Valle de Calamuchita

Our next destination after Merlo was the valley of Calamuchita, northeast of Merlo and south of the city of Cordoba. According to our guidebook this was a beautiful area with lush vegetation, lakes, rivers, and even Alpine-style villages (there were many Swiss, Austrian, and German immigrants to this area). On the recommendation of Fernando, our host in Merlo, we took a short cut over the mountains. This took us past an observatory and enabled us to by-pass the city of Cordoba altogether, bringing us directly into the town of Alta Gracia, the site of an historic Jesuit Estancia. From there we headed south through the valley towards Santa Rosa de Calamuchita where there was a cabaña that Fernando had called ahead to reserve for us. Everyone was happy to see the change from a drier landscape to a more lush, green one, and there were many oohs and aahs as we passed scenic rivers and a picturesque lake on our way.


A scenic lake in the valley

We got as far as Villa General Belgrano (which is the town before Santa Rosa) and it was already getting late. As we drove through the town, we spotted some nice cabañas a few blocks from the center of town with a pool, and since we were hungry and really wanted to explore the town, we decided to check them out. They turned out to be much cheaper than the one that had been reserved for us, so we decided to stay.


Our cabaña in Villa General Belgrano

Here let me interject a little side comment about cabañas. If you ever travel in Argentina, I would highly recommend staying in cabañas when you are in the more rural areas. They are clean, well-equipped little houses with kitchens and include the pots and pans, dishes and linens you need to have a comfortable stay. Some, as in the case of our cabaña in Merlo, even included a homemade breakfast. They are very affordable (we have paid between $40-$80 a night depending on the location) and they usually sleep between 6 to 9 people, which definitely makes traveling with a larger family more affordable.


Fiona & I climbed to the top of a hill with a shrine on top overlooking Villa General Belgrano

After we unpacked the car, we walked into town to look for some dinner. Villa General Belgrano was originally settled by German immigrants. This gives the town a decidedly German flavor both in its architecture and in its food and trinket offerings. If you are looking for coo-coo clocks or beer steins while you are in South America, this is definitely the place to go. They even have an Oktoberfest every year.

Since Julia’s birthday was eminent and we didn’t want to be on the road for her special day, we decided to use our cabañas as a home base for exploring the area. Our guidebook had suggested a day trip to a remote “alpine” village called Villa de Calamuchita. Although it was only 35 km from Villa General Belgrano, the road was dirt and gravel the entire way, so it took us over an our to get there. It was, however, a beautiful drive. The village itself was closed to cars and was definitely geared towards tourists with many of the people who worked in the businesses dressed in Austrian style attire.


No this is not an Austrian village but Villa de Calamuchita in Argentina

As we entered the village, we were handed a brochure about a place on the edge of the village called Peñón del Aguila - Aventura Alpina, where there were zip-lines, places to go rock-climbing, and a river to swim in. We all decided that this sounded like a fun place for us to go to celebrate Julia’s birthday and it sure was! The park was located in an amazingly scenic location with zip-lines that went all the way across a big canyon.


Harnessed up and ready to go on a rope course through the trees



Zipping across the canyon

Andrew and the kids got harnessed up and zipped across the canyon in several different locations. Since, I had been fighting a headache all day and didn’t feel up to flying across canyons, I volunteered to be the photographer. Everyone had a great time and overall, we had a fabulous day, which we decided to complete with a delicious dinner at the fondue restaurant in Villa General Belgrano, and ice-cream at the one of the local heladerias.

The next day we were ready to find a new place to stay in a new location. Sadly, it was time for Andrew to head back to the states for a month. I needed to go with him as far as Uruguay so that we could pack up our extra stuff. When we left Uruguay, our intention was to return to the house we were renting in Piriopolis while Andrew was gone for a month. But now that we were in Argentina, we really wanted to stay longer. The kids fell in love with the town of Santa Rosa de Calamuchita. It was a quiet little town with a nice down-town and and a river flowing through it. We located a cabaña close to the downtown area and river and got them settled before Andrew and I headed back to Buenos Aires to return our large van, pack-up our stuff in Piriapolis, and get Andrew on the plane back to the states in Montevideo.

On to Merlo

We set out from our overnight stay in Laboulaye, an unremarkable town surrounded by agriculture, and headed for our destination near the city of San Luis. As soon as we entered the province of San Luis, and long before we actually got to the city of San Luis, we were surprised when, quite unexpectedly, the road improved and became a four lane divided highway. After a day and a half on two lane highways where we had to constantly keep an eye out for crazy drivers, this change was welcome indeed. The other welcome sight for all of us was real mountains! Uruguay is mostly flat with some rolling hills and a few larger “cerros," and the pampas of Argentina are completely flat. Since we love the mountains (most of us spent years living in Montana and Idaho), we were all thrilled when mountains finally appeared on the horizon.

Mountains at Last!

Our plan was to stay near the city of San Luis for a day and do some exploring, and then head north toward Cordoba. However, when we actually got to the city San Luis, we were not really impressed with the area (it was pretty dry with sparse vegetation) and decided instead to head north right away towards the famed town of Merlo for the night. We left San Luis and headed north, into a dry and beautiful mountainous areas with very few houses or towns in sight, but still on the wonderful four-lane divided highway. I kept remarking to anyone in the car who would listen to me about how incredible the road was (it even had lights all along the way as well). I just couldn’t figure out why, in the middle of nowhere, the roads were so good. Later I found out that the former governor of the province built them with an eye to the future. He just ran for president in the recent election here but lost. (In my opinion, the roads of Argentina have suffered a great loss!)

We arrived in Merlo, a cute touristy sort of town, after dark and looked for a place to eat. Since we hadn’t actually planned to stay in Merlo, we didn’t have any idea of where to stay for the night. So at the restaurant, we asked our waitress (in broken Spanish) for some suggestions. A friend of the owner who spoke good English happened to be there. Amazingly enough, he and his wife had just opened up some cabañas that past week. He gave his wife a quick call and then drove us to his place. In addition to the cabaña itself, which was very nice, there were horses for the kids to ride, a swimming pool, a beautiful view of the mountains, and the most amazing homemade breakfasts. Our one night stay expanded into a three-day visit, and we had lots of fun riding horses, hiking and relaxing.


Chris and Elli were overjoyed to get to go riding again


This was our daily breakfast fare, all freshly homemade!!!


Here we enjoying our breakfast feast!

On Saturday, we asked our host about where to go for Mass on Sunday, and he told us about a local convent where the sisters sung “angelically.” So early Sunday morning we hiked up to the church, which sat against an amazing mountain backdrop. It turned out to be a cloistered order with lots of young nuns in traditional white habits. When we first entered the church it almost looked as if we had entered a Byzantine Catholic church. Beautiful hand painted icons adorned the walls and the altar. But the chant was Gregorian and the Mass a mixture of East and West. In talking afterwards with the sister in charge of greeting guests, we found out that they are a French order that combines both Latin Rite and Eastern Catholic spirituality. We were very impressed by the beauty, reverence and holiness that we experienced there.


A beautiful place for a convent - This is their church.

On our final day at the cabaña in Merlo, we had another “dog incident” with Elisabeth. Poor Elisabeth was finally overcoming her reluctance to pet dogs after her experience in Lujan when she was unexpectedly attacked by a German Shepherd at the cabañas. To be fair, I don’t think the dog was being vicious, but rather seemed to be having some pain in its ears. But Elli, in her attempt to befriend it, made the mistake of trying to scratch its ears. Once again I heard Elli scream, but this time I turned to see a German Shepherd on top of Elli with its mouth biting into her head (definitely one of those traumatic moments for a mom). Fortunately Chris, who was standing close by, acted quickly and kicked the dog off. Apart from some scratches and bruises, Elli only received one actual puncture wound on her forehead. This time, since we had just gotten her a tetanus shot and the dog was current on its shots, I opted to not call the doctor. I decided instead to minimize any further trauma by fixing the wound myself with a butterfly bandage. Praise God, Elisabeth was fine, but she may end up with one small scar to commemorate her visit to Merlo, Argentina.


Fernando and his wife at our Cabaña - They were wonderful hosts

The view behind the cabañas - the actual view was far more spectacular than this photos shows

Across the Pampas

We left Lujan around noon and headed out across the pampas towards the province of San Luis. Our first stop, on the advice of our Argentina guidebook, was the "gaucho town" of San Antonio de Areco. The town was a nice, quaint stopping place for a cup of coffee, but we really saw nothing even remotely guachoesque about the town and concluded that if we really wanted to experience what the author of our guidebook had experienced, we would need to return during the annual gaucho festival in November. Chris and Elli were a bit disappointed, but we knew that they would have plenty of other opportunities to see real gauchos in Argentina.

Kilometer after kilometer of the pampas went by

More of the pampas

It didn't take too long for us to begin to get a sense of the vastness of Argentina. It is the 8th largest country in the world, and after driving several hours across flat lush farmland our position on the map of Argentina had hardly changed at all. This might be a good time to mention a bit about driving in Argentina. Argentine drivers tend to be very aggressive and drive very fast (unless they’re in old cars in which case they drive too slowly). As far as I can tell, traffic signs in this country serve as suggestions rather than as rules to be followed. Since there are very few four lane divided highways, especially in rural areas, driving across Argentina means driving on two lane highways with large trucks and drivers who have no qualms about passing on curves, at the base of hills, and when the sign states that passing is prohibited.

This truck has just passed us even though we are going over the speed limit.

We had one “near death” driving experience on our journey to San Luis. I started to pass (with plenty of room) what I thought was one large truck. However, once I got into the other lane, I realized that there were actually 2 trucks with a small car in-between. Since I'm not as bold as Argentine drivers and didn't want to pass 2 trucks and a car, I attempted to go back into my lane behind the truck. Unfortunately, there were now several cars where I had been and they wouldn’t let me back in. I attempted to speed up and pass the first truck so I could move over between the car and one of the trucks until it was safe to pass again. But, alas, once again no one would let me in and the oncoming car was now almost upon us. My kids were now starting to panic (I was too focused at that moment to panic and my husband, bless his heart remained calm). What to do? As I didn't have enough time to pass both trucks, I had no choice but to go off the road on the left side just before the oncoming car passed us by. Thankfully the shoulder was wide and I was able to safely come to a stop and then proceed on a little wiser for the experience.

On a more positive note, we were quite happy to discover that even in “Podunk” places, the gas stations in Argentina have espresso machines with great coffee, as well as clean bathrooms. After traveling for about 6 hours, we decided that we would stop in the city of Laboulaye for the night, and continue on to San Luis the following morning.

Taking a Frisbee break at a gas station

We were really glad we brought this magnetic chess/checkers game with us. It was great for the long hours on the road.

Our First Few Days in Argentina

To get to Argentina we took the fast ferry from Colonia, which meant an hour ride on the very comfortable Buquebus. We had a bit of a challenge trying to get our tickets (their machine was having issues) and we ended up being the last people to board. During our voyage, some members of the family had lots of fun talking with a large group of very friendly dairy farmers from southern Brazil. You could have plopped these guys down anywhere in the mid-west and they would have fit in perfectly, (except for their Portuguese).

Julia & Fiona in the Buquebus station with the ferry behind them

We arrived in Buenos Aires around noon. We had all read and heard quite a few horror stories about the experiences people had had with crime in Buenos Aires. On top of that, we're not particularly fond of large cities (Buenos Aires has over 12 million people), so we were all a bit nervous. Fortunately, our fears proved to be unfounded. We rented a van at the Buquebus station and headed off through the city Buenos Aires to the town of Lujan, our destination for the first day. We were all quite amazed at how clean and beautiful the parts of the city we saw were. In fact, from what I saw, Buenos Aires is actually quite an amazing city. I can understand now why it has been called the “Paris of South America.” I’ve decided that I would love to spend a few days there sometime, but probably not with all of my kids in tow.

As a side note: I mentioned that we rented a van when we arrived in Buenos Aires. Let me add here a quick comment about my experiences with cars in Uruguay and Argentina. I am now convinced that there is a "conspiracy" in our country that keeps us from being able to buy cars that get good gas mileage. I rented a Renault van in Piriapolis that seated 7 and got around 40 miles to the gallon, and the Hyundai van we rented in Buenos Aires seated up to 11 and got close to 30 miles to the gallon. The Hyundai was one the nicest, most comfortable vans I have ever driven in. Granted both vans were manual and diesel but I just don't understand why I can't buy a van like those in the states - O.K. that’s enough venting on cars.

Lujan, our first destination, is about an hour outside of Buenos Aires. From what we had read, the cathedral there is evidently the most visited Catholic shrine in the world. Our plan was to visit the shrine for an hour or so before heading towards the San Luis & Cordoba areas where we planned to spend the bulk of our time. We located the amazing cathedral (pictures below) and went to Mass. During Mass, however, an unfortunate, yet providential event occurred. One of the city’s many street dogs came in and plopped himself down in the isle. Elisabeth was sitting in a row behind me and suddenly I heard a cry of pain. Turning, I discovered her bleeding and realized she had been bitten in the arm by the dog. The dog also managed to hit her in the nose with its head, causing a large nosebleed. We rushed her out to the bathroom to clean her up and survey the damage. Unfortunately, the dog punctured her skin deeply on the arm. The ladies who were working in the restroom called the traveling doctor and put some iodine on her arm. The doctor arrived in about 20 minutes, checked her out, and told us that she didn’t think we needed to worry about rabies, but that she did recommend a tetanus shot. She gave us a prescription for the shot, gave us all hugs and kisses, and didn’t charge us a peso.

Elli with the very kind traveling doctor

By this time we noticed that there was something starting to happen in the plaza in front of the church. A band started playing Argentine folk music, people started dancing, and a hot air balloon was being inflated in the middle of the square. Lo and behold, we had happened upon the 257 anniversary of the town of Lujan! We decided that we would stay the night in a local hotel and enjoy the festivities.


The cathedral at Lujan with a hot air balloon to celebrate the town's anniversary

After checking into the hotel, we headed back to the plaza just as a well know Argentine folksinger, Abel Pintos, started to play. Wow! We were all totally impressed! It was a wonderful evening that ended with a fabulous display of fireworks directly overhead rivaling anything I’ve seen in the states. We all thanked Elisabeth for getting a dog bite or we would have missed a fabulous evening. The next day we sought out the needed tetanus shot, which Elisabeth was given (again at no charge), treated ourselves to gelato, and headed towards San Luis. We all came away from our first two days (the dog bite excluded) absolutely in love with Argentina – the country, the people, and the culture - and very excited about the weeks ahead of us.


In the first of MANY Heladerias in Argentina