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

Our Remaining Time in Piriapolis

I apologize for the long gap in posts. I have been finding it quite challenging to find a large enough block of time to get a post completed since I have to be online to blog. So, first let me wrap up our time in Piriapolis.

We spent a total of 2 1/2 weeks in Piriapolis and had some good times, but the weather was pretty cold and rainy and we found ourselves housebound much of the time. This was o.k. as the kids spent the time getting caught up on schoolwork and reading, but by the time Andrew arrived on October 12th, we were all itching to go someplace new. We were all overjoyed to see him and decided that we wanted to spend his 2 week visit traveling around Uruguay & Argentina.

We spent his first couple of days seeing a few places we had been wanting to see close to Piriapolis and visiting with the Campbell family, our friends from Montevideo who came to Piriapolis for the weekend. Chris and Elli were quite happy to have some English speaking friends to talk and play with. On that Sunday we headed up to Minas, an area in the hills we had been wanting to see, but when we got home that night our unanimous opinion was that we all wanted to see Argentina during the rest of Andrew's time here, so the next day we got ourselves packed and organized, and on Tuesday morning we set off.

We took a bus from Piriapolis to Montevideo and then caught another bus to Colonia where we spent the night. Colonia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was built by the Portuguese in the 1500's and is a great place to spend a day if you're in Uruguay. It is also one of the places where you can catch the Buquebus from Uruguay to Argentina. The Buquebus is a ferry that crosses the Rio de la Plata between Argentina and Uruguay. We spent the afternoon and evening touring Colonia, ate dinner (late of course), and headed to bed. The next morning we would finally have a chance to see Argentina.



A giant statue of Artigas on a hill overlooking the town of Minas

The town of Minas in the distance

Rural traffic near Minas

The Argentino Hotel where the Campbell's stayed on the Rambla in Piriapolis

Tori & Emma tossing coins with Elli & Chris on the steps of the Argentino Hotel

The Piria Castle built by the founder of the town of Piriaopolis

Pan de Azucar with the cross on top that you can go up into as seen from the Piria castle

One of the thatched roof houses that are fairly common in Uruguay

From Montevideo to Piriapolis

After 3 weeks at our Spanish school in Montevideo we headed towards the coastal town of Piriapolis. This was my children's first opportunity to glimpse rural Uruguay. The day we left was the first warm day we'd had in several weeks. The sun was shining and because it's the beginning of spring, the trees were leafing out and there were flowers everywhere.

The bus ride was quite comfortable. Uruguay has an excellent public transportation system. The 7 of us (with a total of 12 pieces of luggage) were able to ride 103 kilometers on a clean, almost fancy bus with air-conditioning and reclining seats for under $700 pesos (approx. $30 U.S.). And these buses will take you almost anywhere you need to go in this country.

We were met at the bus station by Santino and Claudio. Santino and his wife Dot live in Piriapolis. Andrew and I met them by chance when we visited Uruguay in March. We were eating lunch at a restaurant in Montevideo and heard a woman speaking English. I immediately made a beeline for her and introduced myself. It was quite a providential meeting. They are a wonderful couple with hearts of gold and have been very generous and helpful to us. We were brought to our rental house and discovered much to our delight, that it has a great view of the ocean below. After 3 weeks in the city, everyone was overjoyed to be somewhere with a slower pace of life. The house is only 3 blocks from the beach and 5 blocks to the store. We unloaded and headed to the beach and rambla with Dot and Santino.

On Sunday we headed up the coast to Punta del Este and then up the Atlantic coast as far as San Ignacio. It was a great day with beautiful weather. I've posted lots of photos of the day. We plan to stay here a few weeks until Andrew arrives for a 2 week visit.


Here is the house we're renting in Piriapolis

This is a little shrine on the ocean in Punta del Este commemorating the first Mass celebrated "in this new land" in February of 1516

The classic Punta picture of "La Mano" on the beach in Punta

A very unusual bridge on the way out of Punta

Our Final Week in Montevideo

It’s been two weeks since my last post due to difficulties getting access to the internet. At our Spanish school there was wireless access, but now we’re renting a house in the beach town of Piriapolis where the house has no phone or internet connection. (Of course this has its advantages as well:-). In this post I’ll wrap up our stay in Montevideo, and in my next one, share with you about our life in Piriapolis.

Our last week in Montevideo was filled with Spanish classes, preparations for the next leg of our trip, and a day trip to a large city park called El Prado and the area surrounding it. For out trip to the park, we piled into the Campbell family’s old VW bus and headed across the city. Having lived in the city awhile, Aaron Campbell was a great tour guide. On our way we passed Uruguay’s Capitol Building, and were struck with the very low level of security compared to our own country. We saw some guards with fancy uniforms at some of the entrances, but there were young people sitting on the steps drinking mate and chatting, and you got the feeling that security is not a huge issue here. Uruguay really doesn’t have any enemies. There is a conflict going on with Argentina about a pulp mill that Uruguay is building on the river that separates the two countries, and there have been ongoing protests at the border, but no real violence.


The Capitol Building

El Prado is a huge city park, with a beautiful rose garden, an arboretum, a lake with paddle boats, a small amusement park for kids, and lots of open space with trees and assorted statues, crisscrossed with walking trails; sort of a slightly run down version of Golden Gate Park or Central Park. This is the location of the yearly Prado Expo, Uruguay’s equivalent to our local Mid-State Fair with concerts, contests for the best animals in the country, and lots of booths and displays to facilitate local and international trade. The expo was just wrapping up when we arrived in Uruguay, but we didn’t make it there. After going to the park, I regret not making an effort to go.


Christopher on one of the many statues in the park

A young Uruguayan family at the park (notice dad drinking his mate - a very common site)

Elli and a friend on the swings

When we arrived at the park we saw, in the distance a neo-Gothic cathedral, one of the few, I believe, in South America. After several hours at the park we headed over there. The church was in one of Montevideo’s older neighborhoods where the very wealthy built their homes before it was fashionable to live next to the river. In the neighborhood, there were some amazing large old homes and in the midst of these loomed the cathedral. It was smaller than its European counterparts but still quite impressive. Unfortunately, my pictures don’t do it justice. The church,which I forgot to get the name of, was dedicated to the Carmelite saints and carved into the stone next to the front doors are images of St. Dominic, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Teresa of Avila, and many others.



I couldn't get far enough back to get a picture of the whole cathedral, but if you look closely, you can see images of various Carmelite saints carved into the walls on either side of the door.

Just around the corner from the cathedral was the residence of the president of Uruguay. He chose to remain in his own home when he was elected rather than move into the presidential mansion. Outside his rather unassuming home stood only one guard! This is clearly a president with very few enemies, unlike others we know.

On the last day of Spanish classes, the school had a party for us and the other students who were leaving. We all really liked the teachers at the school and will miss them.


Elli with her favorite teacher, Daniel

Friday night, after helping Genevieve exchange some dollars at the cambio, I had dinner with some local English-speaking ladies (American, Canadian, Brazilian, and Ukrainian). This wonderful, diverse group of women get together every Friday at a local restaurant or in someone’s home. I very much enjoyed my time with them before heading off to the mall to look for sheets and a local cell phone. With sheets and cell phone purchased, I headed back to the school to pack for our bus trip to Piriapolis on the following day.