Gorgeous

While my friends were most excited about going to Buenos Aires (from here on known as BA), I was more excited about Bariloche, a Northern Patagonia town in the lake district of Argentina, and Mendoza, in the wine country of Argentina, located at the foot of the Argentine side of the Andes.

Neither disappointed. Mendoza looked and felt remarkably like home, with its dry climate, craggy mountains, and lack of vegetation (other than grape vines, of course).

We took the opportunity to go white water rafting on the Rio Mendoza while we were there. And by white water rafting, I really mean brown water. Because the water was moving so fast, it was stirring up all the sediment washed off the slopes of nearby mountains, making the water brown. And we're talking about a lot of sediment in this water--I was wiping brown grit off my face for the rest of the day. But it was totally worth it to get a fast river with non-stop rapids.

Bariloche was pretty awesome also. Cold and super windy, but gorgeous nonetheless. This photo was taken from the top of Cerro Otto, one of many "mountain" peaks in the region. (Mountain goes in quotes because as anyone who knows me well could tell you, I have pretty stringent standards for what I think should technically be considered a mountain, and Cerro Otto definitely falls short. It was still pretty though.)

I should point out that we actually went to the top of Cerro Otto twice. The first day we climbed to the top (because the gondola to the top wasn't running yet), but it was overcast and yes, snowing, so none of my pictures turned out that well. We had no intentions of going again, but when we awoke the next morning and found that the gondola had suddenly decided to run, we thought we'd try again to get some decent photos (and also to witness from above how ridiculously steep the previous day's trail to the top had been).

Forget switchbacks--this trail went straight up the side of the mountain!

Oh. One more thing about Bariloche. I'm convinced it's the hippy new-age capital of Patagonia. The Berkeley of Argentina, if you will. We saw Pilates studios and incense burners everywhere. And then we saw this guy, juggling/interpretive dancing in the street.

It reminds of me the first time I drove through Berkeley, and as I stopped at a red light at the corner of Ashby and College, a guy on a unicycle carrying rainbow streamers wheeled out into the intersection and did a little streamer/cycle dance until the light changed.

It's good to see that some things are universal.