Buenos Aires: Days 2 & 3

Tues:
1. Cruise around San Telmo, our hood for five days. Found a great vintage store called El Buen Orden. The owners are adorable and helped me go through the entire sunglasses collection until I found the perfect vintage armani shades (I’m a classy biatch). Calle Defensa is lined with Antique shops, I was in heaven waking up in this area.

2. Bus to La Boca. Home of the local soccer team Boca Juniors and la Caminata, small walkway lined with artists and tango dancers. Kinda sketch at night.
We had lunch at Don Carlos, EVERYONE MUST GO! Carlitos greets you at the door and the food don’t stop coming till you tell it to (seriously, there is no menu you just get served). Classic home cooked Italian fare. Right next to the stadium (note: he’s closed on game days).
3. Recoleta Cemetary. Evita’s resting place. I had “Don’t cry for me Argentina…” stuck in my head all day.

4. Recoleta Cultural Center and Palais Glacia. Both had cool exhibits, my fave at the cultural center was graphic novelist Salvador Sans .

5. Back to the base. Found this great store, Puntos en El Espacio. Full of different Argentine designers and totally affordable. I cut my toe on the way out (good thing I got that tetanus shot!) so no pics. God was punishing me for shopping morning and evening.

6. Dinner at Cafe San Juan. OMG, how could our second choice be that good? Such a shame that my partner in pork (Agustina) could not be with us that night because this place can braze some pork, puree some potatoes, and bacon wrap a grilled onion. I almost cried it was so good. Plus the boys in the kitchen all looked like they hopped off the santa cruz boat- skater hats bobbed in and out of the kitchen. Jean aprons, big smiles, and chalkboard menus. The waiter also recommended the salmon pate which was divine.

7. You think I went out after that? Hellll no.
Wed:

1. Viejo Palermo. Shop, walk, shop, walk, eat at Freud & Fahler. Palermo feels miles away from the city center. It’s quiet, and strolling down cobblestone alleyways from boutiques to stylish cafes to cute plazas is super pleasant. I got some jeans at Puro Diseno and some very cute undies at Juana de Arco.

2. Met Ariel at Cafe Tortino, one of the oldest cafes in Buenos Aires. The typical snack here is a cafe con leche with three crossants.

3. We stumbled upon the Casa de Cultura and one of the best photography exhibits I’ve seen in a while. Laberinto de Miradas, “fricciones y conflictos en ibroamerica”, please check out the link. Reminded me that despite all the flashes of violent images we see on a daily basis, I certainly am not desensitized when confronted with a photograph that relates a story and a history of injustice, poverty, etc. http://www.laberintodemiradas.net/
4. Drinks at neighborhood bar in San Telmo. I got an allergic reaction from the wine. WTF?
5. Drinks and dub music at La Cigale. Beautiful bar, chill atmosphere, and decent mojitos!

More comin at ya soon!

Got the travel bug?
El Buen Orden: Defensa 894, San Telmo
Don Carlos: Brandsen 699, La Boca
Recoleta area: http://www.recoleta.com.ar/
Cafe San Juan: San Juan 450
Freud & Fahler: Gurrachaga 1750
Tortino: Av de Mayo 829
La Cigale: 25 de Mayo 722

Will Hike for Chocolate

So… I’ve come to realize that I’m a city girl. Lakes and mountains can only stimulate me for so long. Thank god we got to Buenos Aires, but before we did here are the two hikes that even I could appreciate.

Cerro Piltriquitron, El Bolson:
El Bolson is a hippie town in the lake district of Argentina (enough with the lakes already!) We stayed here for two days and on the second day we took a taxi to the Plataforma Piltriquitron and hiked to the Refugio (about an hour uphill). Epic views (above) and the refugio serves hot chocolate and pizza.

Cerro Campanario, Bariloche:
Bariloche is a town of chocolate and tourists. I have to admit that after we did all the chocolate tasting we could (Mamushka was the best) I wanted to get out of here ASAP. But, we met some nice kids from Toronto and decided to take a hike with them the next day. The hike was damn steep, but the mother of all lake/mountain views awaited us, as well as a very cute cafe.

Got the travel bug?
El Bolson hostel: http://www.altosdelsur.bolsonweb.com/
Bariloche hostel: http://www.hostel41below.com/es_index.htm
Mamushka chocolate: http://www.mamuschka.com/

Puerto Varas

Hellloooo cuteness! This small town in the lake district was our last stop in Chile. The highlights:
Beerfest: We got here just in time for a festival of artisan beers from the region. If it wasn’t for the polka band we would’ve stayed all night. Kunstmann amber takes the cake.
 
 

Hostal Erika: 

Pleasant B & B not far from the town center. Erika and her son run the place and are incredibly helpful– her son even lent me his jacket to wear today as it is very cold and rainy. And they’ve made the best jokes so far about my brothers height (he is hella tall for yall that don’t know). “He won’t get lost, all he has to do is jump and he’ll see the bus station…”

Kuchen: These german tarts are actually made in the neighboring town of Frutillar (also reeks of cuteness). We found this family-run kuchen factory, grabbed a slice and sat on the pier.


 
The view from the plaza: 

Nuff said.

Got the travel bug?
Hostal Erika: http://www.hostalerika.cl/

Chile: The Hits

Dive Bar Honorable Mention: La Notta
 
What could be more fun than sitting in a smokey bar listening to a chorus of drunkin chilean bachelors belting out chilean folk songs??? Probably a lot. But remember that I am in Rancagua. No cheesy karaoke menus here, just Don Ramon on the guitar and several mics being passed from table to table. It’s 4 am and David and I have already had a bottle of havana club (ha ha!) and hit the disco. Usually I’m in bed by this point, but the tia who owns this place is absolutely charming and the commodore between sloshed macho men seems so genuine and sweet when punctuated by a duet.
If we are talking about dive bars then we are inevitably talking about late night munchies too. Award goes to El Bajon. Completos, As Lomos (don’t really know what they are, but I decided to call them Lamas Ass and ate one anyway), and cute hipsters.
 Valparaiso:
 Valpo is like that hippie chick you think is kinda dirty and mismatched but are charmed by anyway. Colorful houses, great views, and awesome street art. This would be such a great place to be high. From Cerro Concepcion and Alegre:
 
 
 
Our best meal was on the second floor of the city market:
Fried eel is actually pretty delicious. 
Isla Negra: 
 
Shout out to Rick Ayers for educating an entire generation of B-High kids about Pablo Neruda, the poet who loved his women as much as his patria. It may have been his poetry that inspired me to come to Chile in the first place. The tour of his house is a closer peak into his genius– he was a collector of folk art, glass bottles, toy ships, and each item is in it’s right place– even the bed is set up to rise and fall with the sun. It was in this bed that Pablo spent his last days battling cancer and the devastation of the military coup on September 11, 1973 (he died 12 days later). For those of you that don’t know, Neruda was as dedicated a political leader as he was a poet, and I think that makes him even more of an intriguing person. When the military searched this house, my guide said that he told them, “Look around—there’s only one danger for you here—poetry.”

Side note: I wonder what Neruda would be thinking now… Chile just elected a right-wing billionaire, Sebastian Pinera, after 20 years of liberal leadership. He’s the third-richest citizen in Chile. Talk about conflict of interest! My younger friends were down with socialist candidate Marco Enríquez-Ominami, so keep an eye on him and an even closer eye on Pinera.

Curanipe: When I first came to Chile, I was told that I would be going to school with a bunch of upper class pinochetistas, and to keep my Berkeley mouth shut. Buttoned up in my catholic school uniform (no pictures), my first day was pretty intimidating. My teacher called role and my eyes darted around the room looking for a potential friend. “Maria Jose Guevarra Allende!”
“Present!” And the clouds parted to reveal a freckled-faced hippie nicknamed Cote. 
Cote (no relation to Che or Salvador Allende, btw) was my first friend and I spent the last few weeks of my study abroad time at her family’s beach house in this town in central Chile. The family is still wonderful: They loved my brother Mikael and even let him win at dominoes every night:) The beach is just as quiet (they chuckled when I asked if there was an internet cafe), although we did get to treat Mikael to his first latin american karaoke experience (again, no pictures). No major tourist attractions here, but the shrimp empanadas are so good drunkin middle aged women yell outside of a restaurants at 1pm out of impatience. Okay, just one woman but I’ve never seen anyone want an empanada that bad.

Got the travel bug?
La Notta and El Bajon: HellifIknow, Rancagua.
Isla Negra:http://www.fundacionneruda.org/home_islanegra.htm (make reservations)
Nice Hostel in Valpo: http://www.rinconmarino.cl/

From the Pueblo

When I was 16 I moved to Chile for a semester and was placed in a small city a bit south of Santiago called Rancagua. Neruda prose in mind, I was a bit shocked when I arrived here. The cement here is whiter than it should be, so when it’s hot the sun hits you from above and below. There are few trees. A mall. A copper mine. Not much else. Luckily, there was a wonderful family here for me. And lots of pisco and fresh fruit and friends. My brother David is a cynical socialist who loves to argue, and mama Sonia is the loudest, chattiest Jewish mother you could ever meet.  Seriously, she actually yells at you to “eat, eat!” as you are taking a bite.

Back in the day we used to go to a small town called Marchigue to visit the rest of the family. As my brother puts it, “the only thing fun to do in Marchigue is ring the doorbell.” And indeed we did. But this time I was pleasantly surprised by a few new sources of entertainment:

1. Street food! Empanadas and Choripan. No comment on other chilean foods.
2. Live music. There was also a miss marchigue contest going on but I’ll spare you the photos. Slightly disturbing.
3. Communists! Awesome.
4. This fancy library. Other small towns in Chile should also have new libraries like this, thanks to a country-wide initiative by Chile’s first female president (yea girl!)
5. They even have sideshows now, just like in Oakland. JK, this is some kind of annual wheat harvest thing when they drive around in circles. Mostly an excuse for a party.
6. Finally, the home cookin. Everything on this plate came from my auntie’s farm (even the lamb and the bread were cooked in the oven pictured below).
The proof:
And the wine was local. Take that, Alice.
Oh and check out the beautiful family: