May 15
We're back! It was my first time taking a 'vacation' to go 'home' so that was kind of weird but it was also pretty amazing to be able to make this opportunity happen. It was a bit of a whirlwind and time flew by for both of us but it was great seeing so many friends and family. I discovered I don't miss New York that much but I miss its people. Okay, so I missed burgers, pizza and bagels!! And real coffee! Now we are back to 'No es cafe' (Nescafe).
Wait, aren't we already on vacation? Yeah, it's just a vacation within the vacation!
Last week, we visited Chile's most colorful city, Valparaiso. If Chile, San Francisco, Brooklyn & Paris had a baby, it might be Valparaiso.
Now that I have your attention, no there wasn't an ACTUAL earthquake here in Chile, although the drink we tried is named for Chile's notorious past with these natural disasters. The earthquake we experienced was the 'Terremoto drink'. It's definitely not fancy enough to be called a cocktail!
What's up with that title? Crazy with may? What does that mean?! Have I completely lost it? 6 months of traveling and now I've gone mad? No, I am simply referring to 'locos con mayo' and one of Chile's more humorous translations.
Who or what is Mapuche? Mapuche refers to the indiginous people in Chile comprising about 10% of Chile's total population (a smaller amount live in parts of southwestern Argentina too). The AraucanÃa region in Chile is home to the largest concentration of these people with 80% of the Mapuche people living there
Finally we were going to get our big chance to do the circuit at TDP! The prospect had me nervously excited as I hoped we could carry as much stuff as we had packed for such a long time, every day. Three years ago we failed. I hoped for the best this time around.
I was looking forward to going to El Bolson. I heard it was a beautiful town surrounded by majestic mountains, colorful flowers, homemade beer, artsy stuff, fresh organic berries and had a general laid-back vibe. Yeah, it was kind of a hippy place. But honestly, deep down, I must be one too. I'll come clean. I love this stuff. And I loved El Bolson.
From the northwest of Argentina we traveled south to Argentina's other (and more famous) wine country in Mendoza. Mendoza is a fairly large city in Argentina, located in the north west part of the country. It's also easily reachable from Santiago in Chile. Mendoza is located in the desert Cuyo region making it an arid, hot place and even though it's a desert, a startling number of trees have been planted all over the city, providing some much needed shade especially in the summer months.
Visiting the northwest of Argentina was one of the highlights of our trip in South America so far. However, I found it a bit daunting when planning our time in this region. There is so much to see and do, where do you start? We knew we wanted to rent a car for sure to give us freedom and flexibility but for how long? Where would we rent the car? I scoured the internet and guide books for answers.
So we didn’t just road trip our way through the northwest snapping photos of the amazing scenery. We also ate. A lot. Prior to our journey, I had read about the unique cuisine of the Andan north of Argentina. So I knew to expect specialties like humitas, tamales, llama stews and other hearty dishes like locro and carbonada. While visiting this region, I made it a point to try all of these local dishes, as well as take notes comparing empanadas from Tucuman up to Salta (very different in style). It was a difficult task but a tasty one that I was certainly up for!
Infused exposures 