Mar 3
After trekking in El Chalten, we took a bus back to El Calafate. El Calafate kind of sucks but unfortunately it's a major hub in Patagonia and is a gateway to the southern part of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares (El Chalten serves the northern and free part of the park) and you usually have to go there to transfer to other places you want to travel to.
Oh my god, I can’t believe I am going to say it to everyone reading but I have to. The pizza we had here rivals New York pizza, even though it’s made in a different style. If you knew how much I loved pizza, you would know that is a very bold statement. But the pizza here is that good.
After the storm came in Cabo Polonio, it continued to be rainy and dreary. So we decided to start our journey back. This meant going west back towards Montevideo. A long bus ride on a very crowded bus (where Laurent had to stand for over 2 hours!) deposited us back off in the city. We stayed there overnight, had another fabulous steak dinner and the next afternoon, we left for Colonia del Sacremento.
Discovered in 1680, Colonia sits right on the water and was a crucial smuggling port back in the day. The Portugese and Spanish fought heavily over it. But in the end, the Spanish won.
The taxi came for us around 9 pm to take us to Retiro. Retiro is the main bus terminal in BA, quite the unsavory place to be at night but this time we were smart not to take mass transit and instead the taxi driver dropped us off right in front of the bus terminal. It was pouring. We (gratefully) carried a lighter load and were off to Uruguay. We left many of our heavier and very annoying- to -carry Antarctica clothes with one of the couchsurfers we stayed with. Yes, it is already annoying to carry all these winter clothes!!
Traveling light was a blessing. We boarded an overnight bus that would take us over the border of Uruguay at around 2 am and we would arrive in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, at 8 am. Sleep came pretty easy, surprisingly, even though we had to wake up for the border crossing (a simple process). Bus travel in Argentina is pretty luxurious and cheap. You get a tray of food when you arrive. Just some sandwiches and cookies but it's all pretty tasty. Then there are the seats. We slept through the bus ride on our cama seats. Cama seats mean that the seats recline back pretty far (almost flat) and they are very wide, oversized seats. They feel like they are made out of some thick memory foam, so comfy! With a smooth ride, the gentle rocking lulls you right to sleep. Greyhound needs to take some lessons!!
After our relaxing stint in Tigre and our arrival to Buenos Aires, we had a full week ahead of us trying to learn Spanish. The week was really crazy, waking up every morning at around 7 am, taking classes at a formal school from 9 am til 1 pm and then usually a 2 hour lunch break followed by more Spanish lessons with a private tutor. These would go on for usually 3 hours total (not including travel time). Sometimes we met with the tutor at night instead of the day. We also couchsurfed three different times, which caused us to pack up our bags and move to different neighborhoods. Suffice to say, it was a busy week but I really enjoyed it all. It felt like a real life had already begun for us. We had new friends, classes to attend and places to go all the time. I really felt like this was a new life for me.
I am so behind in writing my posts! We had some technical difficulties with connections and honestly, we spent a lot of time just relaxing. As I write this, we are still in Uruguay but will be leaving tomorrow to head back to Buenos Aires for two more days. We spent an amazing time here and I really fell in love with this country. But more on that later, for now I want to tell you all about some of the foods I tried in Buenos Aires before too much more time passes!
We arrived to Tigre, Argentina on our first morning. We weren't really supposed to go to Tigre. We were going to go out about 2 hours to the Pampas, to an older city with a long history of gaucho culture (gauchos are the south american version of cowboys). But we were so tired from our travels and the supervolcano that took place before the travels, that we decided to go to a city closer. We had read about Tigre and it's proximity to Buenos Aires and how nice it was. So we decided to go.
Infused exposures 