traveling solo, growing, learning and feeling lonely

After 7 great weeks of Buenos Aires I went on a bus and came to Mendoza.

It was time to go, my plan to do 6 weeks of language corse was done, and my date of next flight to next destination is aproaching quite fast.

I wanted to write something about Mendoza, but on my first day here I feel quite lonely and first time in 7 weeks, quite sad. Plus it was raining which aparently does not help either:)

One of the guys I know, who did the roud the world trip before, asked me some weeks ago, if I feel lonely on the road yet. But i did not... I had so much great moments in Buenos aires with new friends, with my 2 slovenian friends visiting me, with the school... I just enjoyed every moment of my time there and I was wandering when it will hit me. Because I was expecting that this trip will have some effect on me sooner or later.

And it did hit me. It hit me in the same way it hit me before on my trips. The trip is not really interesting if you don´t meet new people and get to know the city through people´s eyes.

And lately in my life, I realized, that people who you meet on your life path, and you share some of your deepest thoughts, came on the way with a purpose. I also think this goes both ways, two people who meet and share time, and fun and talks... usually both benefit from this new friendship. The exchange of interesting life stories gives both of the people something new to think about..

Something that makes you either think, learn, grow, new experiences.... new thinking... new ideas... and most of all.. great memories.

So, it happened to me again. Met really nice people in BA, and then when you move on to a new destination (or return home), then it hits you how great these new friends really are. And then the memories and thinking of good times makes your current day a misery.. specially if it is either back home, or even more in the new place. And on this road trip that I am doing... it will probably happen again later. I am today in Mendoza. city is quite emtpy (specially after Buenos Aires experience), the hostel is also empty... and it is raining. And I have this fucking lonely feeling that wants me go back to the first bus to Buenos Aires.. Well. I know from my experiences, this is just a temporary feeling. Besides now with new technologies like internet, facebook, sms... i am still connected to these friends and it feels good:)


I remember my early travels or language school trips. Back in early 90-ties... when e-mail was not yet introduced and mobile phones were not even close to being widely used.... every time on this trips I had to say goodbye to many nice people and I never knew if I will see them ever again in my life. Luckily for Facebook, or throgh really strange coinsidences, I am connected to most of the most important ones these days... and this is really fantastic.


I am posting a great video about Mendoza.... not mine... but fun enough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g37BkhgnQRw

Glaciers

There is a joke I heard about Argentina I heard...

the God first created Argentina as a country. And he was very creative and wanted to give this country everything... mountains, rivers, lakes, the sea, glaciers, jungle, waterfalls.... pampas and all sorts of animals.... after all day creating he was quite pleased with himself, but then he thought, that Argentina should have at least some less exciting thing, so it would be fair to other countries... and he created argentinian people....

(I heard that joke from an Argentinian person and he thought it is funny)

i dont really understand the joke, as in my experience Argentinians are very very nice people.

Anyway... one of the nice wonders of Argentina are the glaciers in Patagonia.

With my 2 friends from Slovenia who came to visit me, we went on the plane and landed in a small town El Calafate. Nothing is in this town, belive me... expcept hotels, hostels, restaurants (that are also closed during low season), agencies that organize tours and of course shopps... One main street and this is it. Patagonia did not really have large population and still does not. Apparently there lives like 240.000 people, which is 1 person per each square meter. But, there are sheeps. 10 sheeps on every person, which means some 2.4 million sheeps are running up and down the pampas.

And the nature itself is magnificent. The area is pretty dry over there, because all the rain stops in the mountains around the pampas and transforms into snow. There are many glaciers, and the most popular (at least when you ask the agency which glacier they reccomend) is Perito Moreno glacier. Named after explorer Francisco Moreno, is magnificent with 30 kilometers of lenght and 6o meters high from the water. The irony is, that Mr. Moreno did not discover the glacier, when he was hunting down in Patagonia.. nor did he see the glacier when he was still alive. But aparently was important explorer to be get a glacier named after him.

So, the whole trip for easy turists looks pretty harmless. The bus picks you up in a hotel at 9 am and then takes you on a tour from hotel to hotel for another half an hour. Then we hit the road towards the 80 km distant natural park. The guide explains some interesting facts, about glacier growing 2 meters every day and how it every 3, 4 years hit the ground on nearby peninsula. This makes the glacier grow up into a little bridge and the bridge falls down again that year in summer period.

The bus stops near one lake (toilet and cigarette break) and then again in the entrance of the natural park. The guide sells you of course also the additional trip (extra fee) with the boat close to the glacier, which is a must see. The ice is white right? but this is only when the sun is shining... when there are clouds, the different light makes ice quite blue. Very nice effect I must say.

Well, for easy turist, the bus then picks us up again from the ´grand marina´and drives us to the turist spot with the restaurant and entrance to the terassas,w here you can go for an hour walk and enjoy the glacier and wait for ice to break in to the water... this is great experience and gives you at least a bit of impression of the maginifcent nature.

But this is it. Who wants more, has to book another tour, to either take a boat to other glaciers, or do a minitrekking on the ice, or go to estancia and take a jeep 4x4 and go to one of the lower mountains for a perfect view.

Calle 13 - No hay nadie como tu

Today I am posting a musica from Argentina
Calle 13 and their song ´No hay nadie como tu´

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKkSBtF2Xcc

song about everything that is wrong with our world:)

estancia in Uruguay...

I was quite lucky with my time in Uruguay... my friend from Slovenia remembered that her friend Eduardo lives in Montevideo... and we connected and he made my time in Montevideo even better... from the eyes of a local person.

Second time I went there, he took me and my friends to estancia, one hour out of Montevideo...

The family celebrated gthe birthday of their eldest son, we had excellent grilled lunch and then they put me on a horse and we went chasing cows .... well. I have not been on a horse for 12 years so I was little scared the horse would just start speeding up, but luckily it was a calm horse... no running if not neccessarry:)

Chasing cows is fun, but i guess also demanding job... the gauchos have their tricks, but some cows still try to escape or run in other direction.. Very interesting experience.

I must say, that I had the best time on that estancia... nature is absolutely amazing, large landscapes of nothing (well, fields), good food, horses, cows. For me, that am living in cities for all my life, that was a new view of possible life... live on the outdoors, always something to do. Have fresh air, wind and sun right there. I actually did not miss internet or computer for a second... and this is pretty good improvement for me :)

Maja

Uruguay, Montevideo

I went to Uruguay twice, as it is only 1 hour away with a ferry from Buenos Aires.

There is one city that you can visit in a day - Colonia de Sacramento. Little town, that means a nice éscape´for a busy Buenos Aires for a weekend day. There is nothing much to see excdept the old colonial part near the river. I was lucky to ran into a yearly oldtimer car exhibition when I was there. The views to the water are great, but as the water here is still a river (River Plata), it is still dirty brown... not really welcoming to jump and swim in it. The old town has nice little colonial houses, some good places to eat and drink.... and a light house...

2,5 hours bus ride away is Montevideo. Capital city of Uruguay is quite large, but of course, that comes from me... compared to our Ljubljana (300.000 inhabitants), Montevideo is 5 times bigger.... half of uruguayan population lives in the capital city, the rest are spread around the country. Uruguay is the second smallest country in Latin America. The history is also very short... less 200 years ago, Uruguay territory belonged to Argentina. And as in all history events with a twist, there was a war (between Argentina and Brazil) in early 1800, for territory, what else. People on the territory of current Uruguay took the chance in this boiling period and established their own country....

more accurate information available on Wikipedia:)

Anyway... my first impressions of Montevideo (1.5 mio inhabitants) was that is very empty... where did all the 1,5 million people go? Streets in the downtown are empty, and at night looks like pretty deserted town. I asked Eduardo, who lives there, how is it to live in Montevideo.... and the answer was... `tranquillo`.... very calm. Compared to Buenos Aires, it is very quiet. Montevideo copied almost everything from his big ´brother´across the river... the buses, the bus stops, ticket system, street names, shops, food... you can get medialunas (breakfast pastry), sandwiches, parillas (well... meat is again one of the most popular dishes here... grilled!!).

But they have also some things, that BA does not... the river turs out blue when it meets the ocean and actually makes a nice rambla to walk on.. and beaches get pretty full during summer monnths....

I read in one article that Montevideo is one of the best citites in Latin America to live in. Well.. for me, it is just tooooo calm. I need excitement, busy streets, lots of people and feeling to be alive. There are people of course - the big shopping mall was full to the last corner... but this is just everywhere in the world.

Maja