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I am resolved to try to visit the Arboretum at least once in each season this year.  First up, tulip time.

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2018 recap

Concerts (including volunteer shifts at the Cedar):

Cafe Accordion Orchestra at the Cedar

Malamanya at the Cedar

Enso Daiku taiko drumming group at the Landmark Center

Pink Martini and the Von Trapps with the Minnesota Orchestra

They Might Be Giants at First Avenue

Altan at the Cedar

Tao: Drum Heart at Orchestra Hall

The Decemberists at the Palace Theater

The Twilight Hours - visiting my bestie in Des Moines

The California Honeydrops at the Cedar

Lake Street Dive at the Palace Theater

Tannahill Weavers at the Cedar

Amadou & Mariam at the Cedar

Communist Daughter at the Cedar

Los Rolling Ruanas at the Cedar (I think they were my #1 new discovery of 2018)

Femi Kuti at the Cedar

Dawes at the Palace Theater

Beck at the Armory

Lemon Bucket Orkestra at the Cedar

Jupiter & Okwess at the Cedar

Jeremy Messersmith at the Parkway Theater

The New Standards Holiday show at the State theater

Plays:

Collected Stories at the MN Jewish Theatre Company

Indecent at the Guthrie

The Wickhams at the Jungle Theater

Exhibits:

1968 exhibit at MN History Center

Art Shanties at Lake Harriet

China exhibit at MIA (Minneapolis Institute of Arts)

Art in Bloom at MIA 

Gentleman in Moscow book tour at MIA

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings book tour at MIA

Evening tour of the MN State Capitol

Sunken Egypt at MIA

The Museum of Russian Art

Classes:

Photo editing class at the White Bear Arts Center

Pottery class at the Caulfield Clay Center

Spanish classes through St. Paul Community Ed

Yoga class through St. Paul Community Ed

Bengala mud dying class through St. Paul Community Ed

Two knitting classes at StevenBe yarn store

Rock balancing class at the MN Landscape Arboretum

Travels:

New Orleans French Quarter Music Festival in April

South America in November

Other miscellaneous stuff:

Visited a salt cave and listened to “sound healing”

Kentucky Derby Day at Brit’s Pub

Strawberry picking at Pine Tree Apple Orchard

Twin Cities LGBT Pride parade

Circus Juventas annual summer show

Tour of Twin Cities Public Television studios

A hayride at Aamodt’s Apple Orchard

Knitting projects

A cowl

Three hats

A scarf

A vest (still in progress)

Volunteer gigs:

Cedar Cultural Center

Friends School Plant sale

Hidden Falls litter cleanup

Food packing at Second Harvest food shelf - monthly

Election Judge

Hair colors:

Deep purple in March

Self touch-up with Violet purple in April

Back to turquoise in June

Back to violet-purple at the end of December

Books read:  33

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Valparaíso

After the cruise we flew to Santiago.  The first day there, we did a field trip to Valparaíso.  I will admit, by this point I was getting a little weary with spending time on the bus with 23 other people; and found myself thinking “what could possibly be in Valparaíso that’s worth a two hour bus ride there (and two hours to get back, of course).

Well, it turned out to be an enjoyable walk.  The original plan had been that we would take an “elevator” up into the hills but it had been shut down by a public workers’ strike.  Our tour leader explored options and proposed that we walk up the hill instead.  Most of our group was up for it.  Four guys, after experiencing the first couple blocks up a steep hill and seeing that some long stairs were next, opted to go have some beers back at the bottom of the hill.

As we ascended we saw all kinds of interesting street art and got the chance to listen to some street musicians.

Then we went to a home hosted lunch even further up in the hills.  We were transported by several cars - sort of a hybrid taxi situation where it is individual vehicles but they follow a set route like a bus would.  It was much like the motorcycle ride in Rio where we whizzed up hills and around corners at a dizzying pace.

We had a delicious lunch.  The home was very nice and modern - we learned that was because the family’s previous home was destroyed a few years ago in a wildfire, and they had to rebuild.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_Valpara%C3%ADso

They got quite a bit of financial assistance from the Chilean government.  I thought that was a good thing. Some of my fellow travelers seemingly did not approve.  A major source of revenue for Chile is the copper mines which were nationalized by the government.

We finished off lunch with a terremoto (earthquake) cocktail - cheap white wine, grenadine syrup, and a scoop of pineapple ice cream.  Even though the recipe sounds kind of white trashy it was delicious and packed quite a kick.

Here’s the nice ladies who prepared our lunch:

After the lunch and the cocktail it was not difficult to drift off into a nap on the two hour bus ride back to Santiago.

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Chilean Glacier cruise

After Torres del Paines, the next part of our journey was to travel to Puntas Arenas to embark on a three night glacier cruise. Our ship was the Skorpios. It was small (the better to navigate up close to the glaciers), but comfortable. We had about 70 passengers and it was fun to experience the trip with other people besides our group of 23. In total there were nine nationalities represented among the passengers, including people from England and Germany, and lots of South Americans.

We boarded late afternoon and after getting settled, there was a safety briefing and a late dinner, then the ship cruised toward the fjords as we slept. Right after breakfast we went out on the first of three excursions for the day. Passengers were loaded into two Zodiac boats and transported to a small island to get a closer look at the Brujo glacier.

Here's the Skorpios tucked away behind the island we were heading toward:

And here's some of our group on the island:

We were told that this glacier had receded quite a bit and this island had been underneath it, not all that long ago. We were speculating that perhaps the smooth stone with the scratches was formed by the glacier advancing or receding.

Another view of Brujo:

After we all were back on the ship, it navigated to the next glacier. We had lunch and then there was excursion #2 in the boats. I opted to skip that one, as our tour director had mentioned that there were a lot of "sharp rocks" and that metal tipped hiking poles (which is what I had) wouldn't be helpful. Unfortunately I missed the largest calving that people saw on the cruise. Here’s one of the boats heading out:

However I was glad with my decision to stay behind when I found out one of the guys in our group slipped into a crevice between rocks, got soaked, and had trouble climbing out. He also got a nasty gash on his leg. Luckily there was a doctor on board to patch him up. From the ship, I managed to get this not very impressive photo of a small piece breaking off the glacier:

We had afternoon tea (yes, four meals a day) and then headed out on what I thought was the highlight of the cruise - a trip in a small icebreaker boat. At first I was somewhat unimpressed as we navigated past yet another glacier. Then we pulled up alongside a small iceberg the size of the boat, where the crew chipped off some large chunks of ice and went to work breaking it up into ice cubes (with a nasty looking ice pick).

They broke out the whiskey and everyone was served a 30-12 cocktail (30,000 year old ice with 12 year old whiskey).

Then we navigated into an ice field and that was when I started to be impressed with the abilities of the icebreaker boat.  We had occasional bumps as it went over small icebergs.

After dinner and a good night's sleep, another post-breakfast excursion. This one was on the small boats - they didn't land anywhere for us to walk around. I was starting to feel blasé about glaciers, haha. But, at least the clouds broke up a bit, and the partly cloudy/partly sunny conditions resulted in a pretty play of light across the glacier's face:

The mid-day excursion was fun because we got to get off the zodiacs and go for a short hike across a moraine. The moraine is the pile of rocks and dirt left behind by the retreating glacier. In this case the moraine blocked in the melt-off from the glacier, keeping it separate and the milky color of the run-off was pretty striking.

No, we're not walking on water - the cruise company actually had gone to the trouble of constructing a walkway from the moraine materials, so that we could walk across the lagoon and get right up close to the glacier.

The micro climate seemed sort of like the Pacific Northwest, with lots of interesting lichen and we saw a few calafate berry bushes.

The late afternoon cruise was a wildlife cruise - we saw condors, large groups of cormorants and shags nesting in a cliff, and an obliging dolphin put in an appearance (someone also spotted a dolphin on the icebreaker cruise - brrrrr why would a mammal want to swim through a field of ice?). And also a cute group of seals.

That night there was a fancy buffet banquet and a slightly raucous dance party. Our tour director knew we were an early to bed group, and she warned us - "You might as well stay up, because it's going to be loud and you won't be able to sleep". I think she was pleasantly surprised that most of us did indeed stick around and dance.

Side note, the South Americans really like to stay up late! When we were on our way to the airport at 7 in the morning in Buenos Aires, she pointed out young women in their club attire who were sitting on the curb, smoking, waiting for a cab. She said the "pre-parties" start around 10 pm and then people go to the club around midnight or 1 am. That actually isn't ALL that different from the way I acted in my 20's I guess. It's been a long time though...

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Torres del Paine

After our long road trip we arrived at Hotel Lago Grey, in the middle of Torres Del Paine park and, you guessed it, on the shore of Lago Grey. On a trip where you're in a new hotel room every 2-3 days, you quickly learn to zero in on what matters. The rooms at Lago Grey appeared more spartan than our previous hotels. But, they were quiet (Buenos Aires hotel had a loud ventilation system roaring 24/7 and El Calafate hotel had some kind of remodeling project going with loud drilling and banging into the evening). The beds were comfy (Buenos Aires and El Calafate beds were hard as a board) and had a thick comforter (up until then hotels just had a thin blanket - maybe South Americans like to sleep warm?). Most impressive, the bathroom had a heated floor - so nice when you get up in the middle of the night. No wait, THIS was the most impressive. The hotel restaurant and lounge had a wall of picture windows overlooking this:

After breakfast the next morning, we were back on the bus to retrace our steps back to one of the trailheads in the park. The game plan was a short walk to a waterfall; then feebler members of the group could turn back, and intrepid hikers proceed on an out and back hike of about 5 miles round trip. The waterfall did not disappoint. Aqua blue waters and we even got to see a rainbow on our return trip...

We also started to feel the power of the crazy winds that we'd experience that day. Our guide advised us that if there were gusts so strong that they prevented us from walking, to crouch down facing away from the wind so as to present a lower profile (to keep from being blown over); wait for the wind to subside before proceeding. We saw lovely wild flowers on the hike - lady slippers and what looked like wild sweet peas.

There were lots of stark tree skeletons from a forest fire a few years before, that had a lovely beauty of their own.

Beautiful aqua lakes with some whitecaps:

And I did indeed have to crouch over a few times because the wind prevented me from walking. As we walked, the clouds started clearing and the towers which were mostly obscured at the beginning of our hike got more and more visible. Finally after hiking over a rise, we were presented with our reward - a turquoise lake in front of the peaks and a sheltered spot out of the wind where we could bask in the sun:

We had one more stop on the bus ride back to the hotel, just a photo stop for yet another gorgeous azure lake with the mountains behind it:

I will admit that by the end of the hike back I was whipped. I thought I was capable of hiking 5 miles...but add in hills and occasional 50 mph winds and I was one tired puppy. So instead of doing the optional hike that afternoon, I settled into the lounge and enjoyed a glass of wine and my knitting and the fabulous (windswept) view for the afternoon. It was Thanksgiving, but just like any other day on this trip... The next day we did a much shorter hike. The main item of interest was seeing lots of signs of puma hunting:

Our local guide, Chris And then seeing some guanaco who had eluded the puma (so far). This gentleman was perched up on a rock guarding over a harem of about six ladies grazing below.

As we were heading out of the park to our next destination, we were treated to a very large herd of of guanacos frolicking on a large sandy expanse next to a lake. Chasing each other, fighting, generally being super frisky. Then a couple of them actually started getting it on in the middle of the road right in front of the bus!  It was like Daytona Beach during spring break. Guanacos gone wild.

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About a mile later we saw the end result of some PAST guanaco shenanigans:

Aaaaaw. (sorry for blurriness...taken from the bus and zoomed in). Next up...more glaciers. Are you tired of glaciers yet? Believe it or not, after the glacier cruise, I kinda was.

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Perito Moreno Glacier (and more)

Our next day activity was a road trip from El Calafate to the Perito Moreno glacier.

Factoids: Once again my ignorance was highlighted as I had no idea that there is a giant ice field in Argentina/Chile - the Southern Patagonia ice field. It's about 4,800 square kilometers and has dozens of glaciers (more of which I would see later in the trip, when we did a glacier cruise). Perito Moreno is one of the largest of the glaciers (250 square kilometers). It's 30 kilometers long and about 5 kilometers wide at the end. It's also one of the most accessible. The terminus of the glacier is in Lake Argentino and the Glaciares park has a visitor center and 2-3 miles of walkways along the shoreline, where one can view the east side of the glacier and the end of it.

One of the most interesting things about Perito Moreno is that unlike most other glaciers in the world, it's in "equilibrium" - so far there are no signs of it receding. Our guide told us this is due to the mega amounts of precipitation at its source, up to 400 inches a year in places. It's also one of the fastest moving glaciers in the world, so we were hopeful to see a calving.

We witnessed some of that precipitation on our visit, as a steady rain was falling during the entirety of my two hour walk. Gear round-up: My rain jacket was 👍. For some inexplicable reason I did not put on my rain pants. Why? Why? Maybe because it didn't seem like it was raining that hard, but, you know, after being out for a couple hours you WILL get wet. Also missing were the $44 waterproof gloves I had bought before the trip. I thought about wearing them but I knew I would be taking lots of pictures and thought it would be a pain to be taking tight-fitting gloves on and off. I opted for some fingerless gloves that have a mitten top that pops on and off. Perfect, except by the end of the walk they were so soaked I literally had to wring them out. Waterproof Salomon hiking shoes were also 👍👍 My feet were bone dry. Definitely a good investment.

This photo (taken early in the walk) gives an idea of how wet it was.

On to the glacier pictures!

I think this last one was the money shot! Although the panorama feature does not show up very well in this blog format. I was really pleased with how well the pano feature on my iPhone was working, compared to my previous iPhone.

So I was one of the last of our group to arrive at the visitor center at the end - and my fellow travelers laughed at how drenched I was and how my glasses fogged up when I walked inside. One of them insisted on taking a picture of my fogged up glasses. WTF - in Minnesota this is a routine phenomenon for six months of the year. But, the dude was from California, I guess they never see it there.

The next day was an all day road trip to get to Torres del Paines National Park. As the crow flies it wasn't that far away, but the roads force you to make a giant circle to get there. Our guides made sure we stayed entertained - there were frequent breaks.

Stopping to take a picture of the wide open spaces at an overlook (another panorama shot that doesn’t show up very well when scrunched into the blog):

Stopping at a roadside shrine to Gauchito Gil:

Gauchito is what they call a "popular saint" - not recognized by the Catholic church but loved by the people with roadside shrines all over the country. The story goes that he was a farm worker and then a soldier. He got in trouble for having an affair with the wealthy widow who owned the farm that he worked at; and also for deserting from the Argentine Civil War because he didn't want to fight against his countrymen. He was apprehended by the local chief of police who took him out into the woods to execute him. Before he died, Gauchito told the chief: "When you get home, you'll find your son is very sick. Pray to me and I promise he will be saved." The chief laughed and killed him.

Upon his return home he did indeed find his son very ill, prayed to Gauchito and the child recovered.

Our tour leader said that after their local team's first visit to the shrine, some good things happened and forever after they must always stop there!   One of our travelers was recruited to pour out a can of beer near the shrine.

The red strips are from visitors who tie a piece of red cloth and make a wish.  We all got our own red strips to tie.  I’m not telling what my wish was.

This particular shrine was fairly humble, but apparently the main one near Mercedes has all kinds of offerings, even plastic wrapped wedding dresses left there by thankful brides who were provided with a husband by Gauchito. The tradition is that women can borrow one of the dresses for their own wedding as long as they return it.

We also stopped to take pictures of a herd of guanaco:

Can I digress to complain about a fellow traveler? After we pulled over to look at this herd, fellow traveler D. was first off the bus. Guanaco don't spook all that easily, but he was intent on getting as close as possible. The rest of us who were trapped on the bus waiting for the people in front of us to get off, could only watch helplessly as we looked out the window seeing him chase them off  He did the same thing on a later hike...

As the "towers" of Torres del Paine started to come into view, we had another quick camera stop to catch them before they got socked in with clouds (weather is ever changeable in Patagonia).

Next up, the hurricane winds of Torres del Paine...

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El Calafate, Argentina

On to the wilds of Patagonia. The landscape - desert and mountains, something like Montana or New Mexico. The weather - howling winds but clearly it is springtime - lilacs, peonies, forsythia and clematis are blooming. It is light out until 9:30 in the evening! Very surreal coming from Minnesota where it gets dark at 4:30 right now.

El Calafate is this little town in the middle of nowhere - the closest gas station is literally 200 miles away. But because of the nearby glaciers, tourism has become its main business and its population has gone from 3000 to 30,000 in the last 20 years. You walk down the six block main street and it’s full of restaurants, cheesy gift shops (plus one very fancy, tasteful, expensive gift shop), and clothing stores selling outdoorsy brands. Parading up and down the street are tourists, some of whom look like legitimate backpacker types, but most of whom seem suspiciously like outdoorsy poseurs in designer down jackets and hiking pants. Hey - it is not really down jacket weather - it was sunny and high 50’s on our first day in town. You could make an allowance for wind chill, but it’s still not down jacket weather by Minnesota standards.

(Stepping down from judgy soapbox)

Oh and dogs. The town is overrun with dogs on the loose. Our guide said not all of them are strays; apparently most of the locals don’t believe in leashing or fencing their dogs. They all seem pretty sweet and friendly. But the guide said “DON’T make eye contact or the dog will follow you around for the rest of the day!”  As an example I walked to the grocery store and these three guys were lounging around in front of the entrance. At first I thought their owners were inside shopping and had left their extremely well behaved dogs out front. But no, all three were still there when I left and indeed, were there again this morning when we drove by. I can only conclude that this is their hangout, kind of like when a panhandler lays claim to a particular corner.

In the afternoon our group got together and were initiated into the rituals of mate tea.  Mate is traditionally served in a hollowed out gourd, sometimes with fancy silver accents.  There also is a fancy metal straw that is flattened out at the top - this helps to strain the liquid and keep pieces of the tea from going up the straw into your mouth.

The gourd is loosely packed full of the tea and then whomever is serving it adds small amounts of hot water, replenishing it as the tea is drunk.  Mate is something that is shared between friends.  The person who prepared the mate will offer it to someone else, but it should always come back to the mate “leader” between sips, rather than being passed around in a circle.  Everyone uses the same straw - germs are not a concern between friends.

So we all got a chance to try it.  You can guess from the below, what I thought of it:

The next day’s excursion was to a small sheep ranch outside of town. It was established by the owner’s great grandfather who emigrated from Scotland in 1905. I can only imagine how harsh it was back then - it seems like an awfully rugged lifestyle even with today’s modern conveniences. We gathered in the ranch house, and had coffee while Gerardo drank mate tea which he shared with our two guides.

I have to admit I was suspicious of his attire, it seemed like a Ralph Lauren version of ‘Patagonian rancher guy’. The beret, the nice sweater vest (which we learned had been knitted by his mom), the corduroy pants. The house seemed kind of like a museum or a movie set also:

We went outside and saw our lunch being roasted over an open fire:

We saw some of his herd in the pens and there was a short herding demo - the dog was not as expert as some I’ve seen but we found out it was a new pup that was still learning.

He herded a few of the sheep into the shearing building and did a little demo of shearing a sheep’s face to get excess hair away from its eyes, then talked with us about some of the challenges he faces. His herd is about 800 sheep, very small compared to some of the huge ranches in the area. The previous week he had had about 50 sheep and lambs killed, most likely by a pack of the local dogs that has gone feral. He’s trying to advocate for the town to do something about its dog problem, but that’s an uphill battle.

So he’s looking into other ways of protecting the sheep, like getting a special guard dog (the herding dogs can move the sheep around, but won’t necessarily fight off predators). Another possibility is to get a propane “cannon” that will set off an explosion at intervals to scare away predators.

I think the most interesting story of the morning was when he was talking about breeding the sheep. They try to time it so that the lambs are born in the spring; rams are kept away from the ewes at other times. But how do they know which ewes are in heat and ready to be bred? They turn loose a ram that is infertile. Even though the guy is shooting blanks, he knows which ewes are in heat. AND they spray the ram’s belly with colored chalk. The next day they look at the herd and the ewes that have chalk on their back, those are the ones that they pull out to be bred by the real stud. Ingenious.

We also got a demo of how Argentinian cowboys take down a predator.  The tool is a long rope with a heavy ball on each end.  The cowboy swings the rope and flings it at the predator; if done correctly the rope wraps itself around the animal’s legs and brings it down.

We had delicious roasted lamb and vegetables for lunch, and then it was time to be on our way. And I decided it was ok if Gerardo had dressed up a little and put antiques in his house and hung up family pictures, if having tourists visit allows his struggling ranch to survive. It probably will not go to a fifth generation though, as he is single and in his 50’s. Hey any ladies who want to go live on a desolate ranch in Patagonia...

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Buenos Aires

We only had a day and a half in Buenos Aires - I would have liked more time to see more of the city. We arrived mid-afternoon, and killed a lot of time just trying to change money. Our tour director walked us to a nearby currency exchange, everyone got in line and...the line didn't move and didn't move. Finally after about 15 minutes, one of the people in our group made it to the counter and quickly went back along the line to let everyone know that the minimum amount they would change was $100. I didn't think I needed that much, so said screw it and went to a nearby shopping mall where there was also a money changing outlet. Then I got to see South American “efficiency” in action - the clerk had to type all of my passport information into some system, I had to sign for it, etc etc. Finally I had my Argentine pesos. Some other travelers from my group were trying to figure out the nearby ATM and I spent another 10 minutes helping them get cash. Finally, whew, we had our money and it was already 4 pm and we had to be ready to leave for a home hosted meal at 6 pm.

I made a quick dash to a famous bookstore, about six blocks away, El Ateneo. The owners took an old opera house and converted it to a bookstore. Very cool to see. 

We had missed lunch, so I decided to have a quick bite to eat in the bookstore cafe. My first FAIL in trying to speak Spanish. I ordered coffee with milk, and a small egg tart. Waited, waited. Finally the waitress came back to my table and asked me something in rapid-fire Spanish. I had NO idea what she was saying. Eventually she said "Para tomar" and mimicked a drinking action with the flick of her wrist, so I thought she was saying she had forgotten what I had ordered to drink. "Cafe con leche" I replied. She brought my coffee and I waited for the food. And waited. Finally I realized that she must have forgotten what I had ordered for food as well. At that point I needed to get back to the hotel, so I got the check and left.

The home hosted meal was nice, though. Five of us were delivered to the city apartment of a mom and two kids. The mom was an occupational therapist. The son was 14 years old, excellent English skills, very mature and self possessed and no teenage attitude about having to converse with five adult Americans. He was also super handsome. I feel creepy about saying that! Just an observation. Anyway, we had a wide ranging conversation with Santiago and his mom (the older daughter arrived later, coming from a late afternoon college exam). The apartment was pretty nice - large living room and dining room, three smallish bedrooms. They were renting, but said most people in the building owned their units and a typical price would be about $400K US.

The part of the conversation that shocked me was how they save money. If they have any excess money to save, they convert it to American dollars and stash them at home.   Of course we are all conditioned to think that you can't just let your money sit...but inflation in Argentina is so high (40% last year) that by converting the money to U.S. currency they ARE, in effect earning interest. Crazy.

We had a fairly humble meal of salad and shepherd's pie, followed by a very weird dessert that was, um, kind of like sweet potato turned into a gelatin thing? And then the mom plunked a huge container of dulce de leche on the table for us to augment our desserts if desired. Dulce de leche is a caramel-type substance, we saw it everywhere in S. America. People are crazy for it, maybe kind of like Nutella here? Anyway, it did help redeem the sweet potato jelly thing. It was nice to have a home-cooked, non-restaurant meal.

The following day, we started out by walking to the nearby Recoleta cemetery. There were lots of lovely above-ground mausoleums; it reminded me of the New Orleans cemeteries I visited earlier this year. We learned about the intricacies of the cemetery plots - what happens if a family decides to give up their space (it is sold - sometimes in the hundreds of thousands!); what happens if a family's last surviving member dies, etc.

And we visited the family mausoleum of Eva Peron, and learned the bizarre story of what happened with her body after her death. First of all, it was embalmed with a method where glycerin was injected, which resulted in the body being very preserved...in effect, mummified.

Initially Eva's body was kept at the headquarters of the country's largest trade union. Two years later, after her husband was deposed, it was taken from the offices and was stored in various places - a parked van, behind the screen in a movie theater, a waterworks. Finally the new regime arranged for the body to be transported to Italy and (with the covert help of the Vatican) buried under someone else's name.

It didn't quiet down the Peronistas. Graffiti appeared all over the city asking "Where is Eva Peron's body?" In 1971, in attempt to 'normalize' politics, the regime disinterred the body and delivered it to Peron, who was then living in exile in Spain with his new wife, Isabel. Isabel actually helped clean the body and fix her hair.  In 1973 they returned to Argentina and Juan was re-elected president. After he died, Isabel became president and oversaw the return of Eva's remains from Madrid. They were restored by an expert (various forms of damage had occurred over the years) and put on display for a while, and finally interred in her own family's mausoleum.

And she remains controversial - our guide told us that when a nearby plot was put up for sale, there were intense arguments about whether its value was enhanced or downgraded by the proximity to Eva's remains. Plot sale records are private, so we'll never know.

After the cemetery visit we had a bus tour of the city. It's a beautiful city - jacaranda trees were covered with purple blooms, there are wide avenues and vintage buildings. It felt very European. We visited the Plaza de Mayo, where they were getting ready for the annual LGBT pride parade later in the day. I wish I would have taken the initiative to make my way back there to watch the parade - I bet it would have been interesting.

We also saw the cathedral where Pope Francis was cardinal before he was elected Pope.

Francis is tremendously popular in Argentina, as could be seen in the neighborhood we visited next. The Caminito neighborhood had several storefronts featuring Pope statues:

Caminito is a poor neighborhood that they have tried to revitalize by painting the buildings in bright colors and painting murals. It's also filled with lots of tourist trap gift shops,  but it was fun to walk around.

We also got a tango demonstration and tango lesson in the neighborhood.

Man bun guy and his dance partner were smokin’ hot.

On a more serious note, here's a mural honoring the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

The white kerchief is a symbol for this group and can be seen painted on the pavement around the city. During the military dictatorship in Argentina, many young dissidents disappeared - most likely executed by the regime. Even more horrifying, if a dissident woman was pregnant, she was kept alive until she was delivered. Her baby would be given to a family that supported the regime, and she would then be executed. Shades of the Handmaid's Tale!

These courageous women demonstrated for their children and grandchildren every week in the Plaza de Mayo, from 1977 to 2006. Some of the remains of the executed dissidents have been found, and with the advent of DNA testing, have been able to be identified. Even more exciting, over 100 of the adopted children have been found and been able to meet their birth relatives.

It was really sad to learn about the dark history in Argentina (which I should have known more about - but that's part of what travel does for you, forces to you confront events that you might prefer to ignore in your everyday life).

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Iguazu Falls

It would be difficult to pick a single high point of this trip, but Iguazu Falls is in the running.

The falls are located on the border of Brazil and Argentina. They extend for 1.7 miles and at any given time, there are between 150 and 300 individual cascades. It's pretty difficult to convey the size and volume of water with individual still photos. 

I had fellow travelers who had also visited Niagara and Victoria Falls. According to them, Iguazu is easily more impressive than Niagara. Victoria is more of a tossup - its single cascade exceeds any of Iguazu's; but most people thought the overall effect of seeing over a mile of waterfalls was more impressive.

We flew from Rio to the Iguazu airport on the Brazil side, and immediately bused to the Brazil side of the falls. At the first overlook we were greeted by a couple of these little guys:

Coatis are friendly and somewhat aggressive if they think you're harboring a snack in your backpack or purse. I think the locals probably consider them pests, but I thought they were cute.

It was a drizzly day, but that didn't detract too much from the views, in fact maybe made them a little more atmospheric. The initial views from the Brazil side were long distance vistas. In this one you can see boats preparing to approach the falls (more on that later).

We made our way along a mile long path, seeing more faraway views, sometimes mostly obscured by trees. Frustrating. I was beginning to think this Iguazu thing was a scam. But then we reached the end of the path, where we ended up close to an almost 360 degree circle of waterfalls, with a walkway going out into the middle of the river to place us right in the center of them all (see previous post for a video from that spot).

Here's one from the center of the walkway. The drizzle, the wind, the constant spray from the falls made it a very wet experience! Right before we got to the walkway I decided I was really hot in my goretex rain jacket and peeled it off - so I got pretty drenched in this spot. It was warm out though, so it was OK.

Somebody lost their hat in the stiff breeze coming off of the falls...

After the walkway into the river, you could climb stairs and get to an overlook platform. The clouds, mist and drizzle made for a dreamy view.

We stayed at a nice hotel on the Brazil side. The following morning the sun came out, hurrah! We took our bus over to the Argentina side (spending 45 minutes at border control). Then there was a walk, buy a trolley ticket, walk to the trolley station, ride it quite a ways through the jungle, then finally we were there. Nope, we weren't there. There was a walk through the woods and then a very impressive series of walkways going across the flat portion of of the Iguazu River - it was maybe a 3/4 mile walk across the river? 

Finally we came upon the Devil's throat, which initially looked like water disappearing down a hole:

But then as we drew closer, we saw the below. Look closely and you'll see a swallow darting around in the spray. There were about fifty of them doing this and it was really fun to watch them. Our guide said they were 'dancing with the water' and that really was what it looked like.

We took the train to another long trail overlooking more waterfalls, more vistas, blah blah blah...

Then, after lunch, the highlight of the highlight!  We boarded an open bed truck that had been outfitted with seats in the back, with about 25 other people. We bumped down a rutted jungle road, while a guide talked about jungle flora and fauna. We were seeing beautiful butterflies everywhere and saw a toucan from a distance. At one point the truck must have disturbed a big group of butterflies drinking from a puddle in the road, because twenty yellow butterflies burst into the air right in front of us. Magical.

One of my fellow travelers managed to bend over and get a picture of this hitchhiker on the back of my skirt:

At the end of the truck ride, we climbed down 200 steps to the river, donned life vests, and boarded a boat. We had a high speed trip up the river and close up views of the cascades - so awesome! Then we were directed to put ALL of our belongings into the dry sack that had been provided to each of us - cameras, phones, glasses etc. I cheated on the glasses since I was wearing a retainer. And the driver navigated directly under the falls. It was crazy! Massive volumes of water falling on us, giant waves - I kept thinking "I hope the driver has done this a lot". People were laughing and screaming and afterward when the driver said, "do you want to go again?" OF COURSE the answer was yes.

No pictures of the moment, obviously, but here's a photo of one of the other boats getting ready to submerge:

All in all it was a spectacular experience. Despite all of the logistics involved in visiting the river from both sides, this is a place that I highly recommend putting on your travel bucket list.

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At Iguazu Falls - see next post for more photos

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South America trip 2018 - Rio de Janeiro

First stop Rio. We were in a nice hotel right across the street from Copacabana beach. Here's a picture from the hotel rooftop.

As you can see, although it was close, it was still a challenge to run across six lanes of traffic to get to the beach! Notice the lines in the sand? They had sprinkler hoses running from the sidewalk to the shoreline, making a path of slightly damp sand that wouldn't burn the bejesus out of your feet if you were walking across barefoot.

We were told to be careful and not to wear any nice jewelry, but I didn't see any problems. I thought the beach was fantastic, very clean and open to everybody, unlike some beaches I've seen where all of the hotels set up reserved areas just for their customers. There were lots of wandering vendors but they weren't too obnoxious if you waved them off.

It was a pleasure to enjoy the sunshine and waves as a respite from Minnesota in November, but one thing’s for sure - I was the palest person on the beach!

The first evening we had a group dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse - one of those places where they just keep bringing out skewers of different grilled meats. I'm going to be a grump and say that it actually wasn't as good as my local Fogo de Chao, but it was still pretty good. And we had our first Caipirinha cocktail of the trip - cachaça liquor, lemon, ice, and sugar. Yum.

The second day started with a trip to the famous Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks the city. We boarded a small two car train and commenced a very fast, very steep ascent toward the top of Corcovado mountain (2,300 feet above Rio). The summit was shrouded in clouds when we got off the train. 

We then took an elevator and two escalators to get all the way to the top. Coming up on the last escalator I could barely see the outline of the statue, then miraculously a breeze came up and we saw this:

Quickly the clouds cleared even more and large crowds of tourists started to arrive, most of them vying for pictures of themselves in the same pose as the statue (which I found somewhat obnoxious, oh well...).

Initially there were still clouds below us...like we were an island in a sea of clouds or like being in an airplane above the clouds. 

But then those clouds cleared as well and we got a 2,300 foot view of Rio:

Our next stop was the Selaron steps - Escadaria Selarón. Jorge Selaron was a poor artist living in the neighborhood of the steps who disliked how dirty and rundown they were, and started a labor of love to cover them in tiles (red, green and blue to represent the Brazilian flag).

Initially he procured the tiles himself, but over time, he started to receive donations of tile from visiting tourists, so in the designs one can see tiles from all over the world in different colors. One of Selarón's recurring themes was the favelas. Favelas are the crowded hillside neighborhoods created by poor people with nowhere to live. They are kind of a no man's land - no zoning, little regulation, lots of flaunting of the rules (e.g. getting electricity by jerryrigging a connection to a city source), some crime and gangs but also a strong sense of community.

His recurring image is of a pregnant woman (sometimes with his own mustached face on top, which is disconcerting to see!). He refused to reveal why, only saying that it was "very personal".  Here’s a set of tiles with Selaron himself in the middle:

Sadly, in 2013 Selarón was found dead on the steps, with burn marks on his body. It is a mystery whether he was murdered or took his own life.

We had lunch at a restaurant up in the hills of Rio and got to experience a unique form of local transportation. The hills are arduous to climb by foot so there is a fleet of locals with motorcycles who wait at an appointed spot, and for about $1.50 US you can get a ride up the hill on the back of a motorcycle. It was fun and slightly scary/exhilarating- the guy was zipping around cars, bouncing over cobblestones, and we leaned in and zoomed around corners. And in a few cases, barely chugged around steep corners, lol. I had the feeling that I might have been testing the limits of the weight that a small motorcycle could take up a steep hill.

Safely arrived, we had a traditional lunch of feijoada (black bean stew) with a grilled pork chop. Delicious.

Day three started with a bus ride to a samba school, where we learned all about the Carnaval tradition in Brazil. Did you know that working on the floats, costumes, and dance routines is a year-long process? We walked into a large warehouse where workers were welding huge iron frames that would form the underpinnings of the floats (no pictures allowed! each samba school's floats and costumes for the coming year are top secret). Then we climbed the stairs and got to see some costumes from previous years, and large sewing workshop where people were working on next year's.

Our charming host told us about the history of Carnaval, we viewed a video, had a caipirinha. We got to play dress-up with a large stock of Carnaval costumes!

We thought we were done, but then we were led outside, under a large canopy where drummers and a beautiful dancer were waiting. She led us through same basic samba steps. Almost everyone in the group was a good sport and gamely tried to dance. After about 10 minutes I had increased appreciation for the Carnaval dancers who had to do this for an hour in high heat, wearing heavy costumes.

Then we each got a drum or a tambourine and got a drumming lesson from the drummers. I wish I had pictures of the drummers and dancing but, sometimes it is more important to do the experience than take the picture!

However I did get a picture of the beauty from their crew who came out and danced with us:

We walked up into a hillside neighborhood to have lunch.  On the way we passed a group of middle school kids hanging out, and our group stopped for a conversation.  A couple of them were eager to practice their English.

Here’s the restaurant owner/chef in traditional dress, telling us about the lunch we were going to be served.  

This place specializes in putting together menus with cultural symbolism - but all I remember was her saying that the black eyed peas symbolized eggs in an ovary!  At any rate, it was a delicious combo of black eyed peas, shrimp, rice, and a fried thing that was like a hush puppy.

The third activity of the day was to take the cable car to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. It's a two step process where you take one car to an intermediate hill, get off, enjoy the view there, then board a separate cable car to the summit. Beautiful views and a gorgeous day with a breeze to cool us off. Here's a view across the city to the Redeemer statue where we were the day before.

In the upper center of this photo, you can see one of the hillside favelas.

And of course, the lovely beaches: