Tours

Part of my adventure here in South America has been traveling solo for the first time. There are obviously advantages and disadvantages to having or not having traveling companions, and in the event that you find yourself on a solo mission, I'm here to tell you that it is possible to find reasonably priced group tours that aren't a total rip-off.
After day one it usually gets a little boring walking around with your head buried in a Lonely Planet book, and I wasn't going to hang out in wine bars for 2 straight days during my time in Mendoza. Always check your book to see if you can easily get to where you want to go on a public bus and that will save you a ton of cash. If not, then take a look at the tours that don't offer bilingual services or include lunch and you can usually find a pretty good deal. I did that twice, once on my trip to the South of Chile and again in Mendoza, and both times I spent the whole day immersed in Spanish without any English speakers and I packed a sandwich if we were going to be short on time, or took advantage of our empanadas lunch that we ordered very cheaply as a group and washed it down with a bunch of nuts, fruit, and other snacks that I brought with me for the ride. They were both quality tours with professional guides sponsored by smaller travel agencies at about half of what I would have paid for a large tour bus and an English speaking group.
While visiting Mendoza, I chose one of the "off the beaten path" destinations and visited the Cañon del Atuel, near San Rafael in the southern province of Mendoza. It's a long day of travel but a beautiful and unique place, and as I mentioned earlier, was my effort to be productive instead of spending two straight days of a Malbec induced haze.

When you're out in the middle of nowhere, these are the things you start to see...goats on the hill and pigs in the back of trucks

Heading into the canyon, I felt a little like I was in Arizona. We had many brief stops along the way where our guide pointed out the various rock formations. I was sitting in the front, so try to ignore the bad glass reflection in some of the pictures.

A chair, or whatever you see...

The Mount Rushmore of the canyon

astronaut

part of the beauty is the different colored rock formations

Rio Atuel

There are large hydroelectric facilities

When you approach the Valle Grande, that's where the real photo opps. begin. There are also opportunities for rafting, kayaking, canopy, etc. and facilities for camping and making it longer than a day trip.

I even got a shot of the full moon on the ride back to Mendoza

Settling In

It's hard to believe that I haven't even been in Chile for a week yet.  It's so different than the life that I was living that sometimes I wake up in the morning and have to talk myself through what it is I supposed to do that day!  I was so accustomed to my teaching schedule that required me to do the exact same thing at the exact same time everyday that I'm still getting used to having a different schedule each day and also working at night.  I used to be able to jump in my car 5 minutes before I needed to be at work, and now I wake up and try to calculate how long it will take me to get to where I need to go based on how far the walk is, the time of day, and how busy the metro will be.  At least I'm getting used to doing all of this from the comfort of the casita  (will post some pictures of that another time).  If you want to see pictures of the hostel that we were staying in and of our weekend festivities, then check out Struan and Anna's blog.  They are 2 lovely teachers from England that I met who will also be here teaching in Santiago all year.
Now, I am waiting for Ita to show me where the grocery store is so I can go and buy myself some food, but thankfully in the meantime, she has served me a few delicious things that look like this.
 


The best part is that there are two vegetarians around already so everything that she makes is already half meatless. Let's face it, no one wants to be the only one picking out meat or asking for special things, so it is great to have delicious bean soups and things like this prepared already!  Soups like this also help to fight the cold, which has pretty much returned since that beautifully warm day that we had on Saturday.  I realized today that this is the first time I have ever left Chicago to come to colder temperatures (I mean, why would I do that anyways?) but it does take a bit of getting used to, the mittens coming out for the walk home after class and all.  And, for those of you who don't know, the reason why it's so cold is because there is no heat, so Chicagoans, imagine the month of April with no central heat.  This leads me to my next picture, my "estufa" which I light in my room at night.

Yes, we're talking matches, pilot light, gas and all!  But trust me, without this thing I'd be walking around with 3 layers and a winter coat.  In fact, my feet are pretty cold just sitting here right now, even with my shoes and socks on. I really didn't believe that I'd be cold with temps that say highs in the 60's, but trust me, I am!