Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay

From Buenos Aires, one of the easiest and most popular excursions is to cross the Rio de la Plata by ferry over to Uruguay to access Montevideo or another adorable little touristy town, Colonia de Sacramento. When one imagines crossing a river, you probably don't imagine a river that is up to about 200 km wide. If you want to get technical, it's an estuary formed by the Uruguay Parana rivers that creates the border between Argentina and Uruguay and connects all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Because of sediments entering from the other rivers, the water is a nice murky brown color.
There is the option for the super fast 1 hour ferry to Colonia or the more affordable 3 hour trip which has you there in time to walk around, grab some lunch, snap photos of the historical area of the city, and with the 1 hour time change be back in Buenos Aires by 10pm.

Leaving Buenos Aires behind

Big river, right?

Brown water noted

Approaching Colonia

This is what the ferry looks like

Don't worry, this guy is going to catch a boat that big and tie us up

Here's to visiting another country in one day

Colonia de Sacramento was founded originally by Portugal in 1680 and over the years had also been under Spanish and Brazilian control. It's now a part of Uruguay and it's best known for its historic district, a World Heritage Site, that was built by the Portuguese.

It also had a tropical island feel

I loved all of the different colored hibiscus everywhere

You know it's a small world when you run into two of your good friends from Santiago in Uruguay. We forgot to snap a picture as proof of our coincidental meeting, but they were really there, I swear.

Back to Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires

I'm almost to the end of the travel posts, I promise. It was a fun 6 weeks and I feel very fortunate to have done and seen everything that I did. My travel around Chile has definitely changed the way I plan to travel in the future and the things I still want to see. Gone are the days of all-inclusive resorts in Mexico, hello Cartagena de Indias, Colombia!
If you're one of those outdoorsy types who likes Alaska or the Western USA, you HAVE to add Patagonia to your list of place to visit. I hope to return someday to see the other side and make my way up the places that I missed like Ushuaia, El Calafate, and Bariloche.
Now...on to my photos of Buenos Aires. Although it's a beautiful cosmopolitan city, I knew right away that I made the right choice in coming to Santiago. For me it's more manageable and the only way I can describe it would be like moving from Chicago to New York City. At any rate, since I'm a Chicago girl, it was nice to get out of this desert for a few days and into a little heat and humidity and see the beautiful people, architecture, and fashion.

Retiro and Plaza San Martin:

La Casa Rosada and Plaza de Mayo:

Puerto Madero:

Recoleta area and the cemetary:

Everyone comes to see Evita

I didn't get it in the photo, but there was even a butterfly flying around right here next to this quote that says to focus on the life that is beginning and not ending. Pretty cool.

Crossing Over, part II

After Mendoza, I returned to Santiago for a few days and still had a little time remaining before classes started so I decided to dip into my travel savings fund to take one last trip, to Buenos Aires. I mention this tiny detail to any readers who might be considering teaching English here just to remind them that although the summer is great for travel opportunities, (and also high season fares) it's also a long time to be without any kind of steady pay. Save during the good months, come with some money that you saved at home, or plan to stock up on private students to stash away some cash for travels, otherwise you could find yourself unemployed, hot, and bored in Santiago for a month or longer if you don't plan ahead.
If you remember a few posts back, I crossed over into Argentina by bus. Santiago to Buenos Aires is usually a reasonable plane fare and I opted for that since the 20+ hour bus ride just wasn't for me. I thought the sights on the bus over the Andes were spectacular, but these shots I got out of the plane window were even better.

Stay tuned for pictures of Buenos Aires and my day trip over to Colonia de Sacramento, Uruguay.

The grapes are ready

I decided to do my outdoor adventure day first so I could have the second day in Mendoza for wine tasting. You understand my logic, right? It's just about time for the harvest, so you can pluck the grapes right off of the vine and have yourself a sample.

In Mendoza there was also a lot of hype about the Fiesta Nacional de la Vendimia, the national celebration of the yearly grape harvest that occurs every March. Our tour guides explained to us how the festival has evolved quite a bit from 1936 when the the first harvest queens were selected. Each of the 18 different departments of the Mendoza province is represented and now it is more like an all out pageant. Although Mendoza has all of the prime ingredients for wine production, it can have some volatile weather with the possibility to produce golf ball sized hail, so the celebration of a successful harvest is especially important in this region.
Another thing I noted about being on the other side of the Andes was different light, different views,  and just a totally different perspective all together. Unfortunately, on the second day the clouds got in the way a little of my mountain views, but as you can see it's still a beautiful place.

There are also plentiful olive trees in the region and we even had the chance to do a little olive oil tasting here...

Sometimes it's also fun to visit some of the smaller more family run operations so you see more things like this...

Like mother, like daughter. At this particular place there is also a wine named after each child in the family.

One of the best parts of the day, tasting some unfinished sparkling wine right from the tap!

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