Getting a Glimpse of Uruguay

We just spent a very peaceful and relaxing four days in Carmelo, Uruguay at the Four Seasons resort on the Rio (River) de la Plata. While we had been wanting to visit for a while we held out until the bungalow we wanted was available and as it turns out, patience really is a virtue. The bungalow had a beautiful sunset view and it was nestled in the trees and very quiet. And, I was able to fill up on fish and shrimp! We took a short 15-minute private plane from Buenos Aires to the resort and they had loads of seafood and fish other than salmon. Why can't I get that from more than a handful of places in Buenos Aires I keep asking myself?

Our mistake was hitting the spa immediately upon arriving for a few hours even though it was a bright and sunny day. Wouldn't you know it, the next two days were full of rain and dark skies. We did get a tennis match in that was just too funny. Neither of us has played tennis in years and so we happily had the courts to ourselves until some couple showed up. Of course they played like they were semi-professional. Our tennis balls were going everywhere...into their court, over the fence. Good times.

Our one adventure for nightlife was quite hilarious when we showed up at the casino next door to the resort and we were the ONLY people there. I saw about 20 workers just standing around bored out of their minds in this bright, tiny wood cabin casino. Well, they opened up the BlackJack table for Don and I kicked back listening to the Best of the 80s that is quite popular in Uruguay it seems. We won a tiny bit of cash and it turned out to be a good night.

I don't think I've ever mentioned Don's fear of lizards on this blog. The way I feel about creepy, crawly nasty things like spiders is how he feels about lizards... He had a seen a "big" one--so he claimed--one day as we were heading to the bungalow but it got away before I could see it. I wasn't too worried about as we've been to many places with roaming lizard life. Well, on our way to check out on the last day, guess who was hanging out by our bungalow? This massive lizard who then promptly ran away from us right into the direction of our outdoor shower! Good thing we were checking out.

Oh, Natal!

Natal, Brazil turned out to be a wonderful way to spend two relaxing weeks. Natal, City of the Sun, is the capital city of the State of Rio Grande do Norte and we managed to achieve a nice balance between kicking back and relaxing and pulling ourselves away from the beach house for excursions and activities. Our friend Butch had been nice enough to give us two thriller books in English and I hadn't had my hands on a book in English since we got here. So my plan was to completely veg and read by the pool or on the beach. Don convinced me to leave the house and have some fun so our first adventure was to the sand dunes. Natal is full of sand dunes in the hills overlooking the beaches and we took a dune buggy tour that was amazing. We went up and down the slopes of sand at top speed in this cute little red buggy.

We also went sand boarding, which was fun but a complete disaster! Don didn't bother trying to understand the instructions from the Brazilian guy so we were covered in sand and falling everywhere instead of gliding down the hill smoothly. But, it was hilarious.

The much more successful activity was a simple zip wire that Don did where you end up plunged in the river. If only there had been bungee jumping or diving off a cliff he would have done that too, for sure.I have to admit that I was nervous about the next adventure, our ATV trip along the hills and to see lagoons and rivers. I had never been on an ATV and I was sure that I'd be left behind. My hand was almost crippled from gripping the handles so hard! Well, no major mishaps occurred and so I settled down and even sped up pretty fast a few times. All I will say is that it's a good thing no one had their camera out when I accidentally drove into the river! Yes, that's right. Instead of following the path along the river, my ATV went crazy and I went right in. Oh, well. I guess it was pretty funny.

One of Don's favorite things to do, as I've mentioned before, is to take private boat tours whenever we're on vacation. I've struggled with sea sickness but gotten better over the years much to his happiness. Somehow, of course, whenever we take a boat on the ocean it happens to be during the roughest periods! On our way to Anguilla from Saint Martin, for example, we were caught in the most outrageous swells that only happen 1 or 2 times a year. Brazil turned out to be no different. We woke up at the crack of dawn to have a "calm" sea and we were caught in the biggest waves and violent rain storm ever. I felt bad because after 2 1/2 hours on that boat I just could not wait for rain to stop so that we could snorkel in the natural pool in the ocean. I may be smiling in this picture, but I'm screaming inside! Not to mention a big wave knocked Don off the boat while he was climbing on. I'll stick with relaxing by the pool with a book and a drink any day.

We already miss Brazil. The people and sights were amazing and we'd love to return one day.

Tastes and Sights of Rio de Janeiro

Our journey recently led us to the colorful, eclectic country of Brazil and our first stop was Rio de Janeiro to see Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. The sun was blazing and people were loud, friendly, and vibrant. Personally, I was looking forward to finally getting a really good selection of seafood and seeing the Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado mountain. Well neither one of those disappointed me! The massive statue of Jesus Christ with his armed outstretched is just as impressive as we'd expected. We kind of went picture crazy and also bought a small replica of it for memories sake. And I promptly began stuffing myself with sole, shrimp and other stuff from the sea.

Another treat was seeing Sugar Loaf with its amazing views and the excitement of riding so high above the ground in cable cars. We were hot as anything in those cable cars in the jungle weather but it was really fun. When you find shade up on the hilltop it brings a nice breeze along.

Oh, and Ipanema Beach...what a busy, crazy mix of locals, tourists, and salespeople everywhere. You can basically lay on the beach all day and at the same time be fed caipirinhas and shrimp skewers, buy a whole new wardrobe, and get amazing shiatsu massages where they make your joints crack in places you never expected. Who doesn't love the beach?

We're now in Natal up in northern Brazil for 2 weeks and we spent most of yesterday watching Inauguration Day at our beach house! More about Natal later...for now, take a look at our Rio slideshow.

Happy New Year!

It's 2009! Don and I brought in the new year with a few friends and we are so happy to have Butch visiting from DC. He's been our Buenos Aires companion for the past week and we've been wining, dining, and dancing all over. One of the best parts about having a visitor is that you get a great excuse to make reservations at all of your favorite restaurants and so far they have not disappointed. Last night we were at the Faeno Hotel dinner and tango show because you just can't come down here and not see a tango show. So that's one major thing checked off the list but now we're on to shopping for leather and visiting Tigre in the north to sail through the Delta...

Here are Butch and Don at Asia de Cuba in Puerto Madero having a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon:
The boys leaving brunch at Olsen's:

Simple Life in the Countryside

A few days ago Don and I spent some time with friends at Estancia Bella Vista, which is about 170 kilometers from Buenos Aires. This delightful place is 60 hectares of natural woodland on the banks of the Salado River. It was so peaceful and so nice to trade in the city sounds for nothing more than birds chirping. For the first half of the day we were the only four guests in the whole place. Some more people showed up later but there were never more than about 10 guests. It was cozy and everyone talked and ate dinner together. Here's the entrance to our room at the Estancia:

Our favorite activity was the horse back riding. We were used to the slow guided tours where the guide is teaching you about everything around you and you move at a leisurely pace. This guide just let us break out into pretty fast gallops and ride as we pleased. Man were our butts hurting the next day! The guide rounded up a baby cow with a lasso like a real cowboy. It was actually kind of sad because the animal was running so hard trying to get away and all the other cows were mooing like crazy. But, that's life in the countryside.

Patagonia III: Villa La Angostura

Hotel Correntoso in Villa La Angostura was the perfect way to end our tour of Patagonia. We were intending on staying at Llao Llao but our apartment owner suggested this alternative and he was right on target. After tons of excursions we needed a relaxing way to decompress with less people around. We ended up getting 4 days of much-needed spa time, fine dining, and beautiful lake views. They knew us really well in the spa as we had different treatments 3 days in a row and they couldn't keep us out of the pool! Las Balsas restaurant deserves a special mention here because our lunch there was exquisite and we had our first encounter with a really helpful sommelier. We both think the food was probably the best we've had since being in Argentina overall.

We did drag ourselves away from the hotel to take a private boat tour along the Nahuel Huapi Lake and a walk through the Arrayanes Forest. The picture above is one we really like of an old bridge that is near the entrance to the national parklands where the boat docks. It was much different having a small boat and a gourmet lunch to ourselves versus being on a catamaran with hundreds of people and a tour guide trying to speak English over the loud speaker! But we feel like we got a full spectrum of the Patagonia experience.

Click on the title of this post to see our picture slideshow.

Patagonia II: El Calafate

After enjoying bright sunny beach days with penguins, whales, elephant seals, sheep, and guanacos, we moved on with a little under 2-hour plane ride to El Calafate. This area of Patagonia is known for its world famous glaciers and we planned two full days of excursions to see the best ones. The first day we went on a big catamaran from Punta Bandera Port and sailed along the Argentino Lake to reach the Upsala and Speggazini Glaciers and Onelli Bay. The boat was surprisingly comfortable with nice leather seats and a bar and we didn't get any seasicknesses even though it was a full day tour. Here you'll see some of our favorite views from the boat:

This short video shows the view as we pass by the Spegazzini Glacier. It's the highest glacier in the National Park and it's a rather amazing view.

The second day's excursion was the real highlight of our El Calafate trip: trekking over the Perito Moreno glacier, which is the most famous of the National Park and the only one that is not receding. We took a boat to a small landing area in the woods near the glacier, put on our snow trekking shoes, and started on an hour and a half walk across the glacier. This experience is somewhat hard to put into words and the pictures don't even do it justice. The air was so fresh and crisp and you could hear running water whenever you stepped over a crack in the ice. After the trek, we stopped at a part of the glacier where the guide had set up Patagonian whiskey and he served it over freshly cut glacier ice!

Next and final stop on our trip will be just 80 kilometers from Bariloche. Stay tuned!

Patagonia I: Puerto Madryn

Our second trip outside of Buenos Aires was to the Patagonia region, first stop: Puerto Madryn. When we heard that you could take a boat out and go whale-watching and walk through groups of penguins, we knew we couldn't miss this area. What a nice surprise it was to arrive and realize that we were right across from the beach! Somehow we had missed that piece of information and it made our walk along the sand just that much better. Not to mention Hotel Territorio was a major treat with its spa jacuzzi overlooking Gulfo Nuevo.

Our first excursion was to Puerto Piramides where we saw two Right Whales, a mama and her baby. There are only 7,000 of these whales left across the world. The whales were amazing because they are very curious creatures and not afraid at all of boats and people. In fact, the mama led her baby over to us and they swam right under our boat so they could figure out what we were! We were able to film a mini video where you can hear the whale breathing and the guide talking.

We also saw a bunch of big elephant seals on the beach, which were really funny to watch. This map shows the area that we traveled during that first day:

Our second excursion was just penguin heaven in Punta Tombo. They were everywhere and walking all around us! We were lucky enough to see a mama penguin feeding her baby, which is quite rare. The first chicks had just hatched the day before we arrived. This picture shows how close we were able to get to the penguins, who don't mess with you unless they feel threatened we suppose - since we did see one of them snap at a guy's leg when he passed by!

Here's a video of some penguins, too:

Is Spring Here to Stay?

After several more days of rain and clouds, the sun appeared on Thursday and Don and I jumped at the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors. We went to the Botanical Garden and had a leisurely walk around the area. The garden has hundreds of cats living there and they like to come up to you, probably hoping that you have some food. There were tons of people laying around on the grass and relaxing.

After the garden we went over to the Park Hyatt in Recoleta, which was even more beautiful than the one we visited while in Mendoza. We had afternoon tea and scones and listened to a harpist. It was a very peaceful way to enjoy our late afternoon merienda (snack) during the downtime. Whereas at home bars and restaurants are jumping around happy hour (5-7pm), nothing really happens here in Buenos Aires. People are at home having family time and dinner doesn't get going at most places until after 9:30pm.

I can't say enough about the fabulous Vietnamese dinner we ate at Green Bamboo. A new version of chicken satay that, instead of just wooden sticks, the chicken was skewered on sugar cane sticks. Add pork rolls and duck confit to the mix and YUM...

We also successfully booked our next trip! On November 9th we'll be heading to the Patagonia region to visit Calafate, Puerto Madryn, and Bariloche. We can't wait.

Mendoza, South America's Napa Valley

We have recently returned from 3 nights in Mendoza and it was not long enough! As soon as we arrived on Thursday afternoon the hotel staff handed us 2 chilled glasses of Torrentes white wine and all thoughts of busy Buenos Aires cleared out of our minds. It was sunny and warm and we had a great lunch on the terrace of the restaurant. The food during our entire stay was fantastic at restaurants like Francis Mollman's 1884.

That night, we attended a wine tasting at the lodge. We tried 3 types of wine - 2 red, 1 white - and played a guessing game of "essences" found in wine. Smelling the little bottles with various essences turned out to be quite difficult! Some examples we had were cloves, grapefruit, grass, coffee, black pepper. Sounds easy but it's not. The lodge grows the bonarda seed grape and sells it to other vineyards for producing wine. It only makes 2,000 bottles a year of its own for its guest to drink while staying there. The bonarda grape is deep ruby red and has a full taste.

On Friday we visited two bodegas or wineries - the first was Vistalba by Carlos Pulenta and the second was Achaval Ferrer. We got to taste wine directly from a French oak barrel, which is what our tour guide is pouring here.

Somehow, Don woke up early and took a mountain bike ride around the estate before our Saturday spa day began. And it was amazing. We had a treatment together called Winetherapy that lasts for 2.5 hours! We had a 50-minute massage, a crushed Malbec seed scrub, a Bonarda red wine bath, and a Torrentes wine wrap. Pure indulgence. We miss Mendoza already and are thinking about returning when the grapes are ripening, even though we found the weather so perfect now.

We just sent an email slideshow of our pictures from the trip. Post a comment here if you didn't get it.

Errand Fatigue

It's Tuesday morning, Don and I are eating fruit salad and zoning out after a busy Monday. It was errand central over here: getting cell phones, signing up for a gym membership, fixing credit card problems, and getting Skype. Ahh!!! It felt like a day back in DC. But we needed all those things. Don still needs to arrange Spanish lessons so that's on today's agenda.

The best part of the day was getting Skype (gracias, Gina!!). Everyone should sign up so we can talk for free. It is quick and simple and I already talked to my sister, Taylor, and Don talked to his mom. And, yes, Djenaba, you and I chatted it up for quite a while as Don keeps reminding me since I went to bed so late. Just go to http://www.skype.com/ and follow the easy instructions. I love where we live here because we just walked a few blocks away and bought the headset so that within minutes of signing up we could call anywhere. Our Skype name is donmarieba. Let me know if it works.

We treated ourselves to Osaka again and took a few pics of our favorite bartenders there. We found out that we're all neighbors so we are sure to hang out soon.

Hola, Lucas!

Hola, Jose!

Spring is here, too! It's finally warming up and hopefully my crazy cold goes away. I have been sneezing like never before. We can't wait to walk the parks, go to the zoo, and just enjoy the sun. This week we'll plan our trips to the Cavas Wine Lodge in Mendoza and the Llao Llao Resort in Bariloche. Yea!

**New Year's Update: The boutique hotels are filling up like nobody's business so we're trying hard to find good hotels to recommend. Email us pronto if you need help.