La pizza

16/5

I was craving buffalo chicken pizza so I asked my mom if I could make dinner. I found blue cheese, green onion, and chicken but had no luck finding buffalo sauce. It still turned out to be pretty tasty and my parents loved it so much, they said I would be cooking from now on. Add some wine and it was a great dinner, if I do say so myself!

Chopping up the ingredients

Blue cheese chicken pizza before

Blue cheese chicken pizza after

Los Cartoneros

This is an excerpt from a recent presentation I did in class, but I thought it would be an interesting cultural addition to my blog. Obviously every assignment we have is in Spanish, but I took the liberty of translating it so everyone could understand.

"Cartonero" has two definitions: 1) the activity that consists of recycling cardboard, plastic, and other recyclable materials and 2) the person who engages in this activity. Cartoneros receive their name from the word "cartón" (cardboard), one of the materials they recycle in order to make their living. Typically, cartoneros involve the entire family: men, women, and children are all involved in looking for trash on the city streets. In 2001/02, a time when many citizens of Buenos Aires fell below the poverty line, working as a cartonero was the best alternative to stealing.

Cartoneros were first documented in Buenos Aires in the 1860s. At that time, the city was taking trash out to dump sites and burning it. Cartoneros began to come out onto the streets to recycle some of the trash before it went to the dumpsites. Many congregated around La Quema, also known as Barrio de las Latas and Barrio de las Ranas. In 1899 it was estimated that around 3,000 people lived in La Quema.

The laissez faire policies of the 1940s and 1950s in Buenos Aires resulted in villas being built around dumpsites. Thus, scavenging for trash became associated with the villas and lowest class of the population. When the dictatorship of the 70s took over Argentina, they passed the Municipal Ordinance 33.581, which criminalized all forms of waste scavenging in Buenos Aires not done by private companies. Thus, the cartoneros began scavenging at night in order to hide from the police.

The 1999-2002 economic and social crisis of Buenos Aires that increased unemployment and poverty rates also increased the numbers of cartoneros in the city to around 40,000. In 2002, El Movimiento de Trabajadores Excluidos, a social organization, formed with around 2,000 Buenos Aires. The MTE works to better the working conditions of the cartoneros. They have given cartoneros social rights and pensions. Today cartoneros are still a symbol of the fight for social justice in the city. Cartoneros receive support as members of the community by working with local cooperatives that give them decent prices. Additionally, local artists support them by recycling their materials and depicting their work conditions through art.

A La Boca cooperative that takes recycled cardboard and turns it into books

Artist's metal rendition of a cartonero

The Anthropologist's Perspective of Argentina (Fact 8)

When there is a bus strike (like the one that recently went on for six days and nearly had me stuck in Bariloche had I not dropped $350 on a plane ticket), the bus companies in Argentina do what they do best: blame it on the consumer. So, of course, it was my fault that the strike occurred, and they wouldn't let me return my prepaid ticket. Trust me, Via Bariloche, if I could give those workers their 23% salary increase, I would. But I'm pretty sure that's the government's job.

Traveler's Tip #1: Never plan ahead and buy a round trip ticket.

The Anthropologist's Perspective of Argentina (Fact 7)

4/5

The amount of Spanish you know does not matter if you are walking around town wearing a North Face fleece with a backpack. People will still yell "Cambio?" after you.
Damnit.

Siete Lagos

2/5

Stephen and Ann-Marie, the couple from London who I hiked to Refugio Frey with a few days earlier, invited me on their day trip through Siete Lagos in their rental car. We were joined by Stephan, a Swiss traveller who Stephen and Ann-Marie had met in their hostel. The four of us took off early in the morning for a day filled with rain, mountains spotted with clouds, and turquoise lakes. It was a fun way to spend a day, but not very eventful. Honestly, once you have seen one lake you've seen them all. We stopped in San Martin de los Andes around 2pm for lunch, dropped Stephan off at his hostel in the city,  and then the three of us headed on back to Bariloche.

Sunrise over the lake from my hostel

One lake

Another lake- Stephen and I were able to convince Stephan to come swimming up to the shins with us

San Martin de los Andes

Clear turquoise waters was not exactly what I expected in Patagonia

The rain can't hold us

1/5

I woke up early this morning and, surprise surprise, it was still raining. I couldn't get anyone in the hostel convinced to go on a day hike with me (and my dorm-mates Tony and Benjamin were going on the hike to Refugio Frey) so I decided to take a short walk around Llao Llao in the National Park. It was really more of a walk than an actual hike so I felt OK about going alone. I strolled on down to the bus stop and waited 45 minutes for the bus that supposedly comes every 20. I was really wet and disillusioned about this so I walked back to my hostel expecting to spend the day working on homework, writing postcards I still haven't gotten around to, etc. However, after an hour of watching Netflix, Ben and Tony walked in the room totally soaked as well. Since it was a National Workers Holiday, all of the stores were closed so Ben couldn't buy a sleeping bag for his trek. I asked if they wanted to join me on a short hike (all I wanted to do was go outside) and they said sure! Then I got a text from Sutton asking if I was doing anything today and if she could join, so her addition made our group a solid 4. We met and eventually found the bus for a 40 minute ride over to Hotel Llao Llao. I asked for directions to the hiking trail from the security guard at the gate and he told me I speak Spanish very well. I was pretty excited about that as we started our nature hike through the National Park. The rain was pretty bad but we were out for an enjoyable 2 hours exploring and talking. Ben and Tony are both from Vermont and are the same age as Sutton and I, so we had a lot to talk about. When we got to the scenic point, Sutton taught the guys how to do the "skinny arm". After we walked back and found an empty (but very muddy) parking lot next to the lake for a bit of tossing before catching the bus back into town. We got back at 7:30pm. Overall, it was a solid day for what was supposed to be a disappointment!

El Bosque de los Arrayanes

Scenic viewpoint

Working the skinny arm

Just a bit of frisbee in Patagonia, no big deal

Rainy Days in Paradise

29/4

Today I was supposed to meet Rachel to hike to Refugio Lopez, but she missed the bus (and there's only one every 3 hours) so I went solo for the day. It was a 45 minute bus ride out and then a short walk over to the trail head. The weather report had said that it was supposed to start raining at 5pm this evening, and it was only 11pm so I figured I'd make it back just before the rain hit. Little did I know that Bariloche weather is as unpredictable as Nevada weather and the Argentinian weather reports are even less dependable. I started the hike up and within 10 minutes it began to rain. I hoped that I would get lucky and the rain would stop so I continued on up the trail for the next hour. The rain started to get worse, so I found a tree and made a snack for myself to try and wait the rain out. The trailhead markers had said that Refugio Lopez was closed and, being alone, I felt pretty uneasy about hiking 4 hours out without a working cell phone, in the rain, and without the possibility for shelter once I got to the top. So, I took a few photos from the trail and headed back. Of course, I took the wrong trail back home and had to climb down a rock face and ended up having to climb under a fence to get to the road. Whoops.

Three more hours and I would have been golden!

The view from the trail

Hm... I think I may have taken a wrong turn

I had forgotten to check the bus schedule back into town, and I ended up waiting nearly 3 hours for the next bus. Don't ever hitchhike if you aren't good with rejection- I tried for a good hour and no one stopped. A bit disheartened, I walked 3 km over to the nearest bus stop and was relieved to see the bus finally arrive after about 40 minutes waiting there. I returned at around 4pm feeling having accomplished nothing for the day, so I went into town and walked around the center. Bariloche is famous for chocolates and beer and they have a street entirely filled with chocolate shops. I spent an hour walking up and down the street getting free samples at around 15 different shops. I bought a bottle of wine at one of the shops and shared it with a few people at my hostel that night over dinner.

30/4

The group is in Bariloche and so we went to an estancia for a full day of horseback riding. Carol Jones is a local rancher with about 2,000 hectares of land that she uses for horses, cattle, and sheep. Her land looked a lot like the Carson Valley, actually. It was still raining, but we still did the ride because we hoped the rain would stop eventually. Of course, it didn't, but it ended up being a pretty fun day! My horse was sick and stubborn so when I tried to turn in a direction away from the group, she shook her head and got snot all over me. It was pretty gross. After about 3 hours of riding we stopped for lunch: asado (steak) with carrots, bread and cabbage. Sasha was still sick from food poisoning the night before, so we rode back right after lunch and as we waited for Carol to put the horses away, munched on some cake and tea as a snack.

Carol's ranch

Heading out to the hills

Going up the hills- too bad my horse didn't like going up hill

Some of Carol's horses came over to greet us and walk along with us (teasing the saddled-up horses)

Asado lunch! Thank god for the fire- it was getting pretty chilly