Buena Onda!

Ciao!!!

Hope you are all well!  I keep hearing about the coldness & the dryness back home in the US, I'm thinking about you guys & hoping for better weather & rain/snow on the west coast.  Also, hope you all are watching those olympics!  I am pretty much just listening to a lot of NPR for my news.

Everything continues to be excellent down here in Argentina.  Something notable is that there has been A TON of rain, heavy rain, lightning, thunder even!  The storms are great BUT, these heavy rains have been keeping us (Lisa & her field crew) from getting our fieldwork done.  We've been planning to get out to the Argentine stream sites for the past couple of weeks whenever we get a couple of days free of rain but that just hasn't happened.  The streams need to be relatively free of sediment and these storms stir the water up too much.  So, it's sort of becoming a problem because we are going to Patagonia in a couple weeks & time is becoming limited to get all the samples processed before leaving the country to return to the USA.  Let's hope it all works out.  In the meantime I am doing a lot of tango, yoga, walking & took a trip north to the amazing Iguazu Falls!  Woo hoo!

Here's a map for your reference, you will see Buenos Aires & then look north to Iguazu Falls, it is nestled up on a peninsula of Argentina within Paraguay & Brazil.  It may look like Buenos Aires is on the coast but, really it is just the mouth of a huge river, La Plata, coming out here.  You'd have to actually go pretty far to go to a real ocean type beach.

Here's a canal of La Plata coming through town, there are lots of big cranes that would be used to take big containers off ships.  I have never seen ships here, only some people rowing.  

There is a nature preserve pretty close to us where it is nice to take a walk.  It is closed Mondays & whenever it rains due to mud, so it has been closed a lot lately.  

Love these jacaranda trees

near the nature preserve, note the old dudes sun-baking in the background :)

Some of you have been asking for details about foods here.  To be honest, I haven't had so much of it.  One, because I'm vegan and Argentina is meat heavy and two, because we've been eating at home a lot. However, I do notice the cuisine, especially all the parillas (grilled meat restaurants or stands).  Those meaty smells are everywhere.  Along this walk, below, there is an endless stream of these parillas.  They were just setting up for lunch, which is usually eaten sometime after 1pm.  In BA no one eats dinner until after 9pm.  It is traditional for everyone to have a big asada at home on Sundays, it is a huge, meat grill out!

this one is particularly popular.  also, they usually have a huge array of condiments and toppings.  i'd probably like a sandwich of just those :)

i see a lot of dog walkers, sometimes walking as many as 16 dogs!

Lisa's rooftop patio zone

i love it

early morning street 

the tiling is very charming, Lisa's place is there in the back.

We did go to a fun dinner event, the puerta cerrada (closed door) thing I mentioned.  It was all vegan & we met some really fun people.  I was particularly stoked to be sitting across from some funny gals from Rome!

cool scene!

ah, these homemade chocolates were divine!  seems you can't get good dark choco down here.

yummy Malbec!  Argentines have a phobia of pairing watermelon with red wine (strange) so I ate a lot of extra watermelon.  Who's afraid of watermelon?

ah, sorting the invertebrate samples....

a little moviehouse, notice the grafitti "it's me, David Lynch"  ha HA!

Something I'm getting into is mate.  Everyone is drinking it everywhere.  You will see little mate cups & thermoses all over, even at Iguazu people had toted in big thermos jugs to make mates.  I had been given an expert mate tutorial before coming here but, seems I still have a lot to learn.  I got a little gourd & was instructed on how to cure it & make the tea by Lisa's coworkers, Argentine ladies.  The proper method is to share it all around.  I made it too hot & the ladies said: not bad, not the worst & "USA style".  I am still working on perfecting my technique.  Turns out I love mate and beverage processes in general!

at the supermarket you have a billion mate choices!

you also have a million coffee choices & about 95% of them have a ton of sugar already in them.  yikes!  they like things sweet down here!

all the instant coffee options.  i do like perusing different foods in international supermarkets.  :)

graffiti continues to be awesome & fascinating

doorways & windows, also fascinating

Tango!  We've been going all the time!  I've improved minimally but, it sure is fun & challenging.  We are going to classes & milongas most nights.  It is a great cultural experience, pretty inexpensive & a fun activity for Lisa & I to do together.  Sometimes I will have great success on the dance floor, sometimes (well one time) a man will tell me "no sabes bailar".  Snap!  Low blow, buddy!  In any case, I'm just a beginner & try not to take things personally.  :)

the scene at the milonga can be pretty sweet!  some ladies get dressed up really fancy.

love this photo.  i've been using instagram a bit, something new to me.  it really makes photos look AMAZING!!

eating a lot of pretty beets 

taking some interesting selfies

thank you instagram!

here's the Rio La Plata as seen from the nature preserve, it's huge!  it's also toxic!  going in or touching the water is illegal because it's hella polluted :(

Here's Puerto Madero, the new & modern section of town.  Someone told me to go check it out but guess what?  It just seems like LA or something.  I prefer the old.

aha!  here is a decent shot of the argentine rat-tail mullet!  this guy ended up sitting in front of me on a 20h bus ride!

I decided to take a LONG bus trip up to Iguazu, it was supposed to be a 17h bus ride but, turned into a 20h bus ride.  Pretty long, right?  Luckily those buses are pretty cush & the seats are large & recline fairly far.  WAY better than an airplane seat.  They also give you some foods & drink.  Here is a nice snack of small packets of cookies!

After the long bus ride, during which I didn't sleep well & developed a headache, I was off to visit the national park!  Yipee!  Here was my first view of the mighty Iguazu Falls, like a churning froth.

and much closer...  they are breathtaking!  it is actually a ton of small waterfalls all together coming over this great basalt cliff.

i think the water level must have been particularly high due to all the recent rain

this was fantastic!  you can walk on all these little catwalks over the water & get super close to the falls.  standing at the end here you are literally getting a nice, cool shower.  which was awesome because it was hot & sunny.

there's me

they just pop out of the jungle

You can walk around the lower & upper portions of the falls & then go further up the Iguazu river to see La Garganta del Diablo (throat of the devil!) where the river goes from being smooth & placid into a hundred waterfalls!  It's really breathtaking.  Again there are little walkways that bring you right to the edge & you can get another nice shower.  The photos are possibly not as good as they could have been because there was sooooo much water and spray!  It was pretty crowded with tourists from all over & also very hot.  There were some shower stations set up in various locations where you can just take a quick shower in your clothes.  As you can tell, I liked all these shower opportunities.  :)

here's the moment when the river goes crazy!

spectacular!

That was great!  I am so happy I made the trip to the falls :)  Then I took another heinously long bus ride back to BA.  I paid about $10 more for a cushier ride with better movies, larger seats that reclined to nearly horizontal, better food (did not eat, not vegan), white wine, thick blankets, a small pillow, clean bathroom...  what a treat, well worth it.

Thanks for reading, my friends!  Take care & have a fun weekend!
xo

deluxe