Traveling for a week
Looking back down the valley
Originally uploaded by blmurch. We made it to Santiago, Chile last night. We have had a full week of travel coming from La Paloma, Uruguay on the east coast of South America to the west coast. We broke it up so that it wouldn't be so unbearable, which was nice, but that made it take a lot longer. I'm happy that we are going to be here for a week or so before we head back to Buenos Aires to hotel-sit. I look forward to exploring Santiago and the surrounding area a bit. We will have to come back to visit more, but this is good. We *are missing* Carnival, but that's okay too. We can do that another time, possibly next year.
Our Single room
Originally uploaded by blmurch. We left La Paloma on Monday and took a two buses to Colonia, changing in Montevideo (7 hour trip). We spent the night at the Posada del Angel and then caught a night Buquebus slow ferry (3 1/2 hours) back to Buenos Aires. We arrived at the Tanguera Hostel only to find out that Kragen had booked us a room for the following night. Ooops. All they had available was a tiny single room that reminded me of a monk's cell, save for the bright RED bed covering. We spooned through the night and didn't get much sleep, but it worked. We spent Valentine's Day running errands. I stored some stuff at the South American Explorers Club and then I went back to the funky bookstore to see if I could take a picture of the pinhead puppet. I met other people who worked there and was received like a long lost friend. They loved the photos I had taken. It was so much fun to sit and talk with them, sip maté and talk about life and South America and photography. Unfortunately, I was not able to take a photo of pinhead as he had been shipped off, along with a couple of other sculptures to New York to be exhibited there. That was cool. I was able to take photos of another sculpture though. I said my goodbyes and met up with Kragen who had bought our bus tickets to Mendoza. A couple of hours later, we took a night bus to Mendoza (15 hour trip).
Banana Peel
Originally uploaded by blmurch. We spent the next day in Mendoza. It wasn't very much fun as we'd gotten in an argument that morning and spent the day apart cooling off, but not apologizing. Oh what fun. That night we finally talked things through and apologized and Friday was a *much* better day. I really don't like fighting with Kragen (or anyone for that matter) and having the truth spat at you is not very nice, but it's also hard fight back because it *is* the truth whether I like it or not. We talked a lot and we both learned more about each other and apologized for being mean. I feel like I say that we fight a lot. We don't, it's just that I don't want to give the impression that what we're doing is easy and everything is hunky dory and that life is grand and smells of roses (or bananas in our case) all the time. Most of time life is beautiful and wonderful, but we're human and we get tired and snarky and we lash out. Luckily, we have such a strong relationship that we are able to talk our problems out and don't hurt each other too much or for too long. Making up can be difficult because we are both stubborn, but we also love each other with a passion and tons of respect. On Friday morning, I wrote Kragen a love note to follow up with one he had written me back in Montevideo. Later that afternoon we took the bus to Santiago, Chile (9 hour trip). This was a long ride, but it was made okay because of the beautiful views along the way.