Penguins!

Back to the East Coats of Patagonia  - Puerto Madryn City, warm and sunny. 

This place is famous for two things - whales and penguins.

Now, whales are big and great and all that - no question about that. But penguins... Penguins... They are so freakin' awesome!

I rented a car and drove to Punta Tombo to see them.

My new friend -

And a short video:

Another highlight of Puerto Madryn is snorkeling with sea lions:

You put a suit and a mask on and swim like this:

No good photos from the whales watching boat tour. The phone camera was not fast enough to catch those creates when they jump. Just a few seconds of video:

Many other photos with penguins, sea lions and other weird creatures are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/102235300726779983109/PuertoMadrynArgentina

Frozen

A short flight from Mendoza to El Calafate and you get a completely different climate. From California-like +30C, wineries and palm trees around to wind and snow in just a few hours.
Oh, winds in Patagonia... When was the last time you saw horizontal hail?..

Welcome to El Calafate where the main attraction is Perito Moreno - a huge inland glacier.
You can check out Glacier museum and Ice Bar before going to the Glacier itself:

It is fascinating to watch this giant slow stream of ice and wait for a piece to break off with a loud sound. Put spikey shoes on, get on the iceberg and you see that its surface is covered with caverns filled with water which looks bright blue. This is a must-see!

If you have an extra day in El Calafate, you can explore the Birds Reserve with Pink Flamingo and other flying stuff...


 One more short flight...


 - and I'm in Ushuaia, the southmost City on Earth - which is its main selling point. You know, bragging rights and all.

The thing I liked about that place was hiking the Glacier Mountain Trail. It took 2-3 hours one way, there were only a handful of people on the mountain and it was snowing most of the time. Awesome! Walking on the trail you can see a river which eventually hides under snow as you get higher. You can still hear it for a while, but can not see it. Now, this glacier is different from the one in El Calafate. I was wondering when I got to the top - so... where the heck is the glacier? It's called Glacier Trail after all. But no ice there, just snow...
There is Tea House restaurant at the bottom of the trail which looks and feels like a place from Alice Wonderland.

The other thing you can do in Ushuaia is a boat tour where you see sea lions colonies and walk on an island.

Also, don't forget to send postcards from the "End Of The World" post office.

Ushuaia was the most expensive City I visited in South America.
If you are short on time, you can safely skip it without losing much. But Perito Moreno is something to see for sure!

Ushuaia photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/102235300726779983109/UshuaiaArgentina
El Calafate / Perito Moreno photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/102235300726779983109/ElCalafateArgentina

Enough with the cold places, time to start going North again. Next stop is warm and sunny Puerto Madryn.

South America

"Para Espanol, marque nueve." (c) An automated phone menu. 

Learn Spanish before going to South America. At least a little bit. Seriously.
In the last two weeks I only met a few people who spoke some English.

Ecuador.

One of my friends is originally from Ecuador and I was curious to see her home country. I did not know Spanish, but she was going with me so I got to spend a week with her and her family. Without them it would be almost impossible to go anywhere.
We stayed at her house far away from the City center and I was the only weird foreign giant in the neighborhood. :)

There was a big park next to the house. It used to be an airport, but just 3 years ago it was closed and a park was open there, so I had a rare opportunity to walk on the airport runway.

The City center looks like a huge museum with lots of impressive plazas and palaces. The hill with the statue of Virgin lets you see the whole Quito when there is no fog.

Sending a package with souvenirs to the U.S. was about 100 USD. Interesting fact: Ecuador does not have a local currency, they simply use American dollars. This gives a bizarre situation with expensive goods (they all come from somewhere else) and cheap local labor at the same time.

The air quality in Quito is so bad that it is hard to breathe anywhere near roads. Exhaust from cars is black.
Many houses in "good" neighborhoods have electrical fences.
But the nature outside of Quito is awesome. Rivers, mountains, waterfalls...

 

Ecuador photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/102235300726779983109/Ecuador#

Peru.

The main attraction for me was Maccu Picchu. Getting there is a bit challenging and not cheap (everything is oriented towards tourists of course). Food varies from tolerable to bad. Water is not safe. Hotel prices are comparable to the ones in the U.S. But Machu Picchu itself is very impressive, I liked it a lot. Don't forget to bring plenty of water and snacks. Climbing the mountain can be challenging.

There was a big party in one of the small towns I stayed at:

Photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/102235300726779983109/Peru

Lima was okay for a few days. You can take a city tour.
There is a bunch of good restaurants for tourists in the safe area (Miraflores). I liked La Mar (great cebiche and a strong Pisco Sour), Madam Tusan (excellent chaufa) and Edo Sushi Bar (totally amazing slightly seared fish steak. I even wanted to write a separate article just about that steak as I was eating it. I did not want that steak to end...).
There was a cool "cats park" next to my hotel. It is officially called "Parque Kennedy", but I will always remember it as "cats park" because they are just everywhere. Once you sit down, a cat would walk to you, jump on your lap and let you pet it. :)

Reportedly, a good place to shop for souvenirs is Inca Market (nearby), but it was already closed by the time I found it. The "cats park" has enough people selling hand-made stuff though - souvenirs, clothes, purses, etc. Prices are ridiculously low.

Many houses in Miraflores have electrical fences around them. These are the "good", "safe" houses. :)

Security screening at airports is inconsistent. At one airport I was asked to leave or finish my Starbucks coffee when going through the security point. At the same time they ignored the water bottle I had in my backpack. At another airport I was allowed to go through the security checkpoint with both water bottle and coffee in my hand.
At the third airport (this time in Argentina) I decided to have fun and brought two water bottles. Once they see a bottle, you show them that you put it in the trash and then go through (having the other one in the backpack, lol).

You can use Uber in Lima. The wait time is longer than in San Francisco, but acceptable (10-15 minutes, although you often get "no cars available"...). It is still much, much better than using "regular" taxis. Oh, taxis in South America... More on them later.

Very few people speak English in Peru. Even the woman at the international departure check-in counter (Lima airport) didn't... International my ass.
Seriously, learn some Spanish before going to South America!

Note: Scotiabank ATMs dispense USD cash ($100 per transaction) without fees if you have a Bank Of America debit card. If you need to withdraw $800, then you repeat your transaction 8 times. Why would you need so much cash? Ah, it's a wonderful story about the next country -

Argentina.

The first thing people warn you about is that there are two Peso/Dollar rates in Argentina. The official one is about 8 pesos per dollar, while the "black market" one is 13 (https://twitter.com/DolarBlue). All card transactions (including ATMs) operate with the official rate, so you should put your american cards away while you are there. Cash, only cash...
Sell your dollars at any illegal exchange house or even at your hotel and enjoy much cheaper Argentina.
Carrying thousands of dollars in your backpack does not necessarily add fun to your trip given the questionable safety level of Argentina (on average), but... you want to be adventurous, don't you?

As with most unknown cities, you should carefully choose a neighborhood to stay in. Quick googling helps with this. My hotel was in Recoleta, which is very clean and safe. The hotel had hot water every day - yay!

I spent more than 9 hours exploring the City yesterday and I actually like it a lot. If I had to judge by the shops in the neighborhoods I visited, I'd think that all people there drink coffee and eat desserts non-stop. :) I don't remember seeing so many small dessert shops anywhere else.

Some photos: https://picasaweb.google.com/102235300726779983109/BuenosAires

Mobile Internet in Argentina is pretty much free. It is 2.5 pesos (about 20 american cents) per day (15 Mb high speed, then unlimited 64kbit/sec).

Alas, no Uber in Argentina. Taxis are known to bad, be they official or not. Taxi drivers "do not have change", they try to sell pesos to "fresh" foreigners at a ridiculous rate, play tricks with fake money (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha_soNGADMY), the price randomly changes when you arrive at your destination, etc. Watch out. :)

Flew to Mendoza last night, will stay with Mariano for the weekend. Mendoza is like the Napa Valley of Argentina. The City of Mendoza is very pretty and clean. I booked a wineries tour for tomorrow and went on the City Bus Tour today -

 

Tried ordering food at restaurants today. Failed twice. Saw something in the "Ensaladas" section, picked it and it turned out to be some beer snack. Why was it in "ensaladas" section?..
Went to another restaurant later, got a big menu with crepes, picked one and it turned out to be an ice-cream, not a crepe...

"Para Espanol, marque nueve." (c)

How to travel: step by step guide

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

To Dublin!

An Irishman at the airline office in Moscow:

- Give me please two tickets to Dublin.

- Kuda, blin?

- Tuda, blin!

(c) Russian joke. See explanation a the bottom.

Every Russian should visit Dublin at least once, just for the sake of this old Russian "Tuda Blin" joke. Maybe it's the early wake up when I had to be in the airport at 7 AM, but for me the fun started right there: every time a I heard the words "To Dublin" I mumbled "Kuda, blin?". And it does not get old!

Anyway, my new team is located in Dublin so I may find myself spending some time here every now and then.

Dublin (old Irish name - Dubhlinn, which means "black pool") has lots of old stuff, which is pretty exciting for someone who grew up in a city which is only a 100 years old. A 800+ y.o. castle, churches, etc -

Here's the famous Door Of Reconciliation in St. Patrick's Cathedral, where Gerald FitzGerald "chanced his arm" 500 years ago:

(Of course, I put my arm through the door imagining myself to be a knight in dirty damaged armor. You know, as they say - "A knight in shining armor never did nothing for nobody. He never fought. A knight in dirty, dented, and scraped up armor, now, that’s the kind you want.")

But I wanted to see more of Ireland - not just Dublin! Being hesitant to drive on the wrong side of the road, I took a train to the western part of the country to spend a weekend in a small village near Galway. Imagine huge green areas with sheep, cows and big nice houses. This is how I'll remember the west side:

That, plus storms, heavy rains, winds and +7C. Side note: I'm so glad I came to Ireland in January. This will help me appreciate the weather in San Francisco (or anywhere, to be honest!). It's been raining almost non-stop for weeks. I haven't seen sun for more than 15 consecutive minutes here.

Guinness is a really big thing in Ireland. I took a tour of the Guinness Storefront where they show how they make beer - and, of course, let you try it. :)

National Gallery in Dublin turned out to be quite small, but it has one Van Gogh painting, which I really liked:

And several amazing paintings of Jack Yeats - these alone make the Gallery worth visiting. Couldn't take pictures of those, but you can see a slideshow on BCC website.

All other pictures are here.

And here's the explanation for the joke in the epigraph: 

An Irishman at the airline office in Moscow:

- Two tickets to Dublin!
- Kuda, blin? (English: To where, blin?)
- Tuda, blin! (English: To there, blin!)
"Blin" in Russian is a mild swear word, something like "damn it". "To Dublin" sounds just like "Tuda, blin". So it looks like the Irishman asks for "two tickets to there, damn it". What makes this joke funny is that he understands the question in Russian and having been misunderstood in English he replies in Russian too, this time actually saying "to there, damn it!"