Day 9, Loco

(Sunday, the 17th of January, 2016)

A super great morning was had by all of us, I had some more cereal with yogurt, it was great. We had a little bit of downtime after breakfast so I decided to finish another one of the mixes that I had floating around. The upload speed here is quite slow though, we are looking at about 5 hours to upload a 64 MB. file. Getting this mix up might be an overnight thing.

After that we went out for some groceries to some local shops and we got a little tour of one of the operations, I got some great photos of the animals. We had a great lunch of egg salad sandwiches and then is was siesta time. I got to talk to my family on the slowest Skype connection ever, which was good, ,it was nice to hear the goings on back home in Canada but after that, we headed of to “Loco” Rico's house for some dinner.

We had a great time at his house, I got to try some authentic prosciutto that he made (which was great) accompanied by lost of beer and little empanaditas which were delicious. We were talking with him about the economic situation here and he asks us if we want to go pick some peaches, I was a bit surprised but I decided to tag along. We headed to this huge lot nearby that had about 100 rows with 20 trees on each row, each tree full of fruit maturing and rotting on the branch. The situation is that the price of fruit is so cheap the producer can only sell a kilo of peaches for about $0.10 so he doesn't hire people to pick the fruit because he'd be taking a loss just by hiring them. So he lets people just go on his property and pick peaches for themselves, we fill up about two cardboard boxes full of them.

We were marveling at the fact that even in the middle of these economic problems around here, no one is capitalizing they just seem to be stuck in the old ways. If fruit is cheap why not make jams, jellies, alcohol something else. Using a still to produce alcohol is completely legal here in Argentina so my uncle is thinking about buying one to make some liquors, he's just surprised that he's the only one trying to to that.

See all my pictures here!

Today's music video is by "Armando Son Jimenez & Orquestra Sabor" performing "Pa' Mi Gente".

Day 8, Alvear

(Saturday, the 16th of January, 2016)

The first morning in Argentina started off on a good foot with a bowl of cornflakes in yogurt (super liquid yogurt, similar to Yop). That breakfast definitely had a different texture than normal cereal. We went to town next for a bit of ice cream, well, I thought it would be a bit. We ended up eating ¼ kilogram each of ice cream for only 3 dollars Canadian each. What a deal.

After returning, me and my grandpa got a tour of the property which is quite extensive and then we had some of that leftover barbecue for lunch. What follows a late lunch is naturally a siesta in a hammock, all in all a great first half of the day. I'm going to see if I can make a siesta a daily thing while I'm here.

After the siesta I got to meet a neighbour that everyone calls “Loco Rico”, and we spent a lazy hour on the patio exchanging jokes and drinking beer. I also got some great suggestions about places I should go when I'm traveling in Argentina.

(Beer & Peanuts with Loco Rico)

We had a beautiful dinner here in General Alvear, the local town, at a fancy resto-bar which had some of the best pasta around. We actually got to eat free that night because my uncle bought an iPhone 5 from Canada for one of the owners, so we had a tab. Phones are quite expensive here so he thought he could get them a hone for cheaper from Canada. There is quite an interesting economic situation going on here, phones are expensive, cars are expensive, gas is expensive but land and fruit is super cheap. The government also seems to be pushing natural gas powered cars (because apparently they found a lot of natural gas around) so every gas station has a few pumps that are marked GNC and I'm pretty sure that is quite cheap compares to gasoline.

With that interesting dinner conversation bouncing around in my head we finished off the night with some more ice cream (I had a milkshake that was delicious) and then hit the sack for a new day.

All of my pictures here!

Today's musical feature is a song titled "Pasado-Presente" performed by "Alex Alvear & Mango Blue".

Day 7, Border

(Friday, the 15th of January, 2016)

I was definitely lying yesterday when I said I got up early, because today, at the dark and gloomy hour of 4:45, we woke up and headed out to a border crossing high in the mountains into Argentina. With a beautiful breakfast of microwaveable hamburgers from a gas station, I was ready to sleep through most of the drive. Although, I do have to say that this crossing was one of the most beautiful I've ever been to, instead of sleeping I spent the better part of two hours taking pictures of the mountains. To get to the crossing you have to climb the side of one of the mountains, (my Gramps drives a Chevrolet Spark by the way) so were riding along in our little car sandwiched between 18 wheelers going through 30 switchbacks and like 6 tunnels to get to the Chilean side of the border crossing. By this point its just a three lane road, one to Argentina, two to Chile, that's how small the border crossing is. We get waved through and continue and on the way to the Argentine side, we see a line of cars 3 km long pretty much parked, people are walking around talking to the other cars, we heard later that the wait to get into Chile if you were at the end of the line was about 8 hours, ouch.

Luckily we didn't have to wait at all on the Argentine side, because we missed the booths on the first pass, yep, they aren't in the middle of the road like a U.S.-Canada border, you have to veer left, through the oncoming lane to some building like 200 meters off to the side of the road. It was quite poorly designed so we just drove on by the first time. We kept going for about 3 minutes, and once we saw no more signs for anything to do with immigration we pulled over at a hotel to ask what was up. Apparently we passed up a few minutes up the road, so we go back spot it and we do an illegal U-turn into the customs area. Canadians have to pay a fee to enter the country, so I'm ready, with Argentine pesos, American dollars whatever they need. Turns out, I was supposed to do it online and pay by credit card, print a receipt and hand it to them. Since I didn't have it, they let me fill out the form online on one of their computers at the back of the building, which was super nice. So with that we were headed off to my uncle's house.

My uncle bought a massive lot 4 hectare lot with five buildings, some pools, two water towers and a radio dish on the lot for about 35'000 USD. It used to be a cannery, but the owner went out of business and the buildings became derelict. The main house is quite beautiful though and my uncle is fixing up the other buildings.

My uncle and his girlfriend had a baby quite recently at this house in Argentina, so even though they are both Canadian the baby boy is Argentinean. We arrived safely and after settled in and met my new baby cousin I went for a nap in one of their hammocks. The recommended that I have a small sleep because we were invited to an Argentinean barbecue dinner later. The thing is it starts late, we left our house at 7:00, the meat started cooking at 8:30 and we finished eating at 11:00. The food was amazing, sadly I forgot my phone and camera, I still snapped a picture of the food on my uncles phone, but I missed a great opportunity. I had a lot of firsts today, first time trying mate (that I can remember), first time trying blood sausage, first time trying something called “sweetbread”, which is the thyroid of a cow. That last one was quite weird in texture, the rest of it though was delicious. We went home and I promptly went into a food coma and slept.

I took a ton of mountain shots, you can see them all here (in the Day 7 folder) along with all of my other shots.

Today's musical feature is another performance by "Pierogi", this time playing "Ma'Land".

Day 6, Exchange

(Thursday, the 14th of January, 2016)

We woke up a bit early and headed to the capital taking a little detour to pick up some stuff in a nearby town, this took us pretty far from the way we usually go to get to Santiago so we took a different highway. This highway ended up being a thin road that threaded up the mountains to cross over and descend the other side, sadly I sat on the wrong side of the car to get good shots of the valley, I took some pictures anyways, tell me what you think. It was quite a fun ride, blind hairpin corners, a little bit of brake squeaking, good fun. I also missed a great shot of some graffiti on some type of concrete stormwater lane down the mountain, maybe another time. But, I did grab a great shot of a graffiti Tupac (I'm pretty sure, just need to get online to confirm) just hanging out on a wall, when I saw it I just started chuckling.

We made it to Santiago and we stopped by the house that has internet, I was told to bring my laptop so that I could check emails and whatnot. I was thinking we'd be there for at least a half an hour, maybe one hour. So I'm settling in, downloading my inbox, turns out we were there solely to check emails, so 5 minutes later we pack up and leave. The thing is, we were taking a bus back later and wouldn't be returning to this house today, so I'm walking around some sketch parts of the city with a laptop, two phones, and all of my Chilean cash on me, because the reason for this trip was to exchange the Chilean currency for Argentinean pesos. Long story short, nothing happened but there were definitely some places where I had to watch my bag. We got everything done and headed back to the farm on a bus, loaded with Argentine money, car insurance and some gifts. When we got home we packed and ready for the next day, because I believe that I'm headed from my uncles house to Buenos Aires and I won't be back for a few weeks. Plans are shaping up though.

On a bit of an unrelated note, I've been finding that the Nexus 5 camera has been doing a great job of taking pictures for me, all of these shots are from the Nexus 5. I did bring a digital camera, but this has just been more convenient and produces at least decent, if not good quality shots.

See all of my photos here!

Today's music video feature is "Pierogi" preforming "Spin".

Day 5, Lull Pt. II

(Wednesday, the 13th of January, 2016)
To be honest, today was just another chill day, which I'm fine with. It affords me a chance to catch up with all of the content that I downloaded and brought with me, I brought something like over 1'000 podcasts, so I have a lot of work to do. It seems like I'm getting a taste of retired living, I wonder if this is how it'll be in 50 years when I retire, somehow. I doubt it, but whatever, that's a long way in the future. I'll leave you with some more assorted pictures from around the farm and elsewhere. If there are any questions or whatnot please email me, you can surprise me when I get into internet zones and I download my inbox!

All my pictures here!

Musical feature of the post is a piece called "Tirandote Flores" by "Ensalada De Pulpo", it features some wicked trombone, which is probably why I like it so much!

Day 4, Lull

Tuesday, the 12th of January, 2016)
Another chill-out day was had by in over here in Chile. We seem to be taking it slow now until Friday, when were heading up to Argentina to see my Uncle. I ended up finishing the first mix, the hip hop instrumental one that I was working on, and I think it plays pretty well. The power went out tonight for about an hour after dinner at 9:30 ish, which was fun. It came back on after an hour for about 10 seconds, you could here a collective cheer throughout the neighbourhood followed by a collective groan, it was quite comical. The power came back for real this time 5 minutes later but that is pretty much all that happened today. I might be able to pound another mix out tomorrow if I'm really feeling it, but we'll see.

(Before)

(After... great lunch)

See all my pictures here!

Today's musical feature is called "Siboney" preformed by "(U)nity".

Day 3, Beach

(Monday, the 11th of January, 2016)
Nothing too noteworthy happened today. We headed out to the a house by the beach that my Grandpa owns, it's about a one hour drive from the farm. My great uncle Ricardo stopped by for lunch, which was great, it was nice to see him again since I saw him last in 2010. He hitched a ride with us to the beach house. He own a house in a small town by the coast, he grows plants and flowers on the lot to sell in a street market in that town. We dropped him off and my Grandpa bought some flowers for his garden, while I took a few pictures. He calls this property his jungle, which is kind of true, there are papayas, lemons, avocados and mandarin oranges growing everywhere along with numerous flowers.

(Ricardo's Property)

We then headed to the beach house for a bit to do some housekeeping, and that was pretty much the entirety of the exciting things that happened today. I do appreciate the down time though, I've be having to organize my digital life a bit, because everyday produces around a page of blog post and around 60 pictures, that is going to add up quickly. And I have to curate as well. Although I have some free time today so I decided to start planning some mixes. I take songs that I like, and put them together into about a 1 hour long track, you wouldn't think it but getting the transitions between songs right can be quite hard. I don't profess to be good (just ask my friends, my first two were quite bad), but they're quite fun to make. I'm planning on making three this time, one for hip hop instrumentals, one for jazz and one for rap. I came prepared, with a fully packed library of songs on my laptop so I'm set! I'm also planning on making the hip hop and the jazz one clean (...enough) to be able to be family friendly, because I haven't really been able to show them off outside of my group of friends. Alright squad, be on the lookout for those, and if you have any suggestions for mix topics I'll take them.

(Beach House)

(Neighbourhood Dogs)

(Obligatory Mountain Shot)

That pretty much covers today, it was quite a bit less overwhelming than the previous two days, but I'm glad that it's settling down as well.

All my pictures here!

Today's musical feature is "'Round the Town Percussion ft. Doug Hinrichs" from the Congahead YouTube channel.