A couple of days in La Pampa

For Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, my family and I (my mom made me write that) went to La Pampa, the grassy plains of Argentina with cowboys and cows and horses, and a ton of mosquitos. We stayed at an estancia, which you already know about from reading my other blog post from Tierra del Fuego. On the first day, we got introduced and then we went swimming in a pool that had not been cleaned out for a while so it had a ton of waterbugs in it, and other bugs like mosquitoes and Japanese beetles. Also, they served us very nice dinners, like freshly-caught fish from the lake right next to the estancia. The lake was one of the causes of the mosquitoes, which there were swarms of.

The next day, in the morning, I did horseback riding. I was having fun walking around and learning the horse commands. But then we went on a path into the forest, and there I started getting super allergic to the horse. I was having trouble breathing, I had hives, and to top it all off, I had mosquito bites. At the end, I ended up having to take two adult benadryl pills (and I didn't even fall asleep).

Then I tried to go fishing from a canoe, but I was completely unsuccessful. I also took another few swims in the pool, which had been cleaned out, so it had a few huge bugs but otherwise it was fine. The meals were of pasta with a really nice pink sauce.

On the long bus home, we could see a few gauchos (Argentine cowboys) and a lot of cows, but mostly grass. Then the bus had to stop to get gas, and we went into the little store to go to the bathroom. I think it was right next to a non-moving pool of water, because covering the walls and inside of the bathrooms were mosquitoes everywhere. I went to the bathroom for one minute, and I came out with 3 mosquito bites, and I killed around 10.

So that is our final vacation in Argentina, that wasn't somewhere in Buenos Aires. We are leaving in 5 days, and my birthday is tomorrow so I am excited. I am turning 11. I am having a party on Saturday, that is half birthday party and half going-away party. So this is probably one of the last posts I will be doing on this blog before I am going back to the United States. I'm sort of sad and super happy about going back to America.

The end of the world

Very recently, my family and I just got back from our vacation to Tierra del Fuego, which means "earth of the fire," but it actually is the closest place to Antarctica. The town we were in is called Ushuaia. From almost anywhere you can see the Andes mountains in the distance, with snow on top, which is very cool. Even though it was summer there, we still needed to put on our coats and our hats, because it was very cold.

The first day that we were there, we rode on a chairlift up the mountain. The name of the mountain is Glaciar Martial. It was very cool to actually see snow for the first time in a while. The rest of the day we walked around the town to see all the cool things in it and also to get used to it.

The second day we were there was a very good day, but also a very bad day. I'll tell you what we did before I tell you the bad thing and the good thing. We had a long and bumpy ride in a little van to a little estancia where we would take a boat to an island. An estancia is like an old farm or ranch that has become a hotel. On the bumpy ride there I was sitting in the back and I had brought my Fishers Cube (which is a Rubik's cube that can change shape) and I was doing it for a long time, mixing it up and solving it. After a while I started getting super carsick. Then I tried to look out the window but it didn't help because it was too late and the ride was so bumpy, and eventually I threw up ten times, which was super disgusting. That, if you haven't already figured it out, was the bad part.

The good part was when we arrived at the estancia and got on the boat toward the island. The reason we wanted to get on the boat to the island is because the island had a ton of penguins, specifically magellanic penguins, with some gentoo mixed in. It was cool because we got to get close and see the penguins in their natural habitat, roaming around or staying in their nests to be with their babies. I noticed that the gentoos' nests were with rocks, and the magellanics' were holes in the ground. It was amazing that we could see so many penguins in their habitats.

The third day in the morning we went to the old prison that got turned into a museum. Before, there had been a prison there because Ushuaia is very cold and it was so separated from the rest of the world. We learned about some of the prisoners and what they did. One example is of a sixteen-year-old who was short and had humongous ears. He set many fires and killed some children, and hurt others. It was cool to see that the prison cells were so small and the uniforms of all the prisoners were blue and yellow stripes. The part that showed us most of what it used to be was the part they hadn't fixed up yet, which was super cold and super smelly and all the paint was peeling off the walls. That gave me a better look at how the prison used to be and how bad it probably was for the prisoners.

That afternoon we went on a boat trip. It was for seeing cormorants and the sea lions, and going on an island to see how the Indians lived there, so close to Antarctica. On the island it was pretty boring for me, because there wasn't much there except for plants. One thing I learned about was a little berry called "manzana del diablo", which means devil's apple. It was one of the things the Indians ate. After, we stayed on the boat to look at the different islands with sea lions and birds.

The fourth day (also the last) we went zip-lining very fast around the mountain I mentioned before. That was very fun, and I had never zip-lined before so it was a new experience. After that we went to the museum that was about the Indians that had inhabited the area of Tierra del Fuego before the Spanish people came and killed them all. The museum was okay, and the coolest and most disgusting thing I learned is that they didn't wear any clothes, even though it was super cold.

Since Iguazu

Since our trip to Iguazu, I have done some fun things with my uncle. I will tell you a few of them.

One of the things that we did was a polo game that we went to. We watched one of the final games in the championship. One team crushed the other. There we saw many people from Europe or the United States, and of course Argentina, that had come to see the game. Some people love polo, and since the polo season already ended in the north, they came to Argentina to watch polo games. As you probably already know, the game is played with a really hard white ball, and there are many people on horses, with mallets, trying to hit the ball between the two goal posts. It was funny.

After that, we went to Recoleta where there is a huge outdoor fair where they sell stuff. We went to the science museum there. After that, we went to a restaurant that we really like called El Sanjuanino.

The day after that, we went to the Casa Rosada (the pink house), which is where the president of Argentina works. It was very nice, but not as big as the White House. We got to go on a tour and we even got to see where she works, because she was not there – instead she was in her house. The president is Cristina Kirchner.

After that, we went to a café that is the oldest café in Buenos Aires. That is a place where many famous writers used to go. The table where we happened to sit down was the table of Federico Garcia Lorca. They had good hot chocolate and churros. The only problem was that the waiter who served us forgot half our order, so we only got half of what we ordered. I was sort of sad because I really wanted to try their cake with ice cream.

I am home from school today because one or two kindergarteners have meningitis, and so they are fumigating the school.

What I’ve been doing in the time that I haven’t been blogging…

First of all, let me tell you that I’m sorry that I haven’t been blogging in a while. I hope this next blog post is long enough to tell you most of what I did. The main thing that I will explain first is that we went to Iguazu, in Misiones province. The way we got there was just like Patagonia, taking a 20-hour bus ride. When we got off the bus, we went to our hotel. Our hotel was very nice. Right near to our hotel there was a banana tree with baby green bananas, soon to turn into big yellow ones, and there also were many, many small lizards, including two that lived in our roof. Another thing we liked to do there was swim in the pool and play ping-pong. It was basically in the jungle there, and it was soooo hot.

The main thing we did there was go to the national park, which we did all the days we were there. The national park also was a jungle. It had many types of birds and animals. At first, the only thing we saw were thousands – and I’m telling the truth, thousands – of butterflies. At first I thought that it would be mostly all butterflies and not so many other animals, but that was not true. The thing we saw after the butterflies that we liked were the coatis. Coatis are related to raccoons and they are animals that people like, but they are also pests that people don’t like. The first one we saw was at the place where you can buy food, trying to steal someone’s food. The second one we saw was right next to one of the humongous waterfalls (which I will explain later), taking food out of the garbage can. His favorite food from the garbage can were the crackers. I took a very good picture of the coati chewing down on a cracker. Later we saw more coatis.

The other cool animals that we saw were the same small lizards that we saw near our house, but there were also VERY big ones. They weren’t the prettiest things ever, but they were very cool. We also saw many birds of different sizes and colors, and a big turtle, and a lot of caterpillars.

The main thing we saw at Iguazu, that wasn’t the animals and plants, what most people came to see are: the amazing waterfalls. There were many waterfalls but our favorite was probably the Devil’s Throat, which is a lot of waterfalls that were in the formation of a throat. It was our favorite because you could get right up next to it on a wooden platform, and you got completely SOAKED by the spray of the waterfall. You could not even see the bottom of the waterfall because there is such a big mist, with birds flying around. We liked it a lot. It is more than two times bigger than Niagara Falls. There were many other waterfalls with different names, including one that was named Adam and another close to it called Eve. There was one that was two waterfalls and it was called Dos Hermanos (Two Brothers).

The next day we went back on the lower trail, seeing if we could see any of the other animals that are in the park, like the jaguars, monkeys, toucans, armadillos, tapirs…but we didn’t see any of those because they come out mostly at night and there aren’t that many of them. But we did see a lot more waterfalls.

We also saw a video about the jungle, and how it is getting smaller and smaller, and how jaguars get killed by people and cars a lot, which makes me sad.

On our last day, when we were going to take a plane home, thanks to me we went to the Wanda precious and semi-precious stone mines. I’m pretty sure you know what it was by the title. It was discovered when someone was washing her clothes in one of the pools, and her finger got cut on a piece of quartz and she brought it to someone and asked how glass got in that pool, and they said it wasn’t glass, it was an amethyst. Then they kept digging and looking for more and they found out that they had found a mine. In the mine, the most common things they have are amethyst and other types of quartz, and agate. That’s another special thing about Iguazu, are the rocks. We got a tour from someone that spoke English pretty well, and she told us about all the stuff from the mine. The way they find out where there are geodes is: first they see a white line, which is from gas that came out of the geode. Then they dynamite along that line. When they see a rock that is a different color from the rest, they start digging. We saw many, many, many geodes half opened. The mine wasn’t so deep because it was a private mine, and not owned by the government. The way it works is that if you find a mine, it can only be 20 meters deep, or else anything deeper than that belongs to the government. They wanted to keep this a private mine so it is 20 meters deep. We liked the mines. When we were walking back, we could just look on the ground and see many pieces of quartz and amethyst and agate. We picked up a few to take home with us. In the gift shop we bought some gifts including some pieces of agate and amethyst, and an amethyst ring. There we learned that if the geode is very big, if you are lucky you will get 15 amethyst crystals good enough to make jewelry out of them.

In the province of Misiones, there are 4 precious and semi-precious stone mines. One of the rocks they don’t have in Misiones though is rhodocrosite, also known as Inca Rose, the national rock of Argentina.

Since then, the only special thing that has happened was my viola concert. I am in an orchestra with violins, violas, and cellos. The concert was at a big theater with many people. I think we did a good job.

It’s Thanksgiving today. It’s not a holiday here, of course, because there were never any Wampanoags here, only Mapuches.

The teachers are going on strike because they want to get more money and they are not getting enough, and the teachers’ strike will last two days, so I’m staying home.

I hope I informed you of what I did! If you have any comments or questions, please post them.

Patagonia

We recently went to Puerto Madryn, in Patagonia. It is very cold there, unlike Buenos Aires. The best thing that we did was to go on a long bus ride to see different parts of it. While we were riding through Peninsula Valdez, on the way we saw many sheep and many guanacos. At the first stop, we saw a beach full of sea lions and elephant seals. Then we went a bit further and what we saw was my favorite thing, which was penguins. Many penguins. The picture above is of one of the penguins. The type of penguin is a Magellanic Penguin. At the next stop we saw a beach with more sea lions and elephant seals, and it had a ton of seaweed on it. Then we had lunch, and after that we went on a whale watch to see Southern Right Whales. Southern Right Whales are really endangered. We went on the boat ride, and at first we didn't really see anything. But then one whale with its mother came right next to the boat. One of the characteristics of the Southern Right Whales is that they are very curious. It was great. The whales were trying to impress us by doing tricks and spraying us with their blowholes. Then we went home.

That was mainly what we did. The hotel where we were staying had a heated pool, which we went to a lot. Also, we found very cool shells on the beach.

We are going to get on a bus to Iguazu tonight. It will take us about as much time to get there as it took us to get to Patagonia: close to 20 hours. The bus has chairs that can bend all the way back or only part of the way back, to make a bed. Iguazu is a place that has a ton of waterfalls. It is right next to Brazil and Paraguay. We are very excited to go there.

Girlfriends

To my friends at Wildwood who read my blog, and everybody else: I took this picture of the rose that I picked for my lovely girlfriend... Which I don't have!!!

To those people who are reading my blog right now, who are saying to themselves "what the heck is Jonah talking about?": I'm talking about the fact that everyone at Wildwood (my school) thinks that I have a girlfriend here. I've gotten about 4 or 5 emails from my friends, saying "do you have a girlfiend?" I have no idea who started this "Jonah has a girlfriend in Argentina" thing, but I'm not too happy about it.

I don't know why, but if you ask almost any other boy in the school here in Buenos Aires, they will say that yes, they do have a girlfriend. Here that's just another thing that people will brag about or tease other people about. Everyone always brags to me that they have a girlfriend, and that it's really weird that I don't.

Here's a funny conversation that I had with my (now not so much of a) friend Ernesto. He came up to me and said, "no quiero ser el novio de Paz ahora," which means, "I don't want to be Paz's boyfriend now." I said, "porque?" which means why. He said, "porque tengo una novia en Alemania," which means "I have a girlfriend in Germany." Then I said, "es simpatica?" which means, "is she nice?" and he thought for a moment. Then he said "hmmm...no tiene personalidad, pero ella es MUY hermosa." That means "she doesn't have a personality, but she is VERY beautiful." I think that's what a lot of people would say about their girlfriends here. Also, none of the girls that people like are that smart. The boys aren't so smart either, so I guess it kind of works out.

This picture of the rose is actually a picture of one of the many roses in the very large rose garden very near to our house. We went there yesterday.

I'm sorry :(

To start off, before my blog post, let me just say to all my fans that I'm sorry I have not been blogging lately. The main reason is because my cousins have been over!! My cousins are from Atlanta, Georgia, and if you didn't know already, their names are Mia, Hannah, and Sam. Their parents are Cindy and Mark. They stayed with us for a week. We have been going to very cool places, like Feria de Mataderos, which is a very big outdoor market in the neighborhood called Mataderos. There are many, many booths with people that do different things, from selling clocks to making mate cups. There was also live music. Our favorite thing there was very cheap crystals and rocks for sale. I got a quartz piece, and an amethyst. Overall, it was very fun seeing everything and buying a lot of stuff.

Their family (not including ours) went to la pampa, to see Argentine cowboys called gauchos. La pampa is the word for grassy plains, a couple of hours away from the city. While they did that, we went to an art museum in Buenos Aires that had paintings by famous people including Monet, Rembrandt, and Picasso.

We also went to Tigre with their family, which is a town in Buenos Aires province. We took a bus, and then a train to get there, and then we got on a boat to ride down the river. We got to see big houses on wooden stilts so that when it flooded, the houses wouldn't get flooded too. I liked it there, but the boat was 100% tourists. The only problem was that the ocean was super littered in Tigre.

The main thing we did, as you can see in the three pictures above that I took, is that we went to...URUGUAY!!! It was very fun there. We went to a pretty old town, on a boat that took an hour from Buenos Aires. The town is called Colonia, and it looks like a colonial town. There are a lot of beaches and a lot of people on the streets selling a lot of rocks, including amethyst, the national rock of Uruguay. We had a very good pasta lunch in Uruguay (that doesn't change), and we walked on the beach and found a whole lot of beach glass. It was fun being in Uruguay. I want to go back there another time, because it is very nice there.

My cousins left tonight (Saturday), and we gave them a big, sad goodbye. Now they are on their way back to Atlanta. I hope this blog post informed you on what I did during the time that I haven't been blogging, and please tell me if you like the pictures that I took. Bye for now!