There are 466 blog posts for you to enjoy.
My South America Journey
November 26, 2024
My travels are taking me from small town to small town, I'm not interested in tourist destinations, there are bazillions of photos of those online. I go into the small towns, the neighborhoods, the local restaurants, meet the people and talk to them. I explore the parks and plazas, the mercados, though in Argentina there are none, at least in the cities I have explored. I walk around the neighborhoods and see how they live. I think if you go to a city, snap photos of the tourist attractions, then run away to the next city, what was the point of traveling all that way? You learned nothing or next to nothing about the country and the people. Besides, there are bazillions of photos of the tourist attractions on the internet.
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San Luis, Argentina
November 24, 2024
San Luis, Argentina, was founded in 1594. That original establishment was abandoned after some years but the town was reestablished in 1632 with the name San Luis de Loyola Nueva Medina de Río Seco. The city has a population of around 170,000 and about a half-dozen museums. The town church is of the NeoClassical style and was built in the 1880s, as was the Governor's Executive Building, which was built in the French renaissance style. There are some colonial homes still in use throughout the city.
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San Rafael, Argentina
November 23, 2024
San Rafael, Argentina, is not a historically old city, and doesn't have any notable colonial architecture left. But it is a pleasant place to visit for a day. The town has a population of around 100,000. The city streets throughout the center and downtown areas have wide and very wide sidewalks and lots of tree lining both sides of the streets, and that goes on through most of the city. There are some nice parks and plazas and a few parks that need attention.
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Mendoza, Argentina
November 22, 2024
I arrived in Mendoza, Argentina last Sunday afternoon, it was sunny and warm, and felt like an early summer day back in Seattle. As I walked from the bus terminal through the city center to the main plaza and across town to the apartment I rented for a few days, the first thing I noticed was how clean the city is. I mean the amount of litter could probably be counted on my two hands. And that was over a course of some 3-4 kilometers. Also, the city streets, downtown and in the suburbs, are lined on both sides by large mature trees, it's beautiful. This city impresses right from the get-go. The Plaza Independencia is a beautiful park, clean and well-kept, people sitting under the trees all throughout the park. I'm looking forward to spending four or five days here. The one thing that comes to mind that is a negative point for me is the climate. According to the stats it gets rather cold here in the winter. But for now, I'm going to enjoy a few days of very pleasant warmth in a pretty city.
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Santiago, Chile
November 16, 2024
My visit to Santiago de Chile, Chile, got off on a sour note. Why? Because of Booking.com, or possibly more because of the manager/owner of an apartment I rented on Booking.com. Either way, neither of them responded to my support requests. On Booking I got a reservation confirmation, all good, great, I had an apartment for the price of a hotel room. But, the manager/owner never contacted me with the requisite info for obtaining the key(s). I contacted Booking support and they responded with the expected cut-n-paste auto-reply "We'll contact you within 24 hours". Sure they will, I thought. And guess what? They sent me the same auto-reply 24 hours later, by then the apartment reservation time was long gone and I spent the night in a hotel anyway.
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