Yes, we’re in a new place, but before I tell you where, I’m going to back up to September 2010:

We made it to Bariloche and had a fantastic time there from the end of September through the end of February.  5 months of glorious views, nature hikes and our self-imposed retreat to figure out what our future may hold. We visited the tops of mountains, tiny charming Salones de Té, ate more smoked foods than I ever care to admit and left there with an extra 10 lbs each, despite all the hiking

The house we stayed at for those 5 months was perfect for us and in a great location right off the bus line. We managed without a car, even though we were staying 23 km outside of the city of Bariloche (just a few km from Hotel Llao Llao). Geneva attended a small Waldorf preschool called Mandala, about 12 km from our house. Nestled among the pine trees, Mandala was a fantastic nurturing environment with a mixed-age class.

Fast forward a bit… we were planning our departure from Bariloche and had Córdoba, Argentina on our radar. Córdoba is in the middle of the country and is the second largest city in Argentina after Buenos Aires.  Reviews of Córdoba were mixed. Some seemed to love it, others thought it left a lot to be desired. We wanted to check it out for ourselves because we thought it may just have the big-city feel that we were looking for without the immensity of Buenos Aires.

The question was, how to get there? We had a few options and picked an unlikely combination. They were:

• Bus from Bariloche to Córdoba: Cheap, but 23 hrs +/- with a 3-year-old
• Rent a car and drive directly: Insanely expensive for a one-way-rental in AR
• Fly: Through Buenos Aires to Córdoba. Not too expensive, but we had a lot of baggage, and it’s not very adventurous at all.

Our choice? Drive north through Chile instead, then fly from Santiago to Córdoba (via Montevideo)! We shipped most of our things to arrive in Córdoba ahead of us on Via Bariloche bus service.  Incredibly cheap and worked out perfectly, but I digress…

It took us 11 days for the entire journey, but we had a lot of fun doing it. We had a friend in Bariloche drive us in his SUV through the Andes to Puerto Montt, Chile. We stayed there for a few days, explored the surrounding areas of Choloé and Puerto Varas (even seeing penguins along the way).  And were completely wowed by the Mount-Fuji-esque Osorno volcano. We rented a car in Puerto Montt to head north.  One way rentals are much less expensive in Chile than they are in Argentina.  Think about it, with the geography of Chile, it is almost impossible not to drive north-south, or in our case, the opposite.

After Puerto Montt, we drove north to Pucón and stayed there for 3 days.  I loved the bohemian, backpacker vibe but felt a little unsettled looking up at a smoking volcano all day. We’re midwesterners and total wimps about earthquakes and volcanoes!

Then, a marathon drive from Púcon to Santiago all in one day. About 700 miles of some incredibly gorgeous countryside. Chile had incredible infrastructure and Ruta 5 (aka extension of the Pan-American Highway), which we were traveling is perfectly maintained with some beautiful bridges, tunnels and of course, numerous toll booths along the spectacular landscape. All totaled for the journey in Chile, we spent 27,100 Chilean pesos (about $58.00 USD) on 14 toll booths. That is not counting any between Bariloche and Puerto Montt.

One night in Santiago and we were off to Valparaiso where we spent two nights. After a stressful entry to Valparaiso where Google was telling us our hotel was in one area where it was really about a km away (those narrow, steep, winding roads are not good for a mid-size rental car and people who are not used to said hilly streets) we eventually found where we needed to be.

Impression of Valparaiso: Meh. I was really disappointed because I thought it would be great. If we had to do it again, we’d stay in Viña del Mar and spend a day in nearby Valparaiso. We loved the beaches, energy and playgrounds of Viña (with a 3-year-old, playgrounds are a big deal).

After contemplating if we wanted to extend our time to stay in Vína, we pressed back to Santiago airport to turn in our rental car and catch a very roundabout flight to Córdoba.

After a glorious 24 hours layover in Montevideo with friends, we hopped our final flight to Córdoba and arrived late into our hotel room.

All this time (and for several additional weeks) our dogs were enjoying the paradise of Bariloche. We decided that this travel schedule would be impossible with 2 dogs in tow, so we left them with a wonderful family that watches small dogs.  We knew that the dogs would be happy in a home setting, a family with three young girls and a great property to roam freely- and we wouldn’t have to worry.

Within the first three days in a hotel in Córdoba, we knew this is a place we want to stay for a while. Centro (downtown) is busy, with great shopping, Jesuit churches and historic sites, a tree-lined cannal winding through the city and a huge amount of pedestrian areas.

We found a month-long temporary rental in Nuevo Centro, a small furnished apartment that was in a great spot.

While we liked the apartment and the neighborhood, it was loud with traffic and parties on the weekends (it’s near the universities, so many young people). We knew this all going into this rental, but  thought for a month, it’s not bad. We had the option to renew there indefinitely but the building did not accept dogs and ideally, we wanted more space and a more residential neighborhood.

Next chapter to come about our housing search, schools, health insurance and cost of living in Córdoba……

Our non-stop flights were booked months ago with Pluna but we learned two weeks ago that the Pluna permit was pulled by the Argentine government and Pluna was no longer allowed to fly into Bariloche. Luckily, the airline re-accommodated us on other airlines and we ended up flying Pluna to Buenos Aires and LAN from BA to Bariloche – after a 5 hour layover in Buenos Aires. It was late when we finally arrived in Bariloche and even later after we claimed all of our bags and the dogs, but we made it. Many thanks to our new landlord Jamie, who picked us up from the airport in his truck. We all just barely fit.

The house we are renting is exceeding our expectations and we even had a bottle of wine, a box of handmade Bariloche chocolates and a budín to greet us upon arrival. Fabulous! We are exploring every inch of the space and getting unpacked. The dogs already love having a fenced-in yard for the first time in their lives and the many plants and birds have been a huge source of entertainment already for our daughter.

The most spectacular aspect of the house is not the inside, but the view to the outside. We’d seen photos of this view before we got here, but it is even more breathtaking in person. It looks like a painted set in a play and it’s hard to believe it is real and we can gaze onto this very landscape every day we are here.

I think we’re going to enjoy being in San Carlos de Bariloche. We have a lot to do to set up our (temporary) lives here but we can’t wait to get out and explore.

In turn, I have gotten physically stronger, my practice has advanced in ways that I would have never previously imagined and I have an unquenchable thirst for more yoga knowledge. Not only a physical practice, I am inspired by the yogis I have met and read about. Of course, I have a long way to go on this yoga journey and I am, in fact just a beginner.

Brad also appreciates the time I devote to my yoga practice as I’m much more grounded and centered after I practice and in fact, I feel like I can be a better wife and mother as a result.

Another wonderful addition to the yoga practice is my increased knowledge of Spanish. I have learned Spanish words and phrases that I never would have ordinarily experienced without class. Between that and increased sanscrit knowledge, it is a language lesson as much as a yoga practice!

I look forward to yoga in Bariloche nearly as much as I do day-to-day life there. With the naturally beautiful environment comes and energy and a force that is perfectly paired with yoga.  As I imagine myself living in such a place, I cannot help but integrate my practice into the equation. T-2 weeks and we will be moving out of our house in Montevideo, with our flight out a few days thereafter. You can guess I’ll have my yoga mat in hand.

If anyone wants the contact information for my fabulous current yoga instructor, Cecilia, please email me. The morning studio is very small (with a class max of 4 people) but she also teaches higher capacity evening classes at a nearby gym.

We are ready for a new adventure, most likely temporary but we don’t know. All signs are pointing us toward San Carlos de Bariloche,  Argentina. We plan to be there for the low season of October through December. If you don’t know Bariloche, it is a very different type of place from Montevideo. Located in the mountainous area of northern Patagonia, spring is the low season there with skiing being the main draw in winter and hiking/water sports in the summer.  Since we have never lived in the mountains but would like to, this area really appeals to us.  There are other towns nearby such as San Martín de los Andes and El Bolsón that we plan to explore and the variety of outdoor activities in this mountain/lakes region is incredible.

One challenge with our plan is how to live in a more rural area without a car.  The Bariloche area has a great bus system that runs a loop from downtown to the main roads, with other buses running long distances from Bariloche. While we explored living within the city proper, we were told in no uncertain terms that while the city has all the modern conveniences, the city is not why people come to live in Bariloche. Now we are researching temporary rentals on the main bus loop or within a decent walking distance to the city center.

Our flight is booked for September 25th, our current landlord is notified of our lease termination and we are starting the purging process all over again.  There is no turning back now!

Our list of things to sell will be coming shortly. It is amazing how much you can acquire even when you live in a furnished  rental and never really purchased much.  Alas, we have plenty of housewares, toys, clothes, books and cloth diaper supplies that we will be selling.  The plan is to come back to Montevideo during/after high season 2011 but we don’t want to store all our extra stuff, so away it goes.

Wish us luck!  This extended vacation will hopefully be just the thing we’re looking for.  New things to learn and explore within a beautiful, restorative environment.  You can’t forget the great German architecture, handmade chocolates and artisan beers produced in the Bariloche region!  Sounds like my kind of place!!

I do need to clarify, the trees aren’t entirely gone, but so aggressively pruned as to leave no foliage at all, just the main trunk and several of the larger secondary trunks to grow back. These once beautiful tree-lined streets that provided the much needed shade as I walked, are now bare and cold.

I knew that the trees here in UY grow very quickly due to year-round growth and therefore while large, are somewhat weak.  Upon further inspection, these trees have seen this type of pruning before and will most likely again. Their somewhat scraggly main trunks are met with markedly newer growth just slightly above.

Photos by Sarah Piñeyro

One nice advantage to this tree trimming (if you’re looking for a silver-lining) is that you can see the houses more clearly and all the gorgeous traditional detail that they hold. If you’re in an apartment, you may now have a view where you never did before, just beware of who may be able to see you

My one question: How long until the trees grow back? I will miss the beautiful shaded canopy they provided!

You can read the whole article here.  A big thank you to Make It And Mend It for the fabulous site with so many amazing articles and resources. You can also follow them on their Facebook page for all the latest updates.

I knew it would be on it’s way, but not quite so soon. Last year this time was still warm and mild, a late summer after we’d first arrived here.  It was glorious.

Today, after two full days of rain, the winds really picked up.  I do love the leaves blowing about and the amazing pink-flowering trees that have been all aglow in blossoms.  I’ve intended to get photos- but alas, the high winds today have probably stolen my opportunity.  Much the same thing happened with some glorious purple-flowering trees last spring. We shall see them again, I am sure.

I really look forward to this winter with roaring fires in our fireplace (note to self: order more firewood), knitting in earnest again, crisp sunny days when I walk G to the jardín, and a plethora of warm beverages. After a year here, I am finally ready to take up the habit of drinking mate.  It makes complete sense to me now. Cool, damp, blustery days were made for mate.  Just to refresh your memories: Mate is the drink typical of Uruguay and Argentina that is served in a hollowed out gourd and carried with a thermos of hot water, ready for the refill.  It is a perfect way to maintain a toasty drink at the ready all day long and with minimal effort.  I’ve got a feeling that my winter will be much more comfortable!

Looking back on it, I am so thankful for our amazing getaway on one of the last perfect beach weekends this summer. Yes, I know, I still have two more parts to write about that saga, but hey, now that it’s cold, I’ll definitely spend more time indoors writing.  There’s just so much LIVING to do, it’s hard for me to sit and journal everything.

It all boils down to this: Another season, another change, another side of Montevideo.  We learned from last year.  We’ll do a few things differently this fall and winter.  Just try to avoid falling branches in this wind…

What a year!! We’ve had the opportunity to explore so many corners of this great city.  We’ve learned more Spanish and met lots of wonderful people- both Uruguayos and extranjeros.  As many Uruguayos don’t seem to understand, we like it here.  We have chosen to come here.  It was not a mandated move due to work or education, we chose Uruguay as our home and we really love this little country.

We’ve grown as a family over this past year and while we don’t have a baby on our hands anymore, she has grown into a very capable toddler. We still adore Jardín Caminito, our daycare, and how loving and supportive they have been for us.

The lease in our current house has been extended for another few months (was set to expire on April 20th).  So it is another winter in our cute but drafty home!  This time we won’t be so thrifty (jaja!) and we’ll be using our grocery store loyalty points to get a space heater.  This is a supplement the fireplace and bedroom electric units.

Come spring, who knows what we will do.  It’ll be a perfect time to travel a bit without the expense of an empty house. Maybe an extended stay travel with 3-6 months somewhere?  Maybe Bariloche, Argentina?  The world is our oyster and we are going to treasure every moment here!!

Artwork by Uruguayo Joaquin Torres-Garcia; Upside Down Map (1943).  Uruguay is located at the coordinates, near the top line.

On Friday evening, we rented a car from Thrifty.  When considering the name, ironically, it was the most expensive portion of our road trip.  Vital, though, as you can’t really have a road trip without a car.  It was a Hundai Sonata-type which was new, but without some of the features that I would consider standard- like airbags. Eeeek!  It did have a great Pioneer stereo system, though…

We took off early on Saturday morning. Our daughter was thrilled to get the chance to sit in her car seat, so luckily we had a very eager traveler (She doesn’t get much of a chance to ride in her car seat here in UY since we have no car.)  After a quick stop at Montevideo Shopping’s McDonalds to get coffee and medialunas, we were on the open road

Without a set plan, but a few key places we wanted to see, we drove east along la Rambla to find where it would take us. Saturday was a beautiful, sunny morning and we felt a great sense of adventure for what was our first tip into rural Uruguay since August.

La Rambla turned into Route 1, which brought us to Atlántida and we couldn’t pass it by without at least driving though. What a sweet little beach town, and only about 30 minutes from Montevideo! It was obvious to me why this relaxed but upper-end town is a popular vacation spot for both Montevideo-ans as well as Argentines.  It was well groomed, cute houses and hotels, a nice mix of city and beach amenities and beautiful sandy beaches with rolling dunes.

We continued to drive for as long as we could along the coast while dodging dunes that had blown into the road.  It was becoming more rural as we drove and a we had a fantastic peek into these beach towns at the very end of summer, while the weather was still warm, but the crowds had already gone back home.

The road eventually brought us back to Highway 9, just outside or Pan de Azucar. We’d been to nearby Piriápolis twice, so we decided to stay on 9 and keep driving past Piriápolis.

Next on our list of things to do was a visit to a very under-appreciated beach with a unique claim to fame in UY, called Playa Chihuahua.  More on that in a later post.

Since we were on the road to Punta del Este, and we were craving Thai food, we drove into town to see what we could find. Our wireless modem was giving us a few options for food, so we drove but unfortunately found nothing. Punta was still surprisingly busy and was slow driving through the main shopping streets. I can’t imagine what it is like in January!

Back to the ocean drive, this time on Route 10 to La Barra.  I thought la Barra was a very cute little town, with a bit of the glitz and glamour of the upscale shops of Punta, with a beachy, small town feel.  It reminded me a lot of Santa Barbara and Montecito, CA.

Still driving and getting increasingly more hungry, we decided to stop for a late lunch in Jose Ignacio.  This was a very beach oriented city with very few restaurants or services.  A beautiful setting, as the whole town in on a hill away from the coast, it felt like the type of place you went to escape and be at the beach… with very few interruptions. But Jose Ignacio still had some inklings of Punta del Este, and not nearly as bohemian as day 2 of our adventures.

We found a good-sized restaurant that was open at 3 in the afternoon and had a great combination of a Waldorf Salad (Brad) an Chicken sandwich (me) and milk/random condiments for our two-year-old.  Being very much a toddler, she decided that she didn’t want what we ordered for her so she ate the ketchup and mayonnaise.  The kid likes condiments.

On the road again with full bellies and somewhat happy to be leaving the beaten path a bit, we drove on.  We detoured into Rocha and after an initially poor view of the cemetery coming into town, we found a few cute tree-lined squares, beautiful cobble stone streets and some charming traditional Spanish-colonial architecture. We decided to press on and spend the night in la Paloma.

We stayed at a nearly empty hotel in La Paloma called Hotel Trocadero.  The hotel was nothing special but comfortable, two blocks from the beach and for UY$900/night, including breakfast, we couldn’t complain.  La Paloma is on a peninsula, so it’s very easy to find beach there.  Also due to its location, it has some AMAZING sunsets over the water. We just can’t get that in Montevideo, at least not on our side of the city where the sun slips behind the buildings and you can never see it hit water.

After getting ice cream, and before dinner, we walked down Av. N. Solari, which is the main road in La Paloma, directly to the rocky beach to see the sun go down.  There were others gathered, standing, in lawn chairs and even in their cars on the hills. We found a place to sit on a rock outcropping facing directly west with an excellent assortment of shells at our feet.  The sunset was an incredible display of red and orange and was worthy of applause by our fellow viewers when it finally slipped below the horizon.

The sunset was definitely the high point of our visit to La Paloma. After a disappointing seafood dinner and some window shopping (“What? That skirt is UY$ 2200??”), we returned to the modest hotel to get some sleep.

The next morning, we ate a beautiful, albeit bready, breakfast at the hotel, took a quick walk on Bahia Chica, the beach on the eastern side of the peninsula and packed the car for another day of adventure….

More to follow about day 2 in Cabo Polonio and Punta Del Diablo, along with our day 1 adventure at Playa Chihuahua.

Since we don’t have a car, we walk a minimum of 5 miles per day and about half of that with the stroller.  Our small umbrella stroller, which we loved, broke just before we left for the USA in December, so we brought another one here that we had in storage. Unfortunately with our daughter at the upper weight limit of this new stroller stroller, it is impossible to navigate these treacherous sidewalks and our daily travels are a pain, not to mention increasingly dangerous as the wheels like to get stuck.  Thankfully, we’ve found a great alternative and we’ve picked up a Mountain Buggy Urban Stroller holds kids up to 70 lbs (I will need serious help if I am trying to push a kid that big, bit it’s great for our 33 pound/15 kg 2 year old!). I am so excited!

One thing that we planned for perfectly is a car seat (~that unfortunately doesn’t get much use here). When our daughter grew out of her sweet little baby seat at 9 months, we graduated directly to the Sunshine Kids Radian80 Convertible Car Seat which is FAA approved for airline use, the only foldable car seat, and the only one with a steel (rather than plastic) frame. This amazing seat fits kids up to 80 lbs.  No need for a larger seat or a booster, which new studies are finding are not much help in a crash anyway.

Yes, we bring this car seat through airports and on the plane with us. It’s heavy, but it makes for a well-behaved kid in her own, familiar seat.  When not in use, we fold it and store it in a suitcase.  Can’t do that with any other car seat!

Surprising as it may seem, the Radian 80 also fit rear-facing into the back seat of our Mini Cooper when we were living in the USA.  I wasn’t sure that the combination of a tall car seat and a small car would work, but it did and at 5′-10″ tall,  I could still squeeze into the front passenger seat.

We learned our lesson with the stroller.  Montevideo sidewalks are a beast to navigate and very hard on strollers. Our first stroller had a good run of 9 hard months here.  Kids equipment to purchase new in Montevideo is expensive and many times not the best quality. Plan ahead and purchase in advance (before you get to MVD) when looking for the big items necessary to travel with babies, toddlers and even older kids.