DAN FROM INDIANA

DAYS: 000 | MILES: 000

// MY NAME IS DANIELAnd after years of dreaming I've sold everything I own and set off on the open road. I've made this site as a sort of photo journal of my travels. The map shows where I've been (red), where I've stayed a month or more (yellow), and where I plan to go (white). And so, armed with little more than a backpack, a camera, and a dream, I now take the road less traveled by. So it goes.

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ARGENTINA

BUENOS AIRES FEDERAL DISTRICT Buenos Aires will always hold a special place in my heart. It was the first destination of my journey, when I was still green and unsure how and if I could actually travel around the globe alone. I stayed here many months, certainly more than I had planned, to study Spanish before embarking deeper into South America. I was sad to finally leave, but the world awaited me and my travels had only just begun. So it goes.

NAVARRO BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE Not far from Buenos Aires are several small, dusty, historic "Gaucho" towns. The Gauchos were the Argentine cowboys. There's really not much here, it's a sleepy town, with a few lazy dogs, a seemingly abandoned old train station, but it's nice to breathe in the culture and history of the land.

SANTA ROSA LA PAMPA PROVINCE From Buenos Aires I traveled to La Pampa, specifically to Santa Rosa, the capital. This was a land of vast grasslands and horse ranches. In fact I stayed on a horse ranch with a local family, an amazing experience. All the photos below are from the farm house and ranch.

SALTA SALTA PROVINCE Salta was founded in 1582 and still retains much of its historic center, which is one of the best preserved in Argentina.

CORDOBA CORDOBA PROVINCE Cordoba is Argentina's second largest city and, like Salta, a bastion of Spanish colonial architecture. I stayed with a local who was renting her spare room to tourist and she graciously threw a welcoming party for me with her friends. Note the round, wooden drinking cup in the last photo. It's a special cup for Mate, a tea-like drink, and one that is ubiquitous in the hands of Argentines. It's drank with a metal straw and passed around socially among friends.

CAPILLA DEL MONTE CORDOBA PROVINCE While staying in Cordoba, I took two days trips. The first was to Capilla Del Monte, which some of my new friends told me was the location of one of Earth's Energy Vortexes, where Ley lines of positive energy meet and pool into a place of special spiritual power (think Stonehenge or Sedona). I'm skeptical of that claim, but it was a charming town none-the-less. Oddly the town is also famous for its constant UFO sightings and claimed alien abductions. Two strange claims for an otherwise dusty cowboy town to have.

VILLA GENERAL BELGRANO CORDOBA PROVINCE My second day trip brought me to Villa General Belgrano, another unexpected and odd town in the middle Argentina. The town had been settled in 1930 by a group of Germans but attracted many more German speakers over the years, including an entire crew of German soldiers shipwrecked off the coast during WW2 who decided not to return to Nazi Germany. They instead settled here and brought with them German architecture, German surnames, and a great deal of German culture.

MENDOZA MENDOZA PROVINCE Mendoza sits on the far western side of the coutry, butting up against the Andes Mountains which form the barrier between Argentina and Chile. It's famous for its wines, and as a starting point for exploring the vast mountain ranges and national parks along the border.

BARILOCHE RIO NEGRO PROVINCE
PATAGONIA Continuing down the spine of the Andes, I came to Bariloche, a historic town located on the banks of a great lake in the northern Patagonian regions of Argentina. Like Villa General Belgrano, German settlers arrived here (though much earlier, in the mid-1800s) and they have heavily influenced the architecture. Today, due to its unspoiled beauty, it's a major tourist destination. I wish I had more time here, though I got some nice photos.

THE ANDES MOUNTAINS A few photos of the Andes, which run 4300 miles (7000km) through seven different countries. I would end up following these mountains several months from Argentina over into Chile, up through Bolivia and Peru, into Ecuador and then Colombia. Only Venzuela did I miss. The photos here are from a flight I took to Chile. Though I generally always try to travel by land, this particular time the passes were closed due to a snow storm. But at least I got some nice shots.

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