Arriving in Mendoza

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44373818@N08/

After 6 days in Pucon, Chile.... waiting for the volcano to re-open for summiting I finally gave up and bought my bus tickets to get to Mendoza, Argentina via Santiago. Wouldn’t you know, the day after I bought my tickets they announced it was going to re-open. In reality it was a ``might` re-open in a couple of days so I decided to stick with my original plan and head out. I splurged for the plush premium seats for my overnight trip to Santiago and was happy to find that the two girls across the isle from me were from Australia and they had come armed with a couple bottles of wine they wanted to polish off before flying back home from Santiago. Needless to say, I was happy to assist them with the mission. They had been travelling for a few weeks so we spent a couple hours sharing stories of adventure and drinking, then slowly we started to fade and the bus attendant came in to convert our seats into beds. The seat folds down completely flat and had an eye mask, earplugs, a fresh pair of socks, blanket and pillow. After we were all tucked in it was lights out. I woke up around 6am, just shy of our arrival in Santiago.... wish they had this kind of bus transport in the states.

I decided to kill a day in Santiago to break up the bus trip and give myself some time to try and find a few things in the larger city. I was out of face wash and knew this was the place to try and find it. Now mind you, all I wanted was some cetaphil (allergy free) face wash which you can buy in any grocery/drug store in America for about $6. After searching 4 pharmacies I finally found some, exactly what I wanted but I about choked on my gum when she rang it up and told me the price. At first I thought I mis-heard (common problem for me with Chilean spanish) so I asked for her to repeat the price. They wanted 13,000 (about $26 bucks) for the stuff. Naturally, I bought it anyway. I was tired of my face breaking out from using some other stuff so I decided to splurge for the day. No wonder my budget has been blown to hell. While I was at it, if I was going to spend some money then I knew exactly where I wanted to go for dinner. I went back to the same restaurant, Brown Cat, Morgan and I had been to for the best meal I’ve found anywhere in Chile, rabbit with a bacon cream sauce! HEAVEN. I cought the movie Surrogates and called it a night.

The following day I finished my bus trip, another 7 hours to Mendoza, Argentina. The border crossing went faster than the last few had so all was well. The streets in Mendoza are lined with big trees and there are several parks so it doesn’t look like the desert but as soon as you step off the bus, there is no mistake. It was about 5pm and well over 95 degrees, holly crap. The hostel I booked online stated it had AC and a swimming pool so I grabbed a cab with a British girl and we headed toward the hostel. Of course, the AC is only available in a private double room (bastards) which is only $180 pesos ($45) a night. As for the swimming pool, its about 4 feet wide and about 8 feet long, even so I have a feeling I’ll be in it before long to cool off. The fan was a bit noisy in the room and the British girl didn’t like to sleep with earplugs so she turned it down to stop the noise. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep very well. The hostel manager said he was moving folks to different rooms so maybe tonight will be better, if not, I may be splurging for a private room for the third night. AC here I come, those of you who know me can appreciate how much I´m melting right now. I haven´t hit the cranky stage yet but its coming, I'll be missing Seattle weather by day three or four.

Well, I’m off to explore the city, will post photos of Mendoza with my next update.

More fun in Pucon, Chile

Well, I´m on my 5th day in Pucon and still finding new places to explore and things to do. After our day of kayaking, we rented mountain bikes and headed off for a popular loop toward some waterfalls and the lake. Unfortunately we got a late start and didn´t have time to make it to the lake but we hit a few mild trails and some back roads until we came upon the waterfalls. It felt good to be out in the fresh air and getting some exercise. On the way out of the waterfalls Morgan spotted a sign that we thought might be apple butter for sale so we stopped to see. I sat out on my bike and waited while Morgan looked through the options, there wasn´t any apple butter but he did come back with some quince jam. We headed back to town on the main road which was about 20km, it wouldn´t have been so bad if there was more of a sholder to use to get away from the traffic. Regardless we made it in about an hour and managed to return our bikes just after the 8pm cutoff.

The following day we decided to rent a car and get out to explore some of the things that were harder to get to. It was a tiny base of the line chevy that didn´t have a ton of clearance or sound very good but it ran and the rental agency assured me we´d be ok with our driving plan, he commented we didn´t need 4x4 for what we were heading out to do. First we headed to the volcano caves, well one particular cave. Once you got close to the cave the dirt road turned into something my subaru would have handled with ease but the little chevy wasn´t doing as well. I managed to avoid the worst of it but did hit a rock, after that... the car sounded like parts might start to vibrate off and leave a trail behind us. When we parked and I cut the engine, I was sure the engine was going to vibrate out of the hood, it sounded just awful. All I could see was $$ signs as I thought about returning the car the following day. Anyways, we walked around a bit on Volcan Villarrica while we waited for our tour to start. The cave was a bit of a rip off, not sure I would recommend it but it was cool to walk through the old lava tunnels and see the landscape inside. At the end of the cave the guide had us all stand around in a circle and then he turned off the light for the far end of the tunnel where we stood. Talk about pitch black! I couldn´t see my hand infront of my face and suddenly realized it would be nearly impossible to make it out without a light even if we were crawling on all fours. Spooky.

We went back to town and I did some grocery shopping while Morgan went for another kayak run. At this point, the car seemed to be getting worse, I felt like everyone looked at me everytime I cut the engine, at least they are used to seeing junkers here. Afterwards Morgan got back from playing in the water we met for dinner and then headed out to some of the local hot springs, Los Pozones. On the way we saw a guy and his young son walking on a long dark road, they were trying to hitch a ride so we picked them up. Maybe that will improve my luck the next time I´m trying to hitch. The hot springs were nice, my body enjoyed it tremendously. I was so tired on the drive back it was hard to stay awake, I slept like a baby that night.

The following day we returned the car, and right off the bat I mentioned that it was vibrating badly and that it didn´t sound good. The woman behind the counter said she knew and that it was a problem. At that point I didn´t feel the need to disclose my rock incident, my conscience was clean. She refunded my deposit and I escaped quickly.

We decided to spend the rest of that day on a canopy tour of the trees. We had heard that Bosque Adventura was the best around, there are 11 different zip lines and they cross the river twice so that is the company we went with. The equipment was top of the line and seemed very secure so after a bried demo on safety we were off. As we all started to move toward the entrance the guide pointed to me and said lets go. Not sure how I got choosen to be first but I decided it might be better to just swallow my fear and go for it. Honestly the zip lines were great, the part that scared me the most was the platforms and ladders. Its a bit difficult to climb a ladder when you have big bulky gloves on but I managed without killing myself. All in all it was the most fun I´ve had in a long time. I kept thinking of the story my dad told Ellerie and I when we were little girls, he teased us that we had monkey tails when we were born and he had them cut off in the hospital. When we´d run to mom to ask if it was true she would tell us no but then dad would say Ï had to have them cut off before your mom saw you¨. It was an ongoing joke that I always think of when I see a monkey, it brings me fond memories. Swinging through the trees like a monkey brought back those memories.

The following day Morgan had to return to Santiago to catch a flight to Lima so I had planned to lay on the beach and soak up some sun. There is usually a lot of morning clouds so I was lazy and waited till about noon to see if it was going to burn off. It didn´t seem like the sun was gonna come out to play so I rented a bike again and headed up to Lago Caburga. It´s about 25 kilometers outside of town, a nice ride to do when it´s cool and the sun isn´t beating on you. I hung out at the beach for a bit and ate some lunch then headed back to town. Not a bad day.

I´m down to my last couple of days in town and the sun is out in full force so I´m getting in a little beach time before heading to Mendoza, Argentina via Santiago. I can´t get a straight bus to Mendoza so I´ll stay in Santiago for a day to break up the bus trip and then head to wine country. I need to enjoy the mild temperatures, Mendoza weather looks like its well into the 90s. I hope I don´t melt!

Pucon, Chile

We welcomed the new year in from Puerto Varas, Chile. Its a small town with a large lake flanked by 2 volcanoes. The weather sucked so we mostly stayed around town. For new years eve day we went to a local bar and had the most expensive mexican food I´ve ever had, they did however give me the largest White Russion I´ve ever had. The ´Dude´would be proud. After spending a few days in Puerto Varas hiding out waiting for the rain to stop we finally had one sunny day. We decided to head out to Volcan Osorno to hike around on the volcano. By the time we got off the local bus it was about 11am and the sun was blazing hot. We walked around and viewed some waterfalls and met a couple of guys from West Virginia who work for a kayak school where kids travel around the world with tutors and kayak instructors. Sounds like one of the coolest jobs I´ve ever heard about. Not to mention one hell of a school year, how many high school kids can say they´ve played in Patagonia white water. We had heard and read that Pucon was an outdoor mecca in Chile and these guys said they were stationed out of there.... long story short after a day on the volcano we packed up and left Puerto Varas for Pucon.

We arrived in Pucon on January 3rd in the late afternoon. No more than 5 minutes after getting off the bus I was meeting a guy from Whidbey Island, WA. The world is a small place! We wondered around looking for our first adventure and found a spot called Kayak Pucon. They seemed like a really cool group, very friendly and had some American´s working for them so I knew language wouldn´t be an issue. We decided to take it. They did a class 3 run down a river not many other local outfitters could do because it was only accessible by private property along the river. We showed up at 10am on the 4th to join a group of 7 for kayaks and 5 for a raft. Once we hit the launch site we started putting on our wetsuits and gear (fleece, dryshirt, life vest, booties and helmets). Six of us were in inflatable kayaks which are far more stable but a bitch to steer. Morgan went in a ¨real kayak¨ considering he has some white water experience. It was pretty calm when we first put in but when I saw a girl flip out of her boat on the second set of rapids I decided it was highly likely I was gonna go for a swim. Sure enough, by the 3rd set I was bombarded by waves from all directions and wasn´t sure which way to lean, next thing I knew I had a mouth full of water and was trying to remember to pull my legs up so I didn´t hit any rocks. On the fourth set of rapids I was feeling pretty good, I was still nervous considering I´d already been for a swim but went for it. At one point I popped up out of my boat with the exception of one foot and somehow managed to land back in the boat. It was great until I realized I had many more rapids to navigate and my oar was in my right hand and under my kayak. I had to lean back to pull it out, managing to stay in my boat as I did it but I hit a rapid that spun me so now I´m backwards and heading for more fun but at least my oar was in my hands. I spun as quickly as I could, which is pathetic in those boats and made it through the rest of that set without any additional swimming. The next set of rapids were going great until I realize I was heading for a big, huge rock! I was to the left of the rock but if I cut over I´d be on top of the kayak next to me and flip both of us so I tried as hard as I could to go to the right of the rock, needless to say I ended up straight on it, the front of the kayak went up and over and for a split second I thought I might make it off the side but then the kayak stopped and the water took me over from behind. Once again, I was swimming and wasn't sure which way was up. I felt my head hit something so I was relieved to be wearing a helmet but still managed to swallow a small lake. It sounds worse than it was and within seconds of each fall one of the guides would be right there flipping the boat so I could jump back in. All in all it was a lot of fun but I think I might have been more stressed than happy until it was all over.

El Bolson

After leaving Bariloche, we headed to El Bolson which is a smaill town just south of Bariloche. It is much more quiet (minus the barking dogs and birds that want to be roosters) and surounded by mountains and streams. We had some amazing hikes and views, photos are posted on flickr, but the days are all beginning to blur together. I´ve given up trying to figure out what day of the week it is, the date will just have to do for now. We did one hike on Christmas eve that so far has been my favorite but I did manage to get a couple of battle wounds. If you´ve read Morgans blog you´ll note that he mentions I was trying to cut a new trail with my eyeball. In fact, the overgrowth of bamboo required us to hike mostly bent over, climbing under trees and over brush, fallen trees and rocks. There was one point where I was climbing up, bent over mind you, and when I stood I ran smack dab into a broken tree limb with my eye. Thankfully, I shut my eye just in time and only scrapped my eye lid and got a small cut between my eyes. At some other point I must have scrapped my knee, needless to say it was a bad day to choose to wear shorts for hiking. The sticker bushes were vile, but again if we had stayed on the trail and avoided trying to cut a new one up the side of a cliff things might have played out differently. Something tells me Morgan won´t believe me the next time I tell him "the trail seems to end here, we must need to go that way" (pointing up). The hike gave me fond memories of being a kid exploring in the woods. Its not often you find a fun trail that hasn´t been blazed wide open by frequent travelers. When we asked the guy at the refugio if there was a trail back to the town without retracing our steps he said many try and come back, that was our first clue that it would be fun. Glad we did it. When we got back, we got cleaned up and joined the rest of the hostel folks for a wonderful dinner hosted by the family that runs the hostel. By midnight I was having trouble keeping my eyes open and called it a night.

Christmas day was rainy and crappy so we mostly read and napped the day away. We had treated ourselves to massages the day before as our gifts so it was a lazy holiday. Thankfully we were in a cabin that was cozy and had a kitchen so it was a very comfortable stay, too bad the beds were as hard as a slab of wood. After a few days in El Bolson we were on our way back to Chile. We cruised by bus back to Bariloche and then to Puerto Montt, Chile to start our next stay.

To Chile

Last week we made our way from Arequipa, Peru to the border of Peru/Chile by bus to a small town called Tacna. Once we arrived we began inquiring about tranportation options across the border to the northern most city - Arica, Chile. Before we could get our wits about us we were ushered from one window to the next and into a taxi (something like an old Buick Century) with 4 others and started our drive across the border. The taxi driver didn´t speak a lick of english but showed us through the maze of border crossing formalities and on we went. Less than two hours later we were in Chile and checking into a hotel. We didn´t see much of the town but hit a spot around the corner for dinner and called it a night. The next day we started to see that it was a neat beach town but found a cheap plane ticket out that very day and decided to go with it. By 8pm we were in Santiago, Chile.

Santiago is the first city where I´ve felt like we could have all the modern conviences we are used to. Especially a real cup of coffe, I´m getting really tired of instant coffee and was immediately drawn to a cafe where they had an expresso machine. We stayed in a nice hotel for the first couple of nights near a park but quickly realized that we were breaking the piggy bank and moved into a hostel in the Bellevista neighborhood about 10 blocks away for the rest of our stay. The hostel La Chimba had a great atmosphere and lots of Austrailian and British folks moving through plus a kitchen for us to use. We made several meals in the hostel, meals that consisted of vegetables and more vegetables! After a few days here we were able to get some advice on places to go, things to see and I found a couple of girls traveling solo to possibly meet up with in the future after Morgan goes back to the states. It was a great spot full of energy, friendly guests and employees but a bit young..... with all the late night activity I started to feel a bit old. We spent days wondering the city and not doing a whole lot of anything in particular, the biggest park (Parque Metropoliton) was closed on Sunday for elections so we put it off and never made it back. I did manage to catch the newest movie in the Twlight series and Morgan went to see an action flick, so far that it the only thing we´ve paid to see in the city which helped offset the cost of our hotel stay. The sun and heat tends to hit like a freight train from 11am - 5pm so hopefully the coast will bring some relief.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44373818@N08/

Bariloche, Argentina

The bus trip here was very long, even longer after spending the day at the beach in Vina del Mar and getting a little sunburn. Nothing like jumping on a 19 hour bus trip without showering off the sand and sunscreen for 24 hours, needless to say we were very eager for showers once we arrived in Bariloche. For the first time we landed a bus with a full cama service which means our seats converted to an almost flat surface for sleeping with pillows and blankets aplenty. I would have slept great if it weren´t for some strange beeping every 3 minutes. Thank god for earplugs. Once we crossed the border it became very apparent we were in a different area of the Andes. Everywhere I looked there appeared to be lush green valleys and alpine lakes. This place is absolutely beautiful, might need to come back here to stay for a bit after the holidays.

We showered up and went out for dinner, hit the grocery store to get some goodies for fixing our own breakfast and lunch the next day and hit the sack. Day 2 in Bariloche was a hike up onto a couple of lookouts by the lake.

After getting a view of our next adventure, a bike ride around the lakes we headed down the road to find a bike rental. We started off going the opposite way of most others and I have to say it was one of the most beautiful rides I´ve ever taken. Some challenging hills on a crappy mountain bike but the view was worth all the effort and shifting problems. We rode for about 5 hours by the time we finished the loop and headed back to town for dinner. It was a wonderful and exhausting day.

The following morning, at this point I can´t remember what day of the week it is so I´m just gonna give up... we went to the lake to do some kayaking. Morgan got some good photos on his camera so I´ll have to get them to post. We were only on the lake for a couple of hours and it was rather windy so we stayed close to the coast line but it was great. I highly recommend the kayak company in Bariloche called Cuadrante Sur, Chris and Pablo were our guides and they only allow small groups. It was Morgan and I in a double kayak and another couple also in a double. The guides paddled with us and chatted the whole time, a stark contrast to other guides we´ve had who didn´t make any effort to get to know their customers. These guys are great!

Today is our last day in Bariloche, tomorrow we are headed a few hours south to a small town called El Bolson to stay for x-mas. If it´s anything like Bariloche I think I´ll be in heaven. This is a place I could live.

Salkantay Glacier Trek To Machu Picchu

After looking around at options we landed a 5 day trip to MP via the Salkantay glacier pass. The trip was 4 days of hiking and the final day was spent in MP with a train ride home that night.

Day 1: We climbed to the 1st camp and had to cross many streams that had broken their banks due to the start of the rainy season. It was entertaining to try and make it across without getting soaked and we typically spent 5-10 minutes attempting to make a jumping point somewhere in the middle. After tossing several large rocks into the middle, most everyone made it without getting wet but a few weren´t so lucky. We had a 11 english speaking folks and a second group of 4 from Portugal and 2 Americans. The first day was incredibly hot and rainy which made for a steamy climb. We had some shelter at the first camp so the tents stayed dry but the area was incredibly muddy and messy. As soon as the tents were up I went to change into some dry clothes, no more than 5 minutes had passed before a little cat found its way into my tent, it must have known I´d be a sucker. It quickly decided to warm itself up on my lap and was content to stay as long as possible. In all it was somewhere between 8-9 hours of hiking for day 1.

By dinner it became clear that one of the gals from Portugal wasn´t doing well, she borrowed my inhaler and had taken some altitude meds but still wasn´t going to make it. That part of the group decided to turn back the following morning instead of going the rest of the way up the glacier the following day. The remaining two Americans joined our goup for the remainder of the trip. Now we were 13.

Day 2: The morning started out beautiful, it was quite cold so when the cook woke us with an offer of coca tea, I didn´t hesitate to indulge. We found an alpine lake on the way up to the summit where we sat for a break to soak up the sun and rest. A boy from England and a girl from Wales decided to get crazy and went for a swim in the freezing lake. After we were rested up we started heading the rest of the way to the top. It wasn´t as hard as I had anticipated. After we all gathered at the top for some photos, we started our trek down toward the jungle, it wasn´t long before the rain started and within an hour I was soaked from head to toe. Even my gortex jacket seemed to fail me. After 6 hours of hiking we were cold, miserable and tired. To top things off we learned that the trail was cut off due to a landslide from all the rain so we had to stop short of the original camp site for the night. We stopped in a very small pueblo village and camped on a family´s lawn for the night, I don´t think any one in the group stayed up past 8:30pm. We had hiked for about 10 hours in all on day 2.

Day 3: In the morning we awoke at 5am, as in the past we were stirred from our slumbers by the cook with an offer of hot tea in bed. The third day turned out to be more strenous than originally planned. We found a ¨short cut¨that the locals use which would take us up and over the mountain we had planned to walk around. It was a relatively steep climb through an amazing amount of mud, there wasn´t anyway to avoid it and everyone was covered from our knees down by the time we reached the top. Fortunately there were no falls but some close calls made for good entertainment on the way up. Thank god it wasn´t raining! It was actually pretty fun to scramble up. We took a breather at the top and I made a feable attempt to remove the mud from my boots and pants (at least my new boots aren´t so clean and shiny now). We made it down the other side of the mountain and in total hiked about 7 hours. Starving and exhausted we climbed into a van and headed into Santa Teresa to our campsite. We had lunch, relaxed and then headed to some local hotsprings to soak our tired bodies. They were amazing, by far the most beautiful hot springs I´ve ever seen.... a garden oasis after 3 days of wet, cold mountains, hot jungle, and did I mention wet weather. We returned to camp after a few hours to find a new resident had moved in, we´ll call him George. George, a small monkey, was right at home playing with us and a couple of cats which again, found my warm lap as good a place as any to curl up for a nap. It was Hanna´s birthday so we had a couple rounds of Pisco sours and stayed up longer than usual. Dinner was amazing with chicken legs, beet salad, and other goodies. The cook even whipped up a birthday cake for the following morning.

Day 4&5: On day 4 we awoke at 8am (sleeping in for our standards) and headed to a couple of waterfalls that were close by before starting our trek to Aguas Calentes. Most of the group got eaten alive by misquitoes but for some rare reason, I made it out with very few bites. The 4th night we stayed in a hostal in town. The following morning we had to meet the rest of the group at 4:30am for our trek up the mountain to the entrance of Machu Picchu. We made it to the front gate by 6am where we waited for the entire group to get through the entrance and started a guided tour through part of the ruins. There was too much fog to get many photos until almost 10am. However, by 10:30 it started to rain. I managed to stay in the ruins until just after noon then headed back down the steps in search for lunch. All in all it was an amazing trip and the journey there was just as meaningful and memorable as being in the ruins.

We are back in Cusco and catching a night bus to Arequipa and then heading to the border for Chile in the next day. Photos are up on flickr, check them out.