Saturday, November 30, 2013

Lago Puelo

A gorgeous lake and national park, situated just south-west of El Bolson, and surrounded by thick pine forest and snowy Andes.  Although we've been in Patagonia now for a couple weeks, this is what I imagined it to be...It's wild and untouched; All of the surroundings.  We found a campground, right by the lake shore, and we have literally been the only ones here, other than a couple from Czech we met the other day.  They just started their trip in Buenos Aires a couple weeks ago, and bought a Toyota Tundra with an awesome pop up camper on the back, from a guy selling it in BA.  Cool folks.  We drank Yerba Mate with them and made lentil patty burgers for dinner on the fire...Hopefully we'll run into them again down the road.



Fishing is one of my favorite past-times, and growing up trout fishing in the Santa Barbara mountains, and having a sailboat on the Pacific for 4 years, I've been in need of a fix.  I brought a pole with me, and have been carrying it since Costa Rica, where it broke, was fixed, then broke again in Ecuador, and still haven't caught a thing on this entire trip...After 2 days of trying the river mouth here, and finally ending up in front of the breakwater of the small marina, I caught us some dinner last night.  Feels great to be able to fish, let alone to bring home some food.  Planning on plenty more of it to come!

 
Killing some time and taking in scenery is what we've got going on for a bit, then we'll need to figure out our passage further south.  Ushuaia's on the list, so there's still plenty of traveling left to do...Actually much more traveling, as we finally booked our flight back home in March, and we've gotta get all the way back up to Lima!  It's not like we're not used to taking long bus rides by now...

Sunday, November 24, 2013

El Bolsón

The 'hippie' town, as most call it, is a great little place.  We arrived Sunday, on a 2 hour bus ride from Bariloche, with, again, great surroundings the whole way.  Winding through valleys of tall, snow covered mountains and crystal blue rivers and lakes.


Awesome tree carving in the park

Might I first mention in this post, that while traveling so far, we've had some strange and 'small world' connections and coincidences...One very notable one happened again, for the 4th time while on this bus...History goes, that while we were in Panama (Boquete) to be exact, in April of this year, near the start of our trip, we met a French couple at our hostel.  Turns out they were also traveling all the way down South America, and we briefly exchanged ideas...That was that.  Then, while we were in Ecuador, 2 months later, we exchanged glances, crossing a street in the pouring rain, and I said to Danica..."Whoah, that's that couple from Panama!"  That was all at the time.  Then, on our 22 hour bus ride to Bariloche from Mendoza, him and I passed eachother at the terminal, halfway through our trip.  At that point, we both smiled and started talking about how crazy it is to do that not only once, but 3 times!  We talked a little about places we'd been in the rest stop we had, and then we continued to Bariloche.  We ended up spending almost a week there, and never saw them, until we got on the bus to El Bolsón, and they boarded about 10 minutes after us.  Finally, when we all got off at the bus terminal there, we had a good chat about it all.  Unfortunately we didn't exchange info, but judging by our ways of intersecting at random moments, I imagine we'll see them again!  Infact, I'm pretty sure of it.

As for El Bolsón, we really enjoyed it.  We found a campground called "Refugio Patagonico" not far from the bus terminal, and they had a massive yard with tons of campsites,and we were 2 of maybe 5 people there in total.  The guys running the place were super nice, and gave us a great deal to camp for a week, so we did just that.  We had a comfortable campsite with nice grass, a great fire pit and grill, and the place had wifi, which was a bonus.  The people working there gave us tons of local info on what to do in the area.  As of this point so far, Argentinos have been some of the nicest, most helpful people we've come across thus far...Not knocking any other countries, as everyone has been amazing, but these people seem extra friendly!




We spent our thanksgiving holiday there, and actually, it turned out to be 2 days in a row, because we were off a day, and thought we were celebrating it correctly...We cooked some great food on the grill, including mashed potatoes and chorizo and chicken, and sipped some delicious Mendocino Champagne to say the least.



After our week there, we decided on coming slightly south-west, almost to the border of Chile, to a lake called Lago Puelo, to do some more camping...



Rio Azul, a one hour walk from Bolson

Monday, November 18, 2013

Bariloche, Patagonia!

A gorgeous spot, right on a huge lake surrounded by Patagonian Andes, covered in snow.  We arrived in Bariloche aboard the 22 hour bus ride from Argentina, it was pretty brutal, but amazing scenery the whole way was a pleasant companion.  Our dream of making it to Patagonia has finally happened...Patagonia is gigantic, as it is the entire southern part of Argentina as well as Chile.  We'll see how far south we get!


Spent 5 days at 'Punto Sur' Hostel, which had a grill out back, which we used almost every night, to barbeque some dinner, or "Asado," as the Argentinos call it.  And, yes, Argentinian beef is amazing, like everyone says, and super cheap! 

One of our asado nights...
 Bariloche apparently has a ton of German settlers who ended up there.  The structures look very German, with some other European style, and the town is full of chocolate shops, featuring locally made chocolate, which was delicious.  There's also a ton of breweries, and we found a great one (from Mar de Plata) called "Antares," which had about 9 beers on tap, and a great happy hour (2 for 1 pints)...



During our stay, we walked the town, and finally found a guitar shop willing to repair my acoustic (on the cheap).  We dropped it off, and it was ready the next day about 5pm.  Guy did a great job, fixed the action, tightened the neck rod, and cleaned 'er up with some new strings.  What a relief...I would be pretty bummed if it was beyond repair...

We searched and searched for a volunteer gig in the area, without much luck...It turned out, after our second day at Punto Sur Hostel, we found out they had a listing on HelpX, and we didn't know about it...Would have been a great spot to work for a bit, but another couple, Rachelle and Don, from the States had it planned out.

Met some cool folks there, and decided to head down the road to El Bolson, where we could possibly find work, and definitely find some camping spots...As for our entrance to Patagonia, it was none other than gorgeous, and will probably get even more beautiful as we head south.  The plan as of now is to spend New Years in Ushuaia, aka the bottom of the world!  Booked a hostel for a couple nights there, and now we've got some time to kill!
Paraglider over the lake
Classic 'German' style architecture downtown
This is the lake right in front of the town

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Argentina, here we come...

An overnight bus, aboard 'Andesmar' from Santiago, would lead us to the border crossing at 3AM, with a very smooth transfer from Chile into Argentina, (apart from our having to pay a whopping $160 to enter the country).  At least it's good for 10 years...

We were told that the border can take anywhere from an hour to 4 hours to cross, but in our case, we zipped through, nobody checked any luggage, and we were in Argentina while it was still dark out...

We arrived at the Mendoza bus terminal at 5AM, which was brutal.  There was nothing open, and we found a bench just inside to sit on and wait...

At about 6:30, we jumped in a cab, and headed towards a hostel that was in our book.  They seemed to have closed down, so the next one on the list was "DamaJuana" on Calle VillaNueva.  They offered a dorm room to us, with  nobody in it, and we quickly went downstairs and went back to bed to catch up on some sleep.

We woke up at about noon, and realized we were actually in Argentina!  Spent the day walking around, searching for a spot to change some US cash, and a music shop to get my guitar fixed.

No luck on the guitar the first day, and the second day, we decided to change hostels, as a friend of mine, Patrick, from back home, lived in Mendoza for a bit, and worked at 'Lagares' on the other side of town, so we headed over to actually ask if they needed any help.  We grabbed our stuff and trudged it for a couple kilometers, and found the spot.  Javier, the owner was at the desk, and not only did they not need help, but didn't have room for us to stay!  Bummer, we thought, but he came up with the idea that we could leave our stuff in the storage room, and at 4AM, 2 girls were leaving on a bus, so we could take their beds for half price.  This worked out perfectly, because NOBODY in Mendoza goes to bed before 5AM!  Javier was super nice, and we ended up staying at Lagares for another 3 nights, and he gave us a killer deal.

We booked the wine/bike tour, that everybody talks about through him (the hostel offers bikes from 'Mr. Hugo' for free if you stay 4 nights), and we did this on our last day in town.

Mendoza was much bigger than we imagined, but had a nice feel to it.  Desert-like scenery all around, with a distant view of Andean peaks.  We walked all around the city, and to the main park, which was gigantic.  There, was a a peak to walk up, called "Cerro Gloria," where you get a great panorama of the whole city, and surroundings.





The trip to Mendoza was successful all in all, we found the part I needed for my guitar, got a good exchange rate on some US currency, and fulfilled our yearning to wine taste in Argentina on bicycles..."Mr. Hugo's" bike rental turned out to be amazing, and we rode with a German guy named Marcos for the day, visiting about 5 wineries, including a wine museum, an olive oil factory/homemade craft liquor shop, where we got to taste Argentinian absinthe, among others, and delicious balsamic vinegars, and we ended the day at a craft brew garden, where we sat in some comfortable chairs and were served delicious fresh-out-the-oven empanadas.

The Wine Museum
Tasting Room

Home-made liquor tasting
Marcos, Danica and I at a winery

At the 'Beer Garden' good beers and amazing empanadas
We hurried back to Mr. Hugo's rental shop, to meet our 7pm return deadline, and were given a proper police escort, as they followed closely behind Danica, with her wine bottles in basket, on a police motorcycle and a pickup truck.  Quite a sight to see!  Upon arrival back to Mr. Hugo's, he greeted us with a smile, and told us he had something to give us...We hadn't even met him that morning, as we were helped by a younger guy, Hugo comes out bearing 2 bottles of white wine, and tells us to 'pour them over ice, and enjoy!'  What a nice guy, we had a blast.

Danica followed by her police escort
Next on our minds was the 9:30 departure of our pre-booked bus to Bariloche, which was going to be 19 hours or so...We had to get back to Lagares, grab our stuff and rush to the bus terminal.

We made it, with only a couple minutes to spare, and hopped aboard, with a couple shitty sandwiches we grabbed on the run, to make up for dinner...Our journey that night would lead us into the north, and beginning of Patagonia, and we were about to experience the start of where we'd been planning on making it to, and furthermore, our destination!!!

Best desert wine we've ever had...Di Tommaso "Vino Generoso," from the winery in Mendoza...

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Spending a week with my family in El Monte!

On the day marking our 8 months of travel, my family arrived at the Santiago international airport...They had been planning this for a while, and I was very excited to see them.  They found a place for a week in El Monte, just outside of Santiago in the wine country, and we were gearing up for the visit.

We took a bus from near the terminal 'Los Heroes,' in Santiago, headed for the airport.  Having not had a lot of sleep the prior night, we were a little out of it to say the least...We boarded the bus, and the driver pointed to a crate behind his seat for our bags.  There was hardly anyone on the bus, and I decided to also put my guitar in the storage space.  All of a sudden a ton of people boarded, and began putting things on top of my guitar bag.  Stupid of me, but I was watching carefully, and figured it would be fine.  Turns out, something chipped the nut on the headstock of my guitar, and the high E string is unplayable...The search for a new nut continues, and my previous paranoia of keeping my guitar with me will continue...

Anyways, we made it to the airport at about 10 am, and found the international arrivals terminal, which was much smaller than I expected from a big city like Santiago.  We waited in a crowd of rowdy taxi cabbies trying to get business, and finally, after being asked if we needed a cab for over an hour, I spotted my brother Michael walking out of the terminal exit!

We were both very excited to see everyone, obviously, and I was happy to finally meet Thom, my mother's boyfriend, who I had heard so much about, as well as Meg, my sister's girlfriend.  We waited while Thom and my mom went to retrieve the rental van, and we headed off into the Chilean highway system to find our home for the next week.

After only a couple wrong turns, we pulled into beautiful little El Monte, and into the driveway of the house.  None of us expected what we would find there, as it was an enormous property, with a pool, and gorgeous gardens and trees, home to 5 big dogs, and two caretakers...


Roast beef dinner I made...
A massive kitchen, and an awesome outdoor barbeque area with wood burning pizza oven, would be the site of our meals for most of the next week.  Danica and I did most of the cooking, as we missed our awesome kitchen in Manglaralto, Ecuador...

We spent a lot of time hanging out by the pool, and roaming the property, which had a creek flowing through it, and pond, and some massive trees.  We spent an afternoon visiting the  neighboring town of Pomaire, which is the pottery capital of Chile, and a nice small village to wander through.

Later in the week, we ventured out to the coast, and spent the day visiting Viña Del Mar, and Valparaiso, which were both very beautiful in their own sense.  We took the long way back, down the coast a ways, and got some incredible views of the ocean cliffs, very reminiscent of California...

Valparaiso Marina


 

 

We found a microbrewery down the road from El Monte, called "Szot," run by an American guy and his Chilean wife and son.  They had a great selection of beers, and we really enjoyed their Barley Wine and Double IPA, amongst others.  As mentioned in previous posts, we love finding good beer, as it is often hard to come by!  The owners were super friendly, and we visited them twice on our trip.

















My brother Michael in part of Szot's beer commercial...awesome

More delicious dinners were eaten, including one my mom made, stuffed chickens baked with stuffing and roasted veggies.  Grilled Salmon, and beef tacos.  We had an awesome time seeing and hanging out with everyone, and didn't want them to leave!  What a perfect place for it as well, the property was amazing!  Thanks guys!



Hanging out in Vina del Mar
We all boarded the van at the end of our week there, and headed to the airport to see them off.  That night wse boarded a bus 'Andesmar' and headed for Mendoza, Argentina...The end of a beautiful time in Chile for now, perhaps we'll cross over again, down the road...

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Chile's Capital - Meeting up with family!

Danica's uncle lives in Santiago, and has for years.  We planned on visiting him there a while back, and my family planned on meeting us somewhere along the way to visit, and chose Santiago...

We took an overnight bus from La Serena to Santiago, after our camping excursion, and pulled into the Tur Bus terminal at about 5:30 AM.  We were a day early to meet up with her uncle, and had to find a hostel for the night.  Juan, our Colombian friend was somewhere in the city as well, so we set out to find a cafe for some breakfast and some internet access...

We took a cab into the Plaza de Armas, or center of town, and it was still very early, and a ghost town at that.  After roaming for about a half hour, we found a small cafe that served coffee and had wifi.  We found out Juan was staying in Barrio Brasil, not too far from us, and we eventually went to meet him at his hostel, "Cienfuegos" which turned out to be a nice spot, and the first ever hostel in Santiago.

The hostel hosted a barbecue that night, for $2500 Pesos a piece, and we all hung out on the back patio.  A motorcycle rider named Trevor, was there that night, who had been traveling down the continent, from the US.  We started chatting with him, and it turns out he knew Mark and Carlie, our Aussie friends.  Not only did he know them from his travels, but it turned out he also knew several other people we had met along the way...Very small world.

Next day, checked out of the hostel, and set off to the other side of town, to meet Danica's uncle, and spend a few days with him...

Santiago seemed so far off at first, and obviously was.  We did some calculating thus far, and found that we've traveled about 5500 miles, or 8800 kilometers since San Jose, Costa Rica, and wow, it's been a long way!

 

We stayed at her uncle Steve's apartment for 4 nights, and really had a great time.  He was an awesome guy with a ton of information to share.  I had been looking forward to meeting him for a while, and she hadn't seen him in a few years, so it was really a great visit....

Danica cooking at his place...
the view from his balcony



family feud...
We said bye to Steve, and headed to the airport, with all of our stuff, to meet up with my family...