Santiago & Mendoza (16-21/Mar/06)

San Juan, Argentina

Dropped by Juan Pablo & Veronica in Santiago, a couple we met when we were living in Barcelona (Juan Pablo studied with Raf). Esther managed to leave her GoreTex jacket in Valparaiso, but luckily JuanPa's cousin was there, and on his way to Santiago, so we soon had it in our possession again. Only her thermal t-shirts (in Bariloche) are now AWOL! Well, and a knife, and the mobile, and the handle for the kitchen pots...

We arrived late on Thursday, and on Friday set off to explore. Walked round the centre, checked out the stock market, the fruit & fish market, the San Cristobal peak & park, and the main avenues in the centre. Decided it was a city we could definitely live in if we had to (Esther has her sights on working for the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean for a bit, which may stretch out this trip by another year). Just a long shot.

Saturday Juan Pablo & Veronica were sadly not around as they had a family lunch, so we headed off into the great unknown again. Plan A had been to go to the Maipo valley, but we ditched it as it was a bit late. So we walked around a few more parts of Santiago and popped into a couple of museums to remind us about wot this culture stuff is all about innit.

In Valparaiso we'd heard Manu Chao was playing in Santiago on the 24th, but then realised he was actually in Mendoza on the 19th which fitted neatly in our plans. Getting tickets had been impossible over the phone so we got an early bus on Sunday morning to Argentina and hoped for the best. The ride over is amazing, through a very impressive part of the Andes, and right next to the highest peak in South America, Aconcagua. After dumping the rucksacks in the nearest hostel we zipped off to the stadium and luckily got hold of a couple of tickets. The concert was, as expected, great. However the crowd wasn’t as crazy as initially expected, and Manu’s decision a while back to drop the wind section (to make logistics easier apparently) was pretty noticeable (the songs in Barcelona a few years ago were soooo much better).

Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina, so a good place to be. When we woke up on Monday we headed to the best local bodega for the free tour and tasting. The tour wasn’t very inspiring but you can’t look a gift horse in the mouth I suppose. I wanted to do a proper wine tasting course but hadn’t read the guide properly and we had gone to the wrong bodega. Ah well, next time. Back in Spain, in La Rioja.

Tuesday was climbing day, this time proper leading, only we did do more than half of top rope as we are pretty crap on real rock. Practice will make perfect. Or at least less afraid of falling. Then in the evening we started digging out information about climbing (well, trekking really) to the top of Aconcagua for next year (a bit too late in the season right now). 6959m is quite daunting, as is 1600 euros. We’ll be trying out our lungs on smaller 5000m peaks in Bolivia to see if we are capable or if we’ll just be wasting our money.

Bit of a plan muddle today. We’d decided to visit the Lunar Valley (not in the original plan) and then head off to a couple of spots in Chile (Elqui valley and La Serena) which the guide said might be worth seeing. But it turned out the bus connections all fell apart, so we ended up getting a ticket straight to Salta and changing the route into Bolivia slightly. Sitting down for a spot of lunch after buying the ticket we obviously then found the perfect connection for the original plan. But as we would loose 30% for cancelling, plus the bits we skip aren’t that inspiring, we decided to stick to our guns and spend more time in Salta. A 15h bus ride awaits…

Photos!

Valparaiso, Chile

Loving sister Kelly put these online from the CD I sent my parents...

http://community.webshots.com/album/548529055hzUXAy

Lost mobile

Valparaiso, Chile

Yup, it took us some time, but finally managed to loose the mobile. Wouldn't be us otherwise. Judging by the amount of calls received from loving parents and wonderful friends (except Raf, who did try to call or so he claims) this won't make a jot of difference. Deleted number from right-hand column.

Lake District (3-15/Mar/06)

Valparaiso, Chile

Blody computer crashed, so I'm buggered if I'm going to write this out in full again. Here's the short version...

Chilean Lake District. Cool. Nice. Beautiful. 1st night at lake Todos los Santos. Attacked by millions of small biting flies. Half day trek round Osorno volcano. Small waterfall. Night at Puerto Varas. Valdivia ugly so fled to Panguipulli. Slept in family house. 4 more nights in Villarica, 2 days rain & crap TV. Last day trekked up active volcano with crampons on the way up, bum (sliding) on the way down. Cunningly forgot camera, but nice German guys took some pics of us and then burned it on CD.

Night bus to Valparaiso. Chilled. Beach. Walk. Colourful. Similar to Lisbon, even nicer I recon.

I think I should do summary versions from now on, it'll save us all some time...

A Josh y a Diego...(11-28/feb/06)

...por pesados! Porque no paran de darme el coñazo para que escriba en el blog! Lugar: Carretera Austral, Chile Fecha: mediados de febrero Por fin llegamos a Cerro Castillo, nuestro primer destino en la Carretera Austral. El sitio debe su nombre a la montaña con forma de castillo que domina el pequeño pueblo. Al llegar allí nos dimos cuenta de que las indicaciones que nos habían dado sobre el trekking por la zona no eran del todo ciertas y decidimos seguir hasta Coyahique donde mi primo Ignacio encontró la inspiración hace unos años y monto una granja. Pasamos 5 días con él cosechando lechugas, cazando gallinas, cortando leña, y lo mejor de todo comiéndonos un cordero asado (y sacrificado la noche anterior) a lo Chileno como fin de fiesta! Y todo ello acompañado de mucho mate y onces (así llaman a la merienda en Chile) Después de unos días de agroturismo seguimos nuestra ruta en la Carretera Austral hacia Chaitén. En la Carretera Austral llueve mucho y el paisaje es muy verde, casi parece hasta tropical, la niebla baja mucho en determinadas zonas no se ven las copas de los arboles. La carretera es ripio o lo que es lo mismo no esta asfaltada lo cual añade cierto romanticismo a la cosa. Y en mitad de este microclima nada mejor que irse a bañar a unas termas al aire libre, las Termas el Amarillo en Chaitén! Nuestro siguiente destino de vuelta en Argentina era Bariloche. Por el camino paramos en Futalefú, donde se suponía que íbamos a hacer rafting. Viendo la fuerza del río desde el autobús yo me estaba quedando pálida. Hablando con la gente nos enteramos de que el río Futalefú no era para amateurs como nosotros y de que el Río Manso en Bariloche era más apto para el rafting de andar por casa y mucho mas barato. Camino a Bariloche también paramos en Esquel, famoso lugar por el Parque Nacional de Los Alerces con arboles de hasta 2000 años de edad. Nos llevamos un pequeño chasco cuando nos enteramos de lo que costaba entrar al parque y llegar a ver uno de estos arboles milenarios. Pero siempre nos quedara el recuerdo de la foto de uno de ellos, llamado El Abuelo, que nos enseño la encargada de la oficina de información turística! En su lugar nos montamos en La Tronchita, el único tren a vapor en funcionamiento en América Latina. En estos días sólo funciona para el turismo pero en sus épocas de gloria fue una alternativa para el transporte de mercancías y personas en la región. Es un recorrido de 1 hora que te lleva hasta una pequeña comunidad Mapuche (de 4 casas!). Al llegar allí las 4 familias se lanzaron a la calle a vender empanadas caseras y artesanía como locas. Creo que es el único momento en el día en que reciben visitas... Esquel fue el primer lugar donde vimos artesanía y población Mapuche. A partir de Esquel y hacia el norte, tanto en el lado Argentino como en el Chileno, hay grandes asentamientos Mapuches. Ayer mismo presenciamos la autorización de la tala de 10 arboles a una señora Mapuche para construir una cabaña. El pacto entre la autoridad local y dicha señora se firmo con el dedo. Después de Esquel fuimos a Bariloche. En Bariloche nos quedamos unos días haciendo rafting, escalada y trekking. El trekking se salió! Llevábamos provisiones para caminar 3 días y acampar dos noches. Dejamos Bariloche en un día muy soleado y llegamos a nuestro destino sin ningún problema. Acampamos en un lago en lo alto de una montaña rodeado de mas picos. Como buenos trekkers habíamos revisado la previsión del tiempo antes de salir y sabíamos que había posibilidades de lluvia esa noche. Y así fue, horas antes del amanecer ya se oía el repicar de la lluvia dentro de la tienda. Pero no duró mucho y a la hora de levantarnos ya no se oía ni una gota. ¡ Ya no llueve! ¡Que bien! – dijimos. Pero cual fue mi sorpresa cuando al abrir la cremallera de la tienda vi que estaba nevando. Y debía haber estado nevando toda la noche porque los picos estaban todos cubiertos de nieve. Al principio fue muy chulo pero cuando nos dimos cuenta de que estabamos en lo alto de una montaña y teníamos que seguir caminando la nieve y la niebla ya no nos hizo tanta gracia. Por un momento pensamos volver por donde habíamos venido porque conocíamos el camino y en unas horas estaríamos de vuelta en Bariloche. Pero por otro lado no nos queríamos perder los otros dos días de trekking asi que en un momento que salió el sol decidimos seguir con la ruta originalmente planeada. Al cabo de una media hora volvió la niebla y la nieve. Teníamos 6 horas por delante y a mi no me hacía mucha gracia lanzarnos a caminar bajo el temporal. Josh por el contrario se creía el hombre del tiempo y McGiver a la vez y no paraba de hacer predicciones meteorológicas basadas en el método de sacar el dedo para ver de donde viene el viento y pensaba que teniendo brújula era imposible perderse. Entre pitos y flautas salió el sol otra vez y nos lanzamos a la aventura. El día mejoró, el camino fue muy bonito y solo empezó a nevar 10 minutos antes de llegar al refugio. Por cierto esa noche decidimos dormir bajo techo.

Bariloche & Chiloe (24/Feb-2/Mar/06)

Castro, Chile

Really nice trekking area around Bariloche. Got a bus to the nearby ski slopes and started from there. A short first day, but with a nasty slope at the end - I was suffering a bit because of a bad back. There, surrounded by local guardias (there on a climbing and rescue course), we pitched tent and has a little paddle in the not-so-freezing lake. Lots of wind and some rain at night, but suddenly the rain stopped.

We waltzed happily out of the tent to find that the pitter-patter has only stopped because it was snowing! There was loads of low cloud and it looked beastly, so we had breakfast and took down the tent. We were going to call it a day and walk back down but by the time we had finished we had blue skies again. Less than an hour later, halfway up the first uphill, it was snowing and foggy again. We were surrounded by the guardias again, who were trekking because the weather was too bad for climbing. They went on up but we, not being that hot and orienteering, decided to see if the clouds passed. In the end we decided to finish the uphill and see from the top. By the time we got there we had blue skies again. Anyways, to cut a long story short, we got to the next campsite, and from there the next day we walked for a few hours down to the road and got a bus back to Bariloche.

The day after that we went rock climbing. Sadly we hadn't asked enough questions at the agency and we would be only doing top rope instead of leading, but it was still worth it, and we got some more real rock (rather than indoors) experience and reawoke some muscles. Did a few nice climbs and got a few climbing tips from the guide.

Wednesday we got the bus across to Chile, to the island of Chiloe. It is supposed to be amazing, with a different culture (the Spaniards retreated here and held out against the Chileans for a while during independence), different architecture (wooden churches and lots of the houses have tejuelas, wooden tiles, covering the walls), great food (milcao, curanto, big on fish and potatoes), wonderful geography (small islands, rolling hills) and beautiful greenery. And it's recommended by all the guide books.

It's bollox.

Well, not that bad, but definitely not what the guide books rave on about. Islands and rolling hills OK, greenery not as green as on the Carretera Austral, tejuelas we've seen all over the nearby region already (but churches are pretty amazing), food pretty nice (definitely makes a change from Atkins). Worth popping in for a couple of days if you are in the area, but not a "highlight". Today we decided to push on up to the lake district.