Pucon and Vina and Valpo

Jenny and I arrived to Pucon in the pouring rain. Pucon is usually a very touristy place, but since the earthquake the amount of visitors had decreased so accommodation was cheap! We stayed in Pucon for a week, and we were the ultimate tourists. We went to some hot springs, once during the day, and once at night. We went hiking in the Huerquehue National Park one day. It was cloudy and we hiked up into the snow line. The forest was very neat, unlike anything I have seen at home. We hiked by 4 or 5 lakes, all shrouded in fog. We went horseback riding near Pucon one day which was nice. We also went whitewater PADDLING! Which was definitely Jenny’s favorite part. It was only our guide and us, and yes, we each had our own boat (kayak) and gear (we got asked that question a lot). It was a lot of fun. We paddled the lower Lliucura and the rapids were about grade three and weren’t 100% continuous, but the river was high. FUN. We also hiked up Volcano Villarricia. It was a great day! Sunny and a couple clouds down I the valleys. Everyone has to have a guide to climb the volcano or prove they have sufficient mountaineering experience We were in a group of 4, with one guide and one ‘assistant’ (who I think was a buddy tagging along, as he really did no assisting). We had crampons and ice axes. It was a good time; we practiced self arrests. Apparently in the ‘summer’, one can hike to the top with no crampons or anything. We had ours on for 85% of the time. We also saw some MAGMA (aka lava) (the life of the Volcano), which has only been viewable 2 weeks before we got there. We couldn’t see the lava all the time, it would jump and spurt up once in a while. The volcano sounded like a washing machine. Once, we got a bad wind in the wrong direction, and the fumes were really overbearing. From the top, we could see 3 other nearby volcanoes, and lago Villarrica. That was an awesome day. Lots of fun! My camera was dead too, so I didn’t worry about taking pictures or anything, just enjoying myself. We also got to slide on our butts for parts of the way down. Good times. Oh, we also had a size 5 aftershock one of the mornings. Chile is still settling.

After Pucon, we bused to Temuco to pick up some of Jenny’s things she had left with her Chilean family there. We had a BBQ (asado) and left on a midnight, overnight bus to Santiago. When we got there in the morning we caught a bus to Vina del Mar, and chilled out there for the day. We were pretty pooped from the overnight buses – they really mess you up. Later that evening we meet up with Davy Shine! It was really good to see him. He is studying there for a year. We got to meet and stay with his Chilean family, they were very nice and welcoming. Since Davy had school, Jenny and I spent a day wandering around beautiful Valpariso, and checking out a famous poet’s house. For a big city, Valipariso is neat. We met Davy and a friend of his for lunch, and then he had more school to get off to. His friend, she invited us out to do some salsa dance lessons, which were in the basement of the engineering building. They were pretty fun, and pretty funny. I was giggling almost the entire time. We ended up ditching out halfway through as there weren’t enough partners for everyone, and, well… it was hard! So we went and got ice cream and sat in a park, people watched and talked. Later that evening Jenny and I made some apple crumble (with vanilla ice cream of course) for Davy’s family, and the next morning we made banana bread, which apparently was a huge hit. I had to catch a bus to Santiago in the morning, and then another bus to the airport. I was early for my flight, as I took some local bus to the airport, instead of leaving from the main bus station, which was good.

The flight was long. They woke us up at 3am Santiago time (1 am Calgary time) for breakfast, which screwed up my sleep cycle. I didn’t think I was going to get jet lag, but I defiantly was very pooped when I got into Calgary.

Pictures will be uploaded hopefully tomorrow :)

So! That’s it that’s all.

Chau chicos!

Tronodor, Learning and Relaxing

Pictures first as I can´t seem to move them
And they are out of order
And sideways and upside down
...I am a poor blogger...

Weird forzen dirt! (note: upside down..)

The housemates.

Huge waterfall one of the glaciers makes. When chunks of ice fall off - it makes lots of noise!

More sunrise

More Sunrise

The army´s Helicopter and the Hut

A dude, just chillin' on the Glacier

The Rufuge

HUGE Trees in the forest

April 3rd & 4th I went hiking up Mnt. Tronodor. I went alone, but everyone has to take the same bus from bariloche to the base of it (Pampa Linda), and hence everyone starts trekking at the same time, so I wasn´t really be alone. In the summer apparently it is crazy busy.

Some facts from my guide book and wiki:

Tronador is an extinct volcano on the border between Argentina and Chile. It was named Tronador (Thunderer) by locals in reference of the sound of falling seracs. With an altitude of 3,491 m (11,453 feet) Tronador stands out of nearby mountains in the Andean massif by more than 1000 m making the mountain a popular mountaineering trip. Placed inside two National Parks, Nahuel Huapi in Argentina and Vincente Perez Rosales in Chile (I stayed in Argentina). It hosts a total of eight glaciers which are currently retreating. Refugio Otto Meiling (where I spent the night) is named after a mountaineer who made dozens of ascents and spent years guiding people around it. The hut is located about 1200m vertically above Pampa Linda, at the mountain's base.

The start of the hike is at Pampa Linda, 50 miles south of Bariloche, a 2 hours bus ride. One of the roads we drove on is one way, in different directions at different times. I was asking on of the bus drivers (I was sitting right next to him - the bus was FULL) about how 2 cars drive so fast on such a narrow, twisty dirt road Everyone had to register at the park office before setting off. The hike usually is a path that crosses a ATV road up into the alpine, however, most of the tiny path was fenced off for ´regrowth', and I walked on the nicely switch-backing ATV road. It only took me 3.5 hours to get up to the hut, when it said it could take 4 to 7 hours. I was pretty startled at one point on my wanders, when I looked up and there was 40 Argentinian men from the army marching 2 by 2 down the path. Turns out the army goes and practices on the glaciers up there every year before they are sent out to Antarctica. I ran into 3 other troops on my way up. I arrived early and spent my afternoon drinking tea, checking out the glacier, watching condors, and napping on some rocks in the sun. Made some delicious pasta for dinner, met some German's, and some local Argentinians. The hut was super cozy. They have 4 people working at all times, cooking and cleaning. I think that is more than normal because the Argentinian army was up there camped out for 2 months. we all slept upstairs, there was about 25 of us at the hut. I hear that sometimes in the summer, there can be 50 people sleeping upstairs, which would mean that people would be sleeping on every possible bit of floor space. I got up at 7 am to watch the sun rise. It was gorgeous. I sat outside tucked into my sleeping bag for almost 1.5 hours of solo sky watching. It was super peaceful. The glaciers looked so colourful in the morning light. Ate some delicious oatmeal, then started my way down early. I was the first one to leave the hut. Some super funky ice formed over night, that lifted up the top layer of rock and dirt by about an inch. Walking on it made every step a crunchy one. I took a side trip to check out the waterfalls off one of the big glaciers I slept next to. I think it is called Thunder Mnt., because the falling ice chunks have SUCH a long way to go when they fall, and must echo viciously. I heard some thundering, but I didn´t see anything. Sometimes, I think it was only the glacier groaning, and shifting.

Anyways. Back in Bariloche I continued with some Spanish schooling for a week. Three were 2 other Canadian ladies in my class. Since tourist season is ending, the school was super quiet, only 7 students in total there, while when I was studying earlier, there was about 23. I really enjoyed school this week; i felt like i got over a hump and just started talking! We were all speaking in Spanish for the whole class. Guarantee my Spanish wasn´t fancy or nice to listen to, but we all communicated in Spanish. I really enjoyed going into shops that week and just talking to the store owners, because I could! This week was super chill. I was staying in a host family, that was also hosting a Canadian girl my age (from Victoria, who works for half the year and travels for the other half -wow!), a Californian girl (Massage therapist living in Argentina for half a year), an older man from Vermont (who owns his own apple orchard and makes apple cider and was a elementary middle, secondary teacher and a uni professor), and a very unique dude from South Africa - his stories seem like they came from a different world. All in All we had a good week together. We drank margaritas in the sun and lots of wine to accompany Mara's (our host mom)´s meals. Michele and Liam came down from Mendoza, which was awesome! We visited some ´cold trees´in a bamboo forest, went out for dinner, ate empanadas, hike Cerro companario again, and we hung out on the beach with "john, fred and sam (and antoher...liam do you remember its name?)" a gang of dogs that followed us everywhere. Good thing they were staying in Bariloche longer than I was because I Managed to leave my (read Tim´s) Ipod charging at the hostel. The bad part about that is that I don´t have a plug converter now, and one of my camera batteries is dead now.
So my week ended and I caught a bus to Chile, to Chiloe to meet Jenny :)

the end

El Chalten and the Fitz Roy Range

El Chalten self named it self as the ´trekking capital of argentina´; however, I think bairloche has more trekking. It could be named: trekking capital for people who don´t really like long treks, and like to sleep in thier own bed every night. All of the main lookouts and views we saw were and are easliy do-able in day hikes. We arrived into El Chalten quite late at night. We hadn´t heard back from any hostels about any vacancies, so we went to 2 near the bus station and were turned down by both - the last one called around and found one that had space. I don´t think either of us got any super good vibes from El Chalten. It is nice enough, small, and a ´frontier´town, but it is based almost entirely on touism. It is nestled right along this massive rock face. It´s neato! Our hostel was a HUGE and unfriendly and we were right next to the common area, so we didn´t really sleep well. There was a whole tour group there of old and young people, which were kind of funny to watch. There was an old man who hogged the computer but had no idea how to use it. He re-read the same facebook message 6 times, and attempted to delete some emails, but instead of pressing delete... he would just refresh the page. I had to sit next to him and count down his 20 minutes of computer use, after an hour of waiting for him to get up. he was a grump! He tried to help the next guy use the internet too "what do you use? I use Yaaahoooo... oh Hotmail... yeah I don´t know about that one..welll I guess you can do it yourself". There also was a old american hippi woman, who was drunk wandereing around, and when she was going hiking in the morning, she was wearing a tight stripped skirt that went down to her ankles, a sombreo-sun-hat and a poncho. It was an interesting place if anything. Michele and I spent a day wandering the town, getting food and supplies, checking the internet, getting maps, getting a bus tickets, renting gear, talking to the park office, and we laoded up on Media lunas (half moons = croissantes). Getting food was difficult: the main supermercardo didn´t have a lot of basics, like cereal or chocolate! And we meet with Ana, a friend from Bariloche, who we were going to go trekking with. She is Swiss, but her parents are Swedish, and she is only 19(?) and studies spanish is Bariloche for... 6 weeks (?I am not sure exactly). She´s super sweet, and has definitly picked up the extremely chill latin american attitude. I think El Chalten would be a sweet place to climb. I saw some bolted routes on our trek and lots of climbers around town. there are not too many Argentinian climbers becuase the equipment is so expensive. There are no Argentinain companies that make climbing gear, so all of it is imported, and hence is Taxed A LOT. The gear is way more expensive than it would be at home. Oh! And all the stray dogs appeared well fed in El Chalten - but we discovered why. There are a lot of bakerires there, and we were chatting (more michele was chatting) with a Bakery Employee outside his Panaderia. there was a dog begging, who he called ´chocoalte´. The baker, gave him a large baked good and told him to go away, but Chocolate was back in about 5 minutes. It was a funny moment, seeing a stary dog runnign away with a pristine Factura (like a croissante with extra jam and sugar stuff in it) in his mouth.

March 26th - Day 1 of trekking

We got picked up buy a mini-bus, which farther into the national park, and dropped people off at different starting points. We were the farthest out and we were dropped in the middle of no where - yehaw! We walked from where the road meets Rio electrico, to Rufugio Piedra Del Frailes. It was was an easy walk, and i think it wçtook us less time than the map siad it would. We ran into only one other person, but walked past some ´wild´horses. The managers of the Rufugio were a very nice couple. When we arrived, the husband insisted that we take ff our heavy bags a talka while. He was well informed about our hiking options. We decided to go up to this lookout called Po. del Cuadrodo, which normally gives a great view of the north face of Fitz Roy. The weather sucked and it had snowed up on the galcier we were supposed to traverese, so we weren´t able to go the whole way. The weather really atrated to rain and blow, so we went back down to the campsite, where we played a card game called shithead (Ana taught us) and we ate dinner.

Hiking in (even though technically we werent even in the park for the whole 1st day)

Day 2

Wake up. Eat. Pack up. Head out. We restraced out steps a bit through the forst, then hiked upriver Rio Blanco. We ate lunch right be fore the trail dispeared in boulders. We walkd over some super sketchy boulder slopes, where i shifter some massive rocks. Very sketchy. then Michele and Ana found the trail and we crossed the river. We ditched our big bags and scrambeled over, under and around huge rocks to get to the end of Lage Peridras Blancas, and to see Glacier Fitz Roy o Pedras Blancas. I think it was HUGE ages ago, as around the lake and further out there was like an amphithaçeater rock pile. From far away you could hear when ice chuncks fell off the glacier because it was so amplified. We hopped back to our big backpacks, and continued onto our next campground, Poincenot, and we set up camp. We then hiked up to Lago de los Tres, for a great view of Fitz roy. The weather wasn´t 100 % clear thought, and we didn´t see all of Fitz Roy. We then headed back down for dinner and sleep. In total i think we hiked 6 hours max. Our days we not super long in the Fitz Roy Range.

Rock Hopping

Purdy

Night Things

Day 3

Wake up for early morning beathroom run and the sky was super clear and Fitz roy looked like it was glowing! Beautiful. I hope someone anttempted a summit that day because the weather was amazing. We walked upto Lago Sucia in the morning, then retuned to our campsite for lunch. We packed up and went to our next campsite, Agonstini, which is right next to the very loud Rio Fitz Roy. The trekking was easy, but the surroundings wasn´t super exciting. We kind of just powered through it. We set up camp in a super bright location, played cards, streched, and ate a feast. Yum!

Lago Sucia

Michele and Ana

Day 4
Again the morning sun made everything look golden. The views from our campsite of Cerro Torre in the Am were beautiful. By the time we had had breakfast clouds had moved in. We hiked along Lago Torre, to Mirador Maestri. We chilled on a huge rock for a while, soaking in the Glacier Grande, and the mountians. We retuned to camp, and then headed to town. You can really just walk right into town from the trails. That eveing we had a huge meal. I ate an argentina ´meal´called Milanesa - breaded steak, and we all had delicious apple pie, with vanilla icecream, which was orange in colour.

Chillin´

Lamas on the walk into town

The next 2 days we bused back to Bariloche. We did laundry there, slept ate, wandered, did some window shopping, chocolate sampling, book reading, and meal eating. It was my last 3 days with Michele and they were nice and relaxed. We went out to a famous Grill (parrilla) and ate some delicious meats. We also went for a little walk upto some waterfalls and a lookout. When we were waiting to catch the bus back we met a very veryvery interesting woman. She was English, but hadlivewd in Mexico for the last 50 years, was a writer, and was doing research down here about a ´new race´, and chakra and darkenergy ect. Really nice lady! Well educated, and eccentric. She msut of bought locl bariloche out of its animal print things, and purple nailpolish. It was pretty funny - at one point her hat flew off her head (it was windy) and landed right on my face. We were quite amused by her! Michele left me Friday afternoon, and I moved into my homestay I am doing though my language school. My host is Mara, and she is a great cook! Her home is 30 miniutes away from school and it over looks the lake. You can see both sunrise and sunset from her patio - it's lovely. There are 2 other guys living there (one really reminds me of dad -he fly fishes and kind of talks like my dad), the other dude is from South Africa. I share a room with another girl from Victoria - we are in the same class.

Ok! Time to go outside and enjoy the sunshine!

El Calfate

After hiking in Torres del Paine, we bused to El Calafte where we did laundry, checked emails, and checked out Los Glaciares National Park. El Calafte is a touristy town, but it was nice. It is located right on Lago Argentino, which has pink flamigos! Michele said it reminded her of Northern towns, because only the main road is paved, and all the other roads are gravel, and houses are kind of everywhere. We decided to go see Galciar Perito Moreno (the main tourist attraction). Here´s some Stats from trustworthy Wiki: The 250 km² ice formation, of 30 km in length, is one of 48 glaciers fed by the Southern Patagonian Ice Field located in the Andes system shared with Chile. This icefield is the world's third largest reserve of fresh water. The Perito Moreno Glacier is one of only three Patagonian glaciers that are not retreating. Periodically the glacier advances over the L-shaped "Lago Argentino" ("Argentine Lake"). when it reaches the opposite shore, it forms a natural dam which separates the two halves of the lake. With no escape route, the water-level on the Brazo Rico side of the lake can rise by up to 30 meters above the level of the main lake. The enormous pressure produced by this mass of waters finally breaks the ice barrier holding it back, in a spectacular rupture event. This dam/rupture cycle is not regular and it naturally recurs at any frequency between once a year to less than once a decade.
Anyways: We got some bus tickets and bused out there. It was super sweet glacier, but I think we had 7 hours to waste there until our bus would pick us up again. It was a cloudy day adn it was cold. So, it was a long 7 hours! 4 hours would of been adequate. We bought hot choclate and coffee twice to warm up, and wasted time wandering ALL of the walkways, and sitting and watching the glacier crash into the lake. Thats all! Pictures:

Waiting for some Glacier Action

Some glacier

More Glacier

There should be Flamigos in this shot...

Torres del Paine

Our plan was to go to Puerto Natales in Chile first to hike around Torres del Paine, and then to head to El Chalten to hike around the Fitz Roy Range. Then to head back up North in time for Michele to meet Liam (her boyfriend) who is coming down to travel with her for his training off-season.

So! We bused to El Calfate. On March 14th we got on our bus. 26 long hours later, we arrived to destination with an extremely numb bum.

Not all of Patagonia is Mountains...

Stayed the night in El Calfate. Bused to Puerto Natales. Crossing the border into Chile takes forever because they don’t allow any fruit, milk, vegetables, and so on in from Argentina – so they scan and cross examine everyone. I had a ton of dried fruit I did not want to forfeit so I was sweating bullets - However the guards didn´t seem to notice. Argentina is more relaxed about the whole process, they don´t care if you bring food in from Chile, they just want to stamp your passports. Arrived to Puerto Natales. A windswept place! It’s on the ocean, near lakes and huge mountains and farming flats. Probably the most southern location I will ever be at: Latitude, 51° 43' 60S; Longitude, 72° 31' 0W. We found a hostel. We got a rental tent and stove and a sleeping bag for michele. We got snacks and supplies. We talked to a park warden. We packed.
We were READY TO GO HIKING!

Parque National Torres del Paine is a huge place. Very popular and very beautiful. The weather is unpredictable there. (Apparently) all the water is good to drink in the park, with out purifying it. We purified it sometimes when we knew there was a campground upstream. There are Rufugios (huts that are like lodges or hotels – super glorified) that are all over the trails making it possible to hike carrying almost nothing. The parks two most popular hikes are either an 8 day circuit, or half of that, the ´W´ hike that can be done in 3 days - 5 days.
We did 5 days on the ´W´, which was more like 3 full days and 2 half days, as you will see below. We did the ´W from East to West. Here is a map of what we did.

Day 1: March 17th
I was so excited to get outside to go ´trekking´. However the waiting game needed to be played. OK: wait. Sleep. Get up at 6:30 am to catch your bus. Bus is only an hour late, could have slept in. Take a 2 hours bus to the Torres del Pain park entrance, 112 km northwest of Puerto Natales. Bus almost hits a heard of cows. Bus stops at a café in the middle of nowhere. Get off bus to go pee. Get on bus. Get off the bus and pay park fees. Get back on a bus. Another hour to a catamaran. Scenic: Saw guanacos (like lamas), and weird huge birds (I think called `nandús, which are small ostriches). Wait for catamaran. Get on Catamaran.

This is the view from the Catamaran Boat across a lake Pehoe. Get off. Finally ready to start walking!
We started at Refugio Paine Grande, that’s where the catamaran dropped us off. We stopped in at the parque guards hut to make sure we were going the nigth way, and the 2 guards there were fat old men who both lit up cigarettes when we came in to speak to them. It was wierd that they were puffing thier cigs, but I guess that is culture. We hiked 11km and about 3.5 hours to Refugio grey. We we walking in bush and forest, then along a small lake, called lago los platos, and then we popped out the forst and HOLY COW Saw Glacier grey. IT’S HUGE. It was quite funny because before we saw it, I was asking Michele: ´how impressive can it be? We have glaciers in Canada, I´m sure it’s just like the ones at home¨. However, Glacier Grey was very impressive. Huge, and seeing the ice chunks floating down Lago (lake) Grey was really neat. After gawking at it for a bit, we headed up another 4 km to our campground for the night, Campamento Los Guardas. The last hour was hard; we were tired, our feet weren´t happy with our shoes and our packs were heavy! However, after setting up camp, and feeding ourselves, we wandered out to a lookout (a mirador), about 5 minutes from our campsite and watched the sunset over the glacier. Amazing. We got some sweet photos:

Michele glacier sunset

Looking oneway

Looking the other way - Can you see mitch?

It was a cold night, and in the morning one of the main zippers on the fly of our rented tent broke. Cheap rentals! Thanks to duck tape we had an almost complete fly to block the wind and rain. Luckily, we had great weather almost the whole hike.
Sleep!

Day 2
Wake up! Talked to Michele about all the weird noises we heard at night. There are no major threats from animals here. You don´t have to worry about bears or mountain lions (Pumas). The mice are supposed to be the worst things to encounter as they are responsible for stolen food and chewed tents. However, we heard strange loud noises at night, that were definiantly not mice! We ate breakfast – my instant oatmeal’s had a lot less sustenance to them than the packages at home do. It is hard to plan camping food when you have no idea what’s in the boxes you buy. We packed up and headed out, retracing our footsteps to where the catamaran dropped us off the first day. We had sunny skys! 15 km and about 5.5 hours of hiking. Then we started on a different trail towards Campanmento Italiano. We hiked past another lake, Lago Skottsberg, and another 2.5 hours and about 6km later we arrived to campsite Italaino. and we had our first views of Glacier del Frances and Cerro Paine Grande. The campsite was super overused and in my opinion, it was pretty disgusting: overused, abused, broken branches and trees every, swampy, cramped, noisy = gross. Right before bed we heard what we thought was thunder so we scurried anround making sure the fly was good to go to handle some heavy rain. However! it never rained, the noises was just large chunks of glacier falling off. We laughed at ourselves later for thinking that it was a storm coming in.

Day 3
This was supposed to be our easy day. We left the tent set up and we went only with lunch up the Valle de Frances. About 5 hours return and 12 km. We had better and better views of The Glacier Frances, and we stopped to watch it often.

A large chunk falling off

The terrian was really hard on us today. We were walking on uneven shifty rocks for most of the day and we really felt our knees and ankles, nad blostered feet by the end of the day. I felt like I was walking like a baby giraffe, my legs were wobbling everywhere! We went to the top of the valley, and ate lunch on a sunny rock, then went back down to our campsite, packed up and headed to açour next campsite, Campamento los Cuernos. The campsite is right on Lago Nordenskjold. This was the only campsite we had to pay to sleep in, and we had to pay per person. The campsite was in good shape. We had a good warm sleep here.

Sunset, near our campsite
Day 4
This morning was the only day we set an alarm for; we wanted top make sure we got an early start ont eh day as it was supposed to be a long one. Today was our first super windy day. We didn´t really stop for many breaks as it was so windy! We hiked about 7 hours today and 15 km. We were warned about htis ´Patagonian wind´, and today we expereinced it. We had to crouch down sometimes as the wind was so strong. I had heard a lot of negative things about the wind, but it was fun, the only downside was when my long backpack straps got free and whipped me pretty hard.

The bad weather brewing: We stopped mid-afternon at Rufugio Chileno to take a break from the driving wind. We discovered that the hot water from thier taps is almost at a boiling temperature, so we stopped to steal some hot water to have some hot coca. Then we headed up to our Campsite, Capamento Torres. We got there super early in the evening and didn´t have much to do. This super awkward guy came and hung out with us until after dinner when I think he finally got the ´go away´ vibes from us. We ate chocolate pudding to celebrate Michele´s mom´s 60th Birthday,and then went to bed early.

Day 5.
Got up at 6:30 am to go up to the Torres del Paine proper, lookout for hte sunise. Hiking with headlamps! a coupl eother groups had the same idea, and looking back down the slopes and seeing bobbling headlamps in the dark was neat. Today again was windy, and it was very cloudy out. Our sunrise wasn´t super spectacular, but it was still an amazing view.

Michele, hiding from the wind

We headed back down to our campsite around 9am, packed up and hiked ou to Hosteria Las Torres, where we caught a shuttle bus back to the main road to get a bus back to Puert Natales. When we were waiting for our shuttle bus, a HUGE gust of wind came and started to blow our HUGE backpacks away. Yes our packs, with our tent, sleeping bag, food,cooking gear... everything, started to roll away on flat ground. I was so impressed by the wind. Oh and on our shuttle bus, we went over a bridge, that said it was ´breaking... make sure everyone gets out and crosses it by foot´, but nope, our bus driver just drove over it.

That´s all! Overall an amazing hike.

Bariloche and beyond

What has been going on? On March the 7th, I bused from Temuco down to Orsono in Chile where I changed buses and headed over the border to Bariloche in Argentina. The Orsono to Temuco leg of the journey was very beautiful, lots of greenery, lakes and mountains. My bus arrived a couple hours early which is nice. I met my good friend Michele, who has been travelling throughout South America for about 2 months already –boy, it was good to see her! Bariloche is a tourist town, understandably so. It’s in Argentina’s lake district, in a national park called parquet national Nahuel Huapi, and it is right on the shore of the Lago Nuhuel Huapi lake, which has 7 or 8 árms´. It’s huge! It’s surrounded by Andean mountains which provide decent and easy access hiking in the summer, and some skiing in the Winter. There are also opportunities for rock climbing, rafting, ect… the whole works. The downtown core is littered withy expensive shops, but also lots of chocolate factories! I was meeting Michele in Bariloche to do 2 weeks of Spanish Language school – I have no previous Spanish education and I was super motivated to learn some. I felt and still do feel a little left out and somewhat helpless when it comes to communication. Peopl do not speak English here. Even in some super touristy destinations, people speak Spanish – which is good! Full immersion into the language. The school we were taking lessons at (Michele speaks a high level of Spanish), was called, ´La Monataña´. It was great! There was a maximum size of 4 people per class, which is a great ratio of students to a teacher. School started at 9am and went until 1pm in the afternoon. In my ´class´ there was another woman from Vancouver, a massage therapist, and a guy from NY, who was doing a NOLS trip down south, when he got super sick and had to take a break from a month long sea kayaking adventure. I learned a lot in School, and I have a lot more to learn. We ended up only doing 1 week of school, but I plan on going back for another week or 2 to study more and to stay with a family. Our week in Bariloche was filled. We went hiking after school a couple times, once up Cerro Otto, and another time up Cerro Campanario. After those two little treks, we´ve noticed that people here don´t believe in switchbacks on hiking trails. We bused out to a Swiss colony and walked back 10 ish Km to a bus stop one day. We checked out some chocolate factories, AND their ice creams in town for a day. There is an Argentinean dessert called an Álfajores´, which I have come to love. There is this delicious caramel spread called Dulce del Leche´ (think means sugar or jam of milk), which is hugely popular to combine with baked goods. It is apparently boiled condensed milk. I have gone through 2 jars of it already- it’s delicious with fresh fruit! Michele and I ate Empanadas almost every day for lunch. Yum! I like the food here, however, it is hard to find whole wheat things, and people don´t seem to eat vegetables! Michele had found an Íntegral bakery, where everything was made with oatmeal! It was yummy. South Americans also eat a lot of bread. A lot of white bread. A LOT. One night we went out to a Mexican restaurant with a group of girls to celebrate international women’s day, and I ended up squashed on a bench between a local girl who is a river raft guide, a girl from Ireland and another from England, all who have lived in Bariloche for a while – hah it was an funny night. We also played a game of Fùtbol (soccer) with a bunch of guys in an indoor arena. It was a ton of fun. The field wasinteresting; it was fake grass, with little bits of rubber all over it. At the end of the week, Michele and I spontaneously decided to not continue with school for another week, as we wouldn´t have enough time to do everything we wanted in Southern Patagonia, so we consulted our guide books and bought bus tickets. There is still quite a few things I want to do in Bariloche when I return. There are a couple bike circuits I want to try, and I want to hike up Mnt. Tronodor, an extinct volcano that has 3 icy peaks, and it straddles the Chilean and Argentinain border. Apparently there are lots of Condors up there! (Condor: a massive bird. They are the largest flying land birds in the western Hemisphere, that are vegetarians, and mate for like. ) March 13th We bused to El Bolsòn, a hippy town about 2 hours away from Bariloche, They are known for their outstanding feria artesanañl, a craft market. We spent a day wandering around it checking out the goods. We stayed in this super neat hostel called …. It was an old wooden home. So funky. Michele and I had our first experience getting a ride from a stranger, hah. We had considered hitch hiking a couple times, to get in and out of Bariloche, however most of the time we have deemed it not safe enough. This guy who gave us a ride worked at the hostel, and his little red car was so old! The shift stick went in and out of the dashboard – I don´t know how to describe it, it was neat. Sitting in the front seat I was about 4 inches from the windshield, and we both were super dusty and dirty after riding in the car. It was a funny experience. There is also some hiking in El Bolson I would like to return to do. March 14th We boarded a super deluxe bus for a 26 hour ride down to El Calafate. We had prime seats: the two at the front, at the top of a double-decker bus. It was a LONG ride. Busing is how most people travel in South America. There are so many bus companies. We also got served food, like on an airplane. There are different seats at different prices. The cheaper they get the more upright they are, and the more pricier, the closer they get to full cama (bed). Ok! That’s enough for one blog. Extra tidbits that stick out in my mind:
- Yes the toilets do flush the other way.
- Most of the time, you don´t throw your Toilet paper into the toilet, you put it into a waste basket. I am very bad at this - not throwing your TP into the toilet is a hard habit to break, since I have been doing it my whole life.
- You greet store and shop owners when you enter and leave their stores.
- Don´t thank bus drivers. They think it’s weird.

Old Truck in Elbolson, outside our Hostel, waiting for a bus.

Sunset one night in Bariloche

Me and Michele

Michele lookign out over the Lago

Michele´s blog!

I am cheating a bit... My friend Michele has a blog as well, and is more updated than me. Here is her blog!

mmbourgo.blogspot.com

My first days in Chile!

Welcome to my blog! I wanted to start a blog to keep everyone updated, and also to record my own experiences so I won´t forget them later. Sorry about my bad spelling, the keyboards are differnt here, there is no english spell check I have found yet and I am not the best typer as it is! This first post will be long, my apologies. On February 23rd I flew from Calgary to Tornoto, where I had a 10 hour layover. Then I fley to Santiago, Chile. Santiago is the capital of Chile and is known as a dirty city. I could see the cloud of smog laying over it when we flew in; gross. It was a neat flight, I saw some of the Andean mountain chain, and lots of ocean. I sat next to a VERY old couple that come down every year for ´the past 20 years´ to do some tango dancing. Good for them! I spent the day wandering around Santiago.The next day I bused to Valipariso and Viña del mar for the day. Valipariso is Chile´s prinicpal port, and Vina del mar, is toruisty with nice beaches. This is where Davy Shine is going to study on his exchange. These ocean side cities were pretty neat. They are known as Chiles most vibrants cities. Valipariso was very hilly, with antique ´funiculars´ scattered around the city, whch made wandering up and down its skinny lanes a lot of fun. There is a 10 minute train that connects the two cities which was convientent, and I was able to explore both of them by foot in a day. I went to some markets, went to the beach, saw some HUGE boats and checked out the amazing view. On Friday I bused southernly to Temuco to meet up with my freind Jenny! Jenny and I met in Scotland when I was doing an exchange there. She is from Aland, Scandinavia, and studies in Scotland. She is on an exchange in Chile, doing reseacrh about the Mapuche (the aboriginal people). Its been two years since I have seen her so I was really excited to meet her again and pumped to get out of stinky Santiago. Jenny has been living with a host family in Temuco, who I stayed with as well. The night we met, at about 3:30 in the morning was the earthquake (terremoto). In Temuco it was about a size 7.5 on the ricter scale. I was sleeping upsatirs in a room with Jenny. I thought I was having a bad dream... but I woke up when a picture fell off the wall and onto me. I think I was in shock, as I didn´t move. I couldn`t see anything, but the sound was so strange and horrible and the whole house was dancing around. when I didn´t move from bed, Jenny yelled at me: For Gods Sake Sandy!!! Its and earthquake!! We all got outside, or to doorways safely, and it was over after a minute. Definitly an interesting expereince. There was a lot of aftershocks (even a week after), but mostly minor aftershocks in temuco. ecervy night after then you would wake up for a tiny one. The familys house was well built for such natural disastors and was in one piece, except for a flower vase I believe. We had no runing water or electricity for 2 days. The phones worked and didn´t worked. We had the car radio, but we had no idea how big the earthquake really was. Jenny and I even wondered if it would make international news - should we call home to let peopel know we were alright? We were very lucky, and Temuco was not hard hit, as is not near the ocean. I was very very very happy that I had decided to bus down to Temuco, if not, I would of been stuck in Santiago, which was much worse off. The footage of other locations, such as Conception, Santiago and all of the oceanside towns is really devastating. I felt bad, and feel bad for being a tourist in a now torn apart country. I stayed in Temuco with Jenny for a week, as travel was not adviased unless it was absolutely neccessary. I tried to learn and study as much spansh as I could. We went for many walks about town, and hung out with the family and all thier childeren and grandchildren! Family is super important here. It was really a great expereince being with the family. I think I have a more accurate view of life in Chile now becuase of that. The ´mom´blew my mind. She was so imaticulate I almsot thoguth she had OCD, but apparently thats just the way women are here, as a lot of them are house wives. The hardest thing for me are the meals! breakfast is tiny and at 10, lunch is huge and at 1-2 and dinner is toast with avacado and tomatoes! Also, the verbal harrassment women walking on the street revcieve is almost childish. Men whistle, yell compliments, wave and try to say hi. Buses (even public ones!) honk at you, and some cars even have ´WheeWhoo´ horns built in. It´s so excessive it´s almost funny, but you can´t smile! Smiling at people means you are interested in them. Another thing that took a whle to get used to is all the ´wild´ city dogs. I like to call them the lost boys. There are so many independant and smart city dogs, its strange seeing dogs that are so inteligent. They sleep everywhere too, and mid-day as well. Dogs will be sleeping on the side of the road, or the middle of the park, dogs just everywhere! I sampled ´Pisco Sour´Chile´s popular hard alcohol,a dn went to a massive family BBQ (Asaado) where we all ate too much meat and had too much red wine. It was a good time in Temuco, eve after the earthquake. Anyways! I was getting quite ancy sitting around the house, and talking little walks around town. I was in Temuco for more than a week, and then I bused farther south to Orsono, where I transferred and went to Bariloche in Argentina. I will post pictures soon! :)

Pictures: I don´t know how to flip them on here yet...

A graveyard in Temuco... Apparently Tennents Families pay per month for their remains to rest here.

Terremotto destruction

Supermercardo Maddess after the earthquake

Destruction

More...

yeap, BBqing on a shopping cart

Boats in Valipariso

Cute doggy and colour

So much Delicious Fresh Fruit. YUM