Bariloche, Argentina

We were happy to be back on the Argentinian side of the border, particularily because $$ seems to go much further here than in Chile.  For example, a hostel for one night in Chile is $20 - $25 per night and a burger and fries will run about $7-$9… While in Argentina you can sleep for $10-$12 per night, and for $7-$9 you can be eating steak!!!  Bariloche is set in the mountains near to many ski resorts and all the Euros say it reminds them of being in the Alps, for it seemed a bit like Canmore with a lot more chocolate shops!!.  Corne had gone a couple of days earlier and scoped out a place for us to stay, and gave us a guided tour of all the things to see in the city center. 

Dawne was mostly interested in the chocolate and ice cream shops which were absolutely everywhere.  Eventually we got some ice cream and walked down to lake to enjoy the scenery.  We ended up heading out later that night for a few drinks and didn’t end up getting back to the hostel until around 3 or 4am.  That would have been no issue except for the fact that we had a car rental confirmed the next day for 8:30am.  Before heading to bed, we reminded Corne that breakfast was at 8:00am and that if he wasn’t ready to go for 9am we were leaving without him.  In the morning, I headed off around 9am to pick up the car and left Dawne to pack up our things.  When I returned back to the hostel at 10am with the car, Corne was sitting in the lobby waiting to leave, still with no sign of Dawne.  I felt a little bad when he said he was for us at breakfast since 8:00am.  Oooops!! 

The three of us hopped into our sweet 2 door VW Golf and set off on a 2 day adventure along a 400 km stretch of highway known as the “Ruta de Siete Lagos” (7 lakes road).  It was a good feeling to be in a vehicle of our own on the open road!  A sense of freedom that we’d been missing for quite some time.  We stopped at several lakes along the way to skip rocks, go for a quick swim or just to lie in the sun and take a nap. 

 The 1^st lake and the last lake of the day were definitely the highlites.  The first lake was one of the biggest on the trip and was likely the clearest lake I have ever come across.  The rocks along the beach and in the water were a light granite.  It was incredible to watch them sparkle in the crystal clear calm waters.  The last one was near to the town of San Martin,  where we planned to stay for the night.  We had a great few hours sitting there relaxing and watching the sun reflect off the lake as it set beyond the hills.  After driving a few more km’s to San Martin we found a great place to stay, had dinner and called it a day! 

In the AM we were back in the car heading back in the direction of Bariloche.  The map indicated 2 ways to get back, so we decided that we would take a different road than the one we previously travelled. Great idea, except for the fact that the first 85kms were extremely rough gravel.  Most would think this isn’t much of an issue, but 3 people and 3 heavy backpacks in a VW Golf would disagree!!  Poor car!!  We thought we were going to make it back no problem until we could feel the hard pull to the left and a thump, thump, thump, thump sound starting!  Sweet …..  FLAT TIRE!!!  I guess this would help to answer Dawne’s question from the previous day, “What happens if we get a flat tire?”.  My answer was still the same… “We change it!”  We knew it was going to be a bit tougher than we hoped when we pulled out the rusty jack, with no crank to lift vehicle.  We set the jack and were able to slowly twist the jack with the tire wrench… ¼ turn at a time!!  Wow, this was going to take all day!  One group of tourists in a rental vehicle stopped, but it turned out they were running late for a bus and needed to carry on.  Well, back to the slow turning.  We got it nearly all the way up, just before the jack slipped out and we had to start over!! 

 Lucky for us another fellow who was heading home from visiting his brother stopped and was able to lend us the jack from his rental car.  It’s sure easy to change a tire when you have the right tools!!  After about 10 minutes both us and the friendly Argentian fellow were all back on the road.  We were a little weary that we would encounter a second flat with no spare, but luckily we made it back into town with no problems.   Thank goodness!!  Hopefully our bus ride to Puerto Madryn goes more smoothly!!! 

Pucon, Chile

In high need of some adventure we travelled 738km south to the city of Pucon.  Pucon is located between an ice cold lake and a beautifully shaped active volcano.  This city is known as having quite stable weather and is loaded with students and Chilean families during the months of Jan and Feb. Somehow our luck followed us yet again… and when we arrived in the city at 8am in the morning the weather was crap! It was so cloudy you couldn’t even tell that we were in the mountains! We walked around to look for a hostel but apparently the weather hadn’t scared people off because everything seemed  to be booked up… until we came across Sylvia… a sweet little lady waiting to take us off to her home! The only problem was that her home was like a 3km walk from the town center! It was really cute though and made Corne, David and I feel like we were off at Grandma’s lake cottage! All of the homes in the area are cabins made of logs, which is quite a difference from all of the tin and cement homes we were used to seeing. It was beautiful! Later in the day the sun began to peak through and the wind started to push the clouds away.  We went for a long journey into the town center and had to reassure each other that we were in Pucon and had not taken an overnight bus ride to Banff! 

We set off to booking a tour up the gorgeous Villarrica Volcano. The photos at all of the tourist agencies looked amazing with lava and molten rock gashing out the top!  After talking to a few agencies we booked our 7hr trek for the following morning  and spent the rest of that day touring the city in style, on a pedal bike. I ran into a few curbs avoiding busses and Dave ended up getting pretty dirty having to fix my bike... OPPPS!

Waking up at 6:30am proved to be incredibly difficult for David and I as we have broken our last electronic item that we brought on our trip and haven’t had an alarm clock for a couple of weeks…. Which means that we’ve slept in every single day since then! I have no idea what we’re going to do when we get home!  We did manage to drag ourselves to the tourist agency though and got all geared up for our trek.  I’ve never been on a hike where you needed an ice pic, cramp ons, gaiters, snowpants, a winter jacket , gloves and a helmet, so I started to get a tiny bit intimidated.  Once again our tour group consisted of a bunch of Chilean boys so we knew that we would be entertained throughout the entire upward battle! The drive out to the base of the volcano took about 40mins and I wish I could tell you about the scenery on the way there but we were both so tired that we completely slept through the entire trip!

Once at the base camp we were told that we could either take a gondola up the first part of the volcano and then begin our trek a couple meters up.. naturally I was completely against that idea but when everyone else in our group nodded their heads we were forced into take the trip up as well. As soon as I got on though and peered down at other groups that had decided to make the journey I knew that we had made the right choice! So I would just like to comment on David and my physical conditions at this moment in our trip. We sleep in everyday, wake up, have a big breaky, walk around cities, eat street food snacks all day, have a few ice creams, make our way to a restaurant that then  eat nice big dinners, drink lots of wine and for David, at least 2ltrs of beer each day. We are fat messes and totally out of shape!!! The Chilean boys were pretty much completely opposite of us! The only plus side was that they had gone out the night before and only had one hour of sleep! Back to the hike though. 

The beginning of the hike was dry, on rock and we zig zagged our way up until we hit an old chair lift that was destroyed when the volcano erupted in the 70’s. The view from here was amazing! As we continued upwards the guide forced me to lead the pack with him which slowed down the group, making me feel terrible. Apparently no matter how many beers or ice creams Dave eats he can power through anything, I, on the other hand, found it quite difficult! The hike was straight up with absolutely no flat break parts and our guide refused to take any breaks on the way up. Once we hit the glacier it was even more difficult as you were walking through snow and had to jab your foot in every step to ensure you don’t slip! Man on man did I want to die!

I stopped once and let the boys pass and when the guide turned around and didn’t see my face behind him he was livid and then screamed at me for ten minutes. I then thought about hiring him on as my new personal trainer! Almost as good as Louie back home! We continued up the steep incline for 4.5 persistent hours.  Pretty sure we passed every other tour group on the way up as well! Once we were nearly at the top, the glacier cleared and our climb was then on volcanic rock. The guide explained that if we were to step on a rock and it lost it’s grip we had to scream, “PIERDE” so the groups below could clear the way.  A few times this happened and we watched in amazement at how quickly the rocks flew down the volcano! COOL! Until some idiot from a group coming back down stepped on a rock, forgot to call it and just peered down at us as a huge rock come directly in our pathway, scream at the last second, I looked up, see this rock 3 times the size of me, throw myself on the guide ahead of me as the huge rock hit another rock above me, split into 3, one comes straight for me, another to a Chilean boy and the other down the volcano. Haha sooo much fun!!! Knocked the wind out of both of us but made the adventure so much better! After about another 45mins of trekking, we made it to the crater at the top.

Unfortunately there was way too much sulphur rising and we couldn’t really see into the crater at all but it was still really cool! The views from the top were amazing as well, we were able to see the beautiful mountain range,  3 lakes that were in the area and the town of Pucon and Villarica. After having lunch at the top it was time to make it back down. As the climb was incredibly steep we were starting to get worried as to how we would be able to make it down. The first part was a little bit sketchy edging our way down the molten rock but once we got through that and back on the glacier we noticed these huge cracks in the ice. Our guide then instructed us all to sit in them and slide down! It was insane! The seat of my pants had ripped the previous time so like anyone would do they mended it with some duck tape. Boy was I happy they had that brilliant idea cause I flew down those slides!!! Sometimes it was a bit scary when you would round a corner and there would be an exposed rock that would knock you pretty hard but it made up for it with all the air you caught right afterwards! The ride down only took us about 2hrs. It was pretty awesome! Don’t know if I’ll be climbing any volcanos in the next couple of days (have to let my bum heal) but I would for sure do it again! I’m also pumped that we’re back in adventure mode, it should only get better from here!!!

Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile

We were sad to leave Mendoza and the friendly Argentinian people but excited to experience more of Chile.  We were expecting to arrive in Santiago at 5:00am (with no accommodation booked, as per usual), but luckily we had to wait at the border crossing for an extra 3 hours delaying the journey allowing for a few extra hours of sleep and daylight when we arrived.  The city of Santiago was even more developed and ‘North American’ than the previous cities in northern Argentina. 

Modern skyscrapers dominated the city, while hazy smog hung over the city obscuring the views of the snow capped mountains just outside the city.   Apparently the views from the city are spectacular outside the months of January and February when the heat and smog are at their worst.  We hit the streets again for our usual wonder around to scope out the usual points of interest.  Exciting again for us, but not so much for you readers I suppose.   Sorry about the lack of adventure stories lately!! 

One of our favourite stops in Santiago was the Mercado Central, as well as the Mercado de Flores. 

The Mercado Central was set up indoors with (mainly) seafood/fish vending stalls surrounding an interior area were loads of restaurants served up fresh meals.   Neither one of us are big seafood fans, but the food looked so fresh and appetizing that we were a bit disappointed that we had just eaten before we arrived.   The Mercado de Flores was located on the opposite side of the river and was home to an incredible fruit and vegetable market!  We’ve never seen so much incredible looking produce under one roof anywhere before.    Good thing our hostel had a nice kitchen, as there is no way we were able to leave without stocking up on items to prepare a nice fresh dinner!!

Day 2 in the Capital we ventured out on the cities well developed metro to check out some of the areas too far to walk.  We ended up lost on the way to the mall and stopped in at the nearby Hyatt to ask for a map.  I think we should have stayed there!!!  Wow, perhaps the nicest hotel I’ve ever stepped into.  We looked a little out of place with our flip flops and daypack, but they were still happy to help us out.  After Dawne got her shopping fix at the mega mall we visited an artesian market on the edge of the city.  It was a really cool place which was set up like an old town with shops selling jewellery, crafts, art and other artisanal items.  After we retired back to hostel for the evening to chill out on the rooftop patio for the rest of the evening.   In the am we decided that it was about time that we shed some weight in our bags, as they were getting to be impossible to lift anymore.  We sorted through our items and headed to the post office.  Lucky for us it turned out that Correo Chile was the cheapest mail service so far in South America !!  Hooooray!  You can sure feel when your bag is 12 lbs lighter!  We definitely should have sent a box home ages ago!!  Hopefully it all makes it! 

After lightening the load we ventured up the hill at Parque Metropolitano to the gorgeous outdoor pool overlooking the city.  It was a nice relaxing day and the pool was great to cool off in the hot afternoon sun (sorry  about the crappy winter back home!).   Afterwards we went back to the hostel to look for our Dutch amigo Corneleo, who should have arrived that morning but didn’t show.  We found him and it turns out that he wasn’t as lucky as us in Mendoza, and ended up missing his bus altogether!  God bless that crazy taxi driver we had!! 

In the morning we checked out and headed to the terminal to catch a bus to bus to the nearby ocean town of Valparaiso.  The couple hour bus ride was very pretty as we passed by many wineries through the mountains making our way to the sea.  At the terminal Dawne began talking to a local tour agent who talked for about an hour before we were able to leave.  Nice work!!  

The city of Valparaiso was absolutely amazing!!  It’s an old port town with colourful houses stacked steeply up 40+ hills along the ocean.  In the cities heyday (between 1883 to 1916)they built elevators up the steep hillsides to connect the walking pathways.  The elevators are still in place and many of them still functioning!!  In order to get a better vantage point of the city we headed out in a small boat on a harbour. 

 I was a great way to see the city, however, the highlight of the ride was not the view of the city, but rather that of an angry sea lion roaring and charging towards another tour boat which got too close to the pier where the animals were sleeping. 

 I’ve never seen anything like that in my life and now fully understand why they are called sea ‘Lions’.  Wow!!  We also passed by the Chilean navy ships which were just beyond the harbour.  We spent the evening eating along the beachside and enjoying the sunset. 

The next day we had some time to kill before departing in the evening to our next stop.  We spent the day walking around the city, riding on the elevators and also enjoying the incredible “art” plastered throughout the city.  I use “art” very loosely as it is actually graffiti, some clearly contracted by the companies or homeowners and others clearly not.   I could tell I’m getting old, as I viewed all the works as vandalism, while the youngians (Dawne and Corne) thought they were amazing works of art…. What a lost and confused generation!!  Either way, there’s no doubt that the painters who created the murals were very very talented, particularly SR. Gomez , who was painting by brush for Hostel Bella Vista.  He had painted all the walls, each stair, and even the gutters with sights from the city, complete with waterfalls where the water ran from the top of the stairs to the bottom!!  It was incredible!!!  We were blown away by the character and charm of Valparaiso and would certainly recommend this little gem to anyone ever in nearby Santiago!!

(These are just some of my (Dawne) fav's)

Argentinianin' it

Cordoba- Argentina

Our Aussie friends convinced David and I to follow them to the city of Cordova which was more east than we had intended to travel… we wanted to header to Chile but we found out that one of the largest South American festivals was taking place that weekend..

 How could we pass this up? The festival was called Cosquin Rock and even though all of the bands were Spanish and we had absolutely no idea who any of them were (no, Enrique or Shakira were not playing) we decided that there was no way we could pass up the opportunity to partake in it!

We arrived in Cordoba Friday morning and we took it fairly easy, walking around the city to find Dave a deep V Argentinian T-Shirt to match his mullet and some new kicks to complete his rockin’ outfit. Soooo much fun for me… haha no, I much prefer shopping with Nikkers! Anyways, we got back to our hostel later that night and made ourself a nice little dinner and sipped some Mendozian wine until the hostel owner came around and insisted that he taught us a new card game called Mushroom… except it was a drinking game… and all I had was wine… It was awful!!! Not quite the way I had intended to finish off my lovely white! The next morning I woke up 5 times in a mad sprint to the washroom. At first I thought it may have had something to do with the wine chugging but after the fifth time and a feeling of death came over me I decided it was something more… I crawled back to our 5 person dorm and woke David up telling him I was dying and then fell onto the balcony floor. Pretty sure Dave has never gotten out of bed that quickly in his life! David helped me back to the washroom and we decided that we had to go to the hospital.. He left me in the hallway while he got his stuff together when one of the hostel workers came up the stairs to find me laying across the hall, pale, sweaty and unable to move ! Haha probably a pretty funny sight! He ran downstairs and called a doctor to make his way to the hostel. Pretty good service if you ask me! Except that when the doctor arrived he just kinda looked at me, felt my forehead and told me I had a virus and then wrote me a long list of medication I needed… Good doctor skills! But somehow he didn’t charge us a thing and later that day after popping 12 pills I magically felt better! Good thing because the concert was that night and there was no way I could miss the list of artists I had never heard of!

Cosquin Rock was actually located about 40km out of town in a huge valley surrounded by mountains, it was beautiful! The drive out took us a tad bit longer than expected though, about 3hrs… Apparently a lot of other people were headed out there too! We got to the valley around 9pm and watched a few reggae bands, a rock band and Charlie Garcia, an Argentinian legend!

 He played the piano like it was nobody’s business and although he was probably 70yrs old he knew how to rock a show! It was a really neat cultural experience and I’m pumped we got to take part in it! We danced up a storm and screamed and cheered with all the other Argentians around us! It was a blast and once again, we were blown away with how friendly Argentinians were, they would strike conversations with us right, left and center . It was great! The whole experience was really cool, being out in that setting with a clear night’s sky, thousands of stars above us, nicest people in the world and great music. Will have to do it again sometime!

Mendoza- Argentina

Another night bus… Another city !!  We arrived in Mendoza early in the morning with only a couple of things on our minds;  a pool, some loungers and some local wine from the region which has made Argentina famous as a producers of Malbecs!  Turns out, these were 3 very simple demands in this place and within just over an hour of arriving, we were at a hostel, lazin’ in the 30 degrees sun by the pool with the wine waiting for us!! What a tough life!!

The front of the hostel had a great pen air restaurant we wined and dined when we needed a small break from the sun.  The resto / hostel was located along the major strips of restaurants, pubs,  discotecs and trendy shops located along a wide 2 lane street with perfectly placed trees, shrubs and plants.  It reminded us a lot of Whyte Avenue in Edmonton ( expect it was way nicer not having to explain to all the people who lived there how winning a series of championships 20 years ago doesn’t make their hockey team any better today!)

Being Valentine’s Day, we had planned on heading out for a nice dinner in the evening, but our plan was foiled when we were talked into signing up for the all you can eat BBQ at the hostel instead.   We met plenty of fun people, had a great meal, and headed out on the town with the other 14 people staying in our dorm. That’s right, a 14 person dorm room…  Definitely our biggest yet, but it wasn’t all that bad!

After calling in sick on Monday morning (ooops, forgot, we don’t need to do that on holidays!!) and sleeping in we had a quick snack before embarking on an incredible adventure to the massive park on the west part of the city.  Before leaving we noticed Corne, a dutch boy who had joined us to Cosquin Rock near Cordoba, sleeping in one of the beds in the dorm and convinced him to join us.  We had heard from some other travellers that there was a pretty good zoo located in the park so we figured we should check it out.  We had a map and knew roughly where to go but a few wrong turns and a series of hopeful shortcuts turned our 30 minute stroll into a 3 hour march in the blazing heat with only enough water for the first 45 minutes.  Corne was really impressed with our navigational skills and wasn’t shy about letting us know, lucky for me being from Southern Alberta I had plenty of Dutch jokes to send back his direction!  We never did make it to the zoo as it was getting pretty late and we needed to meet a few local boys (who we climbed Machu Picchu with) for dinner.  Oh well, it was still a nice walk!

The next day we decided to explore the local wineries only a few minutes outside of Mendoza.  Corne forgave us for the zoo / park debacle and joined us.  A short cab ride took us to a place called Mr. Hugo’s bikes, where there give you a map of area with the wineries highlighted and a bike to get from winery to winery.   What a brilliant business idea!  Dawne spotted a sweet tandem bike hiding in the back and made sure that no one else stole it!! It was a bit tough to ride but man did we look cool!! 

 Our first stop on the tour was at a wine museum which exhibited the old fashion ways to make wine, it was ok, but the descriptions solely in Spanish which made it a bit tough to figure out.  Of course there were some samples on the way out the door which made it all worthwhile!!  Next on the list was a chocolate, olive and liqueur shop, where for a small price we were able to sample all of the above plus bread dips and marmalades.  They weren’t shy on the liqueur samples either and allowed us to try many different kinds ranging from chocolate to dulce de leche (like caramel) with banana and chocolate chips.  Yum!! 

 They also had 76% absent which after checking our watches to see if it was noon yet, we couldn’t pass up.  There was also a quick tour that explained the growth and production of olives and olive oil, as well as balsamic vinegars.   Very educational I must admit!!  We considered paying again and going on the 1pm tour as well, but we decided we should carry on instead.  We hopped back on the bikes and very carefully made our way to the next winery, “Trapiche”.  This was one of the nicest wineries in that particular area, so we made this the location of our guided tour and sampling. The estate was beautiful and they were just getting ready for the 2011 harvest. 

 We were able to walk into the vineyard and eat the ready grapes right off the plants!  The grapes were great and the wines that we sampled at the end of the tour were even better!  At this point in the day it was getting fairly apparent that food might be a good idea.  We heard through the ‘grapevine’ (Zing!!!  That was a good one huh?) that the Tempus Alba winery had great steaks and good views so we let our friend Corne lead the way.  Apparently the Dutch are bad with directions as well, as Corne took us in the completely wrong direction and it took an extra half hour getting there.  It was worth it though and we had dinner on their terrace overlooking the vineyard with the surrounding mountains as the backdrop.  

 We made that the last stop on the tour, returned the bikes and took the bus back into town to get ready for our 10:30pm bus departure.  We nearly missed the bus socializing with one of our friends from Mendoza.  Lucky for us we had a cab driver who drove like a rally car racer and got us to the terminal with 2 minutes to spare!!  That was close…. Off to Santiago!!

Hitchin' a ride !! San Pedro to Salta

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

The next place on our trip was San Pedro de Atacama, located in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile.   For those of you who didn’t know, the Atacama Desert is the driest desert in the world… Oddly enough, it rained both nights we were there, weird!  On our last tour in Bolivia, we had met a few friends who we were now travelling with, the Kiwis, Chris and Paul, and the Aussies, Jeremy and Ellalouise.  Our plan was to stay in this town only for one or two nights, and then continue on to Argentina.  It seemed like a great idea, until we realized that there are only a few buses each week to Salta, Argentina and the next open seats were on Sunday, bad news is, it was Monday !  We tried a few other places but eventually realized there was no way out for 6 nights!  We talked it over amongst ourselves and decided that we didn’t want to wait until Sunday (particularly because every business in town knows you’re stuck and the prices certainly reflect it… can you say ridiculously overpriced?)  We needed to come up with a plan !!! 

THE GREAT PLAN:

1)      Hire a van from a tourist company to drive the 6 of us to the border crossing into Argentina. 

2)      Cross the border on foot.

3)      Take a van / taxi / bus or whatever was available at the border to the closest town in Argentina (this should be no problem according to the van we hired)

4)      Finally, catch a larger bus to Salta, Argentina which would be our final destination.

It seemed like a rather simple task at the time of planning, and we figured it might even be quicker than the direct bus, which was scheduled to take 12 hours.

As I mentioned before, the plan seemed really great on paper but we were still a bit nervous, seeing as we knew nothing about the border or the towns we were heading to.  Nonetheless, we went for it.  Things started off pretty good, and we headed off on our journey at 8:30am.  After waiting an hour at the immigration office for our exit stamp, the van began the 2 hours journey to the actual border.  Once we were near the border, the driver pulled over and dropped us (and all of our luggage) 3 km prior to the actual crossing.

  Apparently he was not allowed to get any closer without getting in trouble.  So, we started our walk down the hill towards the office and soon noticed a bit of an issue… The office was in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and there didn’t appear to be any taxis or mode of transport to take us anywhere.  At the border, there were long line ups of people from the large inter-country bus companies completing their immigration papers.  We asked around to a few people working there to see if they knew of any way to get to the next town, but we figured out from their expressions that this was not going to be easy.  Many of the people actually asked us, “If you didn’t get here on a bus, how did you get here?”  You could imagine their faces when we told them we walked!!

They stamped our passports and wished us luck as we continued walking out the door into Argentina.  What to do now??  We saw a gas station a little ways down the road and hoped that maybe they would be able to help us out, so we started walking again.  The gas station attendant informed us that the town which we were told would be easy to get to was actually 125kms away, and there was no way to get there without your own car.  In the station was also a little café, and a few of the locals must have figured that 6 gringos, with all their bags on their backs, looking tired in the middle of nowhere without a car was not a normal situation.  I explained our predicament to one man and his family, and they immediately wanted to help.  Unfortunately they were heading the wrong direction, but the man wanted to help, so we went outside and he helped me to ask a few truckers if they were willing to give us a ride.  All of the truckers were very friendly and interested in helping out, but unfortunately all of their vehicles were full of family members already.  I was beginning to become discouraged until one of the others came out from the café with a big grin!   Apparently, another man who was driving a courier / cargo truck overheard my earlier conversation and offered to help.  It was truly perfect.  He was on his way home to a town only a couple of hours from Salta, and he had no cargo in the truck!!  

Dawne and the other girl in the group joined our new Amigo in the front, while the 4 boys jumped in the back with all the luggage, getting comfy for the 4 hour drive ahead of us.  I don’t know much about the scenery of the trip after that because there were on 2 dirty rear windows in the back part of the delivery truck.  What  I do know is that the road was very windy as we rolled from side to side on the floor with the luggage with each corner.  Every now and then the driver would pull over an let us out to show us some amazing scenery and tourist attractions in the area including a (dry) salt flat and a seven colour mountain.  Dawne tells me the scenery was amazing the entire way with many different types of landscapes.  I think it must have been really amazing judging from all the ‘ooohs’ and ‘awwwws’ coming from the girls in the front, leaving us boys in the back to only imagine what was out there.  

After the 4 hour ride in the cargo van, we arrived in San Salvador.  The man dropped us off at the bus station and wished us the best with rest of our travels.  We tried to pay him some money for the ride, but he would not accept anything from us.  We ended up stuffing a small amount of money into his shirt pocket and thanked him for the ride.  Honestly, this man was an absolute SAINT!! The girls said he was talking the whole way, telling them about the area and his family. He had apparently been working since 8am the previous morning so I think he was happy to have some company on the long road home.  Without him, we would have likely been in some big trouble at the border and would have had to pay big money for a lift.  We were very lucky that he was at that café at that moment!!

From San Salvador it was a comfy 2 hour bus ride to Salta!  We were all pretty pleased that our plan had worked and we ended up only taking one hour longer than the direct bus would have been…. Not bad, not bad!!

Salta- Argentina

We woke up in Salta after a well-deserved rest, checked off hitchhiking on our ‘To-Do’ list and set out to explore.  We were amazed when we set out and realized that we were back in some serious civilization.  After spending our last days in the desert and Bolivia we started to forget about most modern luxuries.  Stepping into Argentina was like entering a whole new world.  A modern(ish), built up city with large free flowing streets, trendy shops, beautifully maintained parks and fancy restaurants!!   It was certainly not what we were used to.  We did the usual walk around tour of the city with the highlight being a climb up to the mirador on top of the hill which offered spectacular views of the entire city and outlying region. 

 Later in the evening (and by later I really mean LATE, people eat dinner between 10pm and midnight!) we met up with the rest of our travelling gang and ventured out to try the amazing Argentinian steaks that everyone who had been there had been raving about.  We picked out a place and jumped into 2 separate cabs; Chris, Paul and I in one cab and Jeremy, Ellalouise and Dawne in the other.   Dawne’s cab took off and our driver followed closely behind for the ride for just a few blocks.  The cabs stopped and pointed to a restaurant across the street with a Coke~Cola sign that said Jacks!  It surely didn’t look anything like the ‘fancy’ steakhouse we were looking for.  Chris, Paul and I informed our dirver that this could not be the right place, and he radioed in for help and within a few seconds we were back on the road assuming Dawne’s cab was following along.  Chris, Paul and I got to the restaurant after a ten minute drive (which seemed a bit odd to us, as it was only 10 blocks away on the map) and grabbed a table, started munching on the complimentary bread and dips, and ordered a bottle of wine.  After several more minutes we noticed the address number on the door was #1445, which was a far way off from the number on the flyer we had given the cab driver, #139… Perhaps a hint as to why the other cab had not yet arrived after more than 10 minutes.  We flagged down the Mesero and asked him if they had moved locations recently.  He let us know that they had not moved, but that the location we were at was much newer and nicer than their other location, at #139.   Uh-oh!!  It turns out that Dawne, Jeremy and Ellalouise were at the other location, which was actually the place where we had stopped earlier!  We had the waiter call the first location and tell Dawne to come to the other place.  Just a small mix-up to kick the night off! 

The restaurant was amazing, and by far the best food we’ve had since arriving in SA.  The menu was all from the BBQ, and we all went for the local speciality ‘Bife de Chorizo’…. No idea what it means, but it’s known as one of the best steaks in Argentina.  We had one heck of a time trying to explain how we wanted our steaks done, using all kinds of hand motions, and colourful expressions that made no sense to any of the locals or waiters.  At one point, we had nearly the entire staff at our table trying to sort out what we wanted.  After failing miserably for at least 5 minutes and having plenty of laughs, they brought out one of the chefs to help out.  He walked up to the table and in nearly perfect English said “Would you like it well, rare or medium rare”…  Haha, where was this guy for last 10 minutes?? 

Going into this place we had incredibly high expectations from what we had heard, and it certainly did not disappoint.  For $12 per person, we each had a melt-in-your mouth steak, as many grilled veggies as you could ever want, loads of breads and dips, and 3 bottles of wine to share (and good wine at that!!  I suppose being near Argentina’s largest wine region helped out!!)  It was great!!! 

After dinner (just after midnight) we headed to the party district for some drinks.  The area was huge, 3 or 4 complete blocks of just pubs, bars, and discotecs!  Salta is known for it’s night life, mostly due to the fact that the city boasts 7 Universities! 

 However, it was fairly quiet as it was summer holidays and a Monday night.  Either way we had a blast sipping random drinks on a patio until 2am, then crossing the street for a late night bowling match until 3:45am (I really think Dawne and I need to brush up on our our bowling skills!) and then heading to the dance club, which was just starting to get going.  Dawne and I packed it in just after 5am, but I have a suspicion that the locals carry on well into the morning!

Bolivia... Come and Gone !!

Ever since entering Bolivia we have been on the go… We have been planning to blog ever since we got here but found too many good excuses to avoid it! I have to warn you that before you start reading this, it’s pretty long, and probably boring since it’s me, Dawne, having the privilege of updating again….

It all started in Cococabamba. I will always remember this little town as the place where I debated killing David. When we had read about it in the Lonely planet, it sounded lovely…. But it was anything but that! David and I realized that we take for granted all of the beautiful lakes that are within 30km of Calgs. This town was reviewed as having incredible views of Lake Titikaka surrounded by mountains. First off, it was freezing cold, rained and hailed every day, the people were grumpy and hated tourists even though without tourism their town probably wouldn’t exist, it was PACKED because of a festival and we couldn’t find anywhere to sleep, the ATM was not working  and there were no banks open because of the holiday so we couldn’t eat or basically do anything…  Thinking back, hating David probably had something to do with all that! Not to go into too much detail but now that I picture the whole scene we must have looked ridiculous! We walked around town for 2hrs with both our big backpacks, two small ones, an art case and a huge Asian bag filled with presents, yelling at each other at the top of our lungs as we passed all the locals! Felt good though! We ended up finding a dump on the other side of town and camped out for a few nights, watching Dexter in order to come up with clever ways of dealing with each other! Somehow we made it out alive and decided that we had to give Bolivia another chance in La Paz, fitting as it means, peace.

After a long bus ride we booked into Wild Rover, a hostel that we had heard great things about. We had a great night’s sleep and woke up to see our 3 English friends for breakfast. It was such a great surprise seeing our boys! We decided that we were going to take advantage of all that this huge city had to offer and booked a tour for the following morning to go down death road on bicycles.  Not gunna lie, if we had planned this trip a few days earlier I probably would have been really excited but seeing as the majority of my anger towards David had left, I started to get worried about him seeing how his last bike trip went but he assured me he wouldn’t be stupid and take his time down the road. The ride started at an altitude of 4600m. It was freezing cold, snowing and cloudy but pretty cool!

The first part of the ride was on a paved road which was a good way to get used of how to control your bike and what not. David was doing just great! The road continued until you reached a dirt road, this was a little tougher and we had heard horror stories from some individuals we had met at the hostels of hitting a rock and crashing down, so I was on my guard!  About 15km down the road our group stopped for a little lunchtime snack at a shack on the side of the road in order to keep our energy up. We then continued down the track until one of the guide’s stopped us and told us that the group was going to divide into a fast group and a slow group… Guess what David picked? I worried 90% of the rest of the way that he would get his macho head on a refuse to ride sensibly and lose control of the bike..  The road was about 10m across and we were advised that the roads were still in use of local traffic  so we should stay to the left side…  1000m cliff side…. I tried to keep my gaze up! It was incredibly beautiful though, for sure a top 10 scenery on this trip. My favourite part was coming around a corner to a view of 4 massive waterfalls thundering over the cliff above us.

 I stopped with a few of the slow people to take some photos and awe at the view.  Afterwards we continued down around the next corner to be greeted by the fast group. I got off my bike and asked David and our English mates how they were enjoying the view and they told me the only view they had seen was the rocks in front of them as they raced down the hill! They had a blast though so all was good! The trip ended at an altitude of 1200m and it was boiling hot! Perfect way to end the trip, a few bottles of beer and the sun beating down on you.  We then made our way to a little hotel up on the hill for a buffet lunch, swimming in a murky pool and lounging in hammocks. All was great until we piled into the tour van and started to drive away and a Swedish girl on our tour realized she didn’t have her wallet with her passport, all her money and bank cards… Way to go Sweed.  After about 3hrs of searching the wallet was never recovered. We all felt horrible for her... worst end to the day ever!  We were also getting more and more worried about the drive home in the dark… We made it though and decided we should probably buy the girl a few shots.  The altitude in La Paz is crazy and after only 2 drinks David and I were wasted. Sorry mom… It was the altitude though!!! 

Tour #2 was a Pampa’s Jungle Trek in eastern Bolivia heading out of a town called Rurrenabaque. We had two options of getting there, a 30hr bus ride or a 40min flight. Based on our last flight I tried desperately to convince Mel, Digs, Clark and David to get their adventure on and go for a bus ride but somehow they chose to ignore me and book the flight. As soon as I walked into the airport my stomach turned and I was near vomiting. I was scared CRAPLESS! The plane was a 12 seater and you could see directly into the cockpit, pretty knarly dude!

 It was a lot smoother than I had anticipated as well so I could enjoy the mountain view on the way there. The tour started the following morning in an old school Jeep for a 4hr ride to the deep jungle on a bumpy dirt road. There were 8 of us on the tour, our English boys (Mel, Digs & Clark) an Irishman (Kearan) and two Kiwi’s (Paul & Chris) We were really fortunate to have a great group because I think otherwise we would have hated our lives! Not trying to be negative but this tour was death.... by mosquitoes. I have never been more irritated by anything in my life (well maybe David but still) They were everywhere and anywhere and made it incredibly hard to enjoy the trip. The best parts of the tour was when we were in the long canoe motor boat searching for animals because the mossies couldn’t keep up.

 We saw tons of animals though, crocs, turtles, tucans, weird birds, dolphins, ant eaters, howler monkeys and these other tiny cute monkey guys. We were also supposed to see anacondas and went hunting for them on day two through the pampas which is kind of like walking through corn. It was a pain in the ass, wet and there was a chance that we would come across vipers and cobras and oh we didn’t have to worry about the crocs because we were wearing rubber boots and they wouldn’t be able to get through???? It was really funny seeing photos now but in the moment we hated our lives especially since we were told there was only a 5% chance we would see one! Our odds only got better that day when we went Parana fishing to hear that they hadn’t been caught all season! Good news was when we came back to camp we got to eat… except for we were sure that it was secretly a fat camp because they served us the tinniest portions of crap food.  Really though, I would recommend this tour because if you’re put in a good group you can play 500 for countless hours. Oh I almost forgot some of the best parts, there were 2 crocs that lived in our camp, there was a family of bats that slept all day above our bedroom door and Mel and my bed was infested with bed bugs! Haha, best tour ever!

Tour #3: Potosi Mines. By far the best tour I have ever been on. This tour was a culture shock and made me appreciate everything that I have back home. I recommend watching, “The Devil’s Miner” which was filmed in the same mine we visited. Somehow we stumbled across a tour group that was operated by 4 ex-miners that had an incredible passion for the industry. Our guide was hilarious and explained that the only way to make it in the mining industry is to be good humoured and joke around with everyone that you would meet along the way… In light of this he called our group, “The Donkey Fuckers” (again, sorry mom)

  The tour started off in the mining market where we bought dynamite, yes dynamite, soft drinks and coca leaves for the miners. They can work in the mines for up to 30hrs at a time and are unable to eat when they are working as it’s soooo dusty and would get contaminated and make them ill so they chew on coca constantly. We decided to give it a try as well but I but up the coca too small and ended up making a mess of myself. David chewed the coca the entire time though and had a lovely green smile at the end of our tour.  The mine that we went in was approx. 400yrs old and had some of the largest tunnels, which weren’t big at all… we had to crouch 90% of the time.  It was really tough to breath as you got further in, it was sooo dusty and really hot.  The miners were in the search for silver but extracted it in combinations of other minerals which they then had to refine.  The work was hard, David tried to help the miners by moving one bag for them and couldn’t do one more!

 The bags are about 40kg and the miners are moving them all day long. As we were walking our guide stopped a boy that was 16yrs old to ask him a few questions. Our guide translated that the boy had been working in the mine for 2yrs already, he had quit school and worked full time here, when our guide asked why the boy explained that both of his parents had passed away and he had 4 sisters and 8 brothers that he had to help support. We all felt like crying. As tough as their lives are, the miners that we met along the way were so positive and seemed sincerely happy. They had resisted the Spaniards and had maintained their culture, religion and language and were very proud of it. David and I left Potosi having a huge appreciation for these hard working Bolivians and admired them incredibly.

Tour #4: Salt Flats- Theme song of trip: Fleetwood Mac- Tell me lies.  Paul, Chris, David and I decided to go with a more expensive tour agency and we recognized the importance of an English guide, a comfy transportation mode, a clean bed and good food.  The salesman of our tour was incredible and basically told us we would have the time of our lives and all of our deepest desires would be fulfilled. He mentioned that we would probably be the only 4 people in the jeep as we booked the morning of and there was no one else around so we would have lots of room and just really enjoy ourselves. We were pumped. After having breakfast and returning to the agency we met our driver and an Argentinian couple that had arrived out of nowhere.  We later found out that they were from the first tour agency that we had went to, which was a heck of a lot cheaper but they didn’t have an English guide so hey whachagunnado?

Upon arriving at the train graveyard we realized that our guide’s English was a tiny bit in the lacking department… He knew how to say, “OK Mister” haha The train graveyard was neat, trains that were fabricated in the 1800 and abandoned at the site in 1910. We climbed up on them and explored the decomposing rusty engines. Afterwards we headed back into town to pick up the trip’s highlight, the lunch lady. She got to ride shotgun the entire trip so naturally we all hated her.  The rest of the first day was incredible. We visited the Saltflats and were able to sit ontop of the Jeep on the way in. It was AMAZING!  We were lucky that it was wet season because it looked soooo cool with the water ontop of the salt reflecting the mountains and clouds. We took about 1000 photos. 

This was the highlight of our trip and totally worth all of the sweet little lies. That night we made our way to a town in the middle of the desert where we were supposed to be spending the night only to find 30 Jeeps circling the town ahead of us looking for accommodation as well! Our driver was asking little kids on the street where they lived to see if we could spend the night! So organized this tour agency was.  We ended up having to drive for another 2hrs to the next town in hopes of them having room for us.  The hostel ended up exceeding our expectations and David and I even got out our room! Bad news was that on the way there, the last Jeep in our tour group got stuck in the mud and all our our food was in the back. The food wasn’t served until midnight! We decided that it could only get better from here. The next day we woke up to see the scenery of the town around us, we were in the middle of these crazy deserty rock formations and there was half of an airplane right above our hostel, apparently it had been in a bad tornado a few years previous.  Day two we saw more of the crazy rock formations, a green lagoon filled with flamingos and beautiful snow covered mountains. That evening we were lucky to drive in and find accommodation right away. We played tons of cards, ate some delicious food and stayed up until the lights went out, it was lot’s of fun!  Day three we were awoken by 4am in order to get a good glimpse of the sunrise. It was lovely except for I slept through it…  Saw some huge geysers that we were able to walk around on (real safe) then  went to some natural hot springs out in the middle of the desert. It was really cool! Nicest hot springs I have ever been to. Had some breaky and then explored the red and white lagoons. In the end we were really satisfied with everything that we were able to do and see on this tour  and were really lucky that we were a good group with a good sense of humour and ability to deal with the lunch lady!