Chile!?!

Well i know i said i wasn't going to chile, But from Bariloche i headed to Mendoza, which i realised as i browsed my lonely planet, was just too ridiculously close to chile not to go, just a 10 hour bus ride. The drive through the andes to get to valparaiso is stunning, and that alone was worth heading over there.

I didn't go to santiago, because wiord on the street is, unless u stay with locals while ur there, it's not that great and i already felt pressed for time, so first to valparaiso on the coast, and then up to san pedro de atacama. Valparaiso is an odd town, nested right next to uber glossy vina del mar, another seaside town, it is the grubby sister. And notoriously dangerous. For some reason i stayed in the worst part of town, and felt quite unsafe for the first day. When i finally explored the town properly, and walked for at least an hour away from my hostel, i relaxed, a bit, and saw that it does have some character after all. There is an outdoor art exhibition of sorts, where local artists have grafittied and painted murals all over the houses that are nestled up the hill around the town, but again, still not safe. i met a girl who was very sneakily mugged and other stories of that nature keot reaching me, so i didn't takew so many pics, which is a shame. I keep thinking i should have taken more pics in rio too, but i guess my mental pics will have to do!



I left valparaiso pretty quickly and took a day bus up the coast of chile, which was so attractive and constantly changing. Rocky cliffs to sandy plains, to little shacks on the beaches.
San pedro de Atacama, or sp if u will, is a tiny town of about 12 blocks hewn from sand in the middle of the atacam desert in northern chile. A lot of people go from here up into Bolivai on a 4 day tour to see the salt flats. Knowing how ridunculously freezing at night (it hits -25degs) it would be at that time of year, i decided instaed to see all the marvels of the area surrounding the salt flats as seperate day trips. Good decison. I saw some fabulous things, underground caverns, sand dunes, boiling geysers bursting from the ground, hot springs at freezing o clock in the morning (never taken my clothes of so fast, or put them back on so quickly after either, brrrrrrrrrrrrr) salt lakes and lagoons, desert for miles and a lake so salty, that when u swim in it, u float, because of the hifgh salt concentration, zero gravityesque and quite surreal. Plus my nipples nearly fell off from the cold, jesus. Painful is not the word. But worth it : )

The geysers were so hot, we boiled our eggs and our milk in them for our brekkie!!!

sun rising over the steaming geysers

I was with a good group of people as well, met some lovely quebecois girls and had many mini adventures, including the best hot chocolate i've ever had, and a mild flirtation with a hunky man in the coffee shop who talked to me about dostoevsky, all very refined...just like me...ahem. Oh and did i mention itr was f***in freezing! I built my first fire from scratch (go me!) just so i wouldn't succumb to hypo.

There was a mini adventure in the hostel where an 18yr old english boy was so wasted, he wet himself. I've told this story to others and it seems to be quite common... boys, come on. And the poor europeans and argentinians in his dorm room were horrified, he was standing there, swaying, covered in pee...

And then i left, replete with all the beautiful things i had seen, back to argentina, to my last stop there, Salta, a town near the border of Bolivia, winding all the way back, through the andes...


More Photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137889&id=222304166&l=8da26936f9

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http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=137894&id=222304166&l=0730e573ce

Bbbbbbbbariloche, Bert and dulce de leche!

Bariloche is a swiss german style town in the 'lake district' of southern argentina. Nestled on the shore of one of 7 lakes, if this scenery doesn't blow u away, u are officially dead inside. The hostel we went to (logan and i went together) is in the only block of towers in this lovely town. Built in some phase of madness when for the briefest period, the building laws dictating building hieight were lifted (in the 60s of course), Bariloche's only concrete tower block stands right next to it's quaint little square. Someone has bought up 3 suites of the hostel on the side over looking the lake, and turned it into hostel 1004. It's the best hostel i've stayed in.

view from the hostel lounge

There's no TV for one thing, thank goodness, and there just a feeling of being home, which creates a wonderful atmosphere. Warm rugs and comfy sofas, huge kitchen and big sociable dining tables. And everyone who was there absorbs the vibe and enjoys the mellow style. We sat around drinking and talking, playing cards and listening to this huge argentinian red haired finnish looking rock giant delicately strumming the guitar with a local who always wore a cravat (jealous much, bruce?) We couldn't believe the giant was argentinian it was strange hearing him speak spanish when u expected him to always speak with at least a scottish accent. What a sweetheart.

And then i met chris. Oh christopher. English, soon to be army nutter who loves dulce de leche and hiking up hills with at least 20kg on his back and can eat more than anone i've ever met, he's literally my dustbin. I've had one io pretty much each city. Nils in BA, Toby in Bolivia, Will in Peru, but Chris is far and away the winner.( The most irritating thing, is all these guys are skinny as! Bastards! Clear male-oriented metabolic favouritism, cheers god. Grrrr.) Love him to bits, but absolutely mental. On a similar note, he never took a taxi in south america till he started hanging out with me.What? (I may have gone a bit nuts with the taxis though, cos they're soooo cheap, love it.)

We hired a car one day and 5 of us went driving all around the lakes. I'll be honest, by lake 5 i was pretty much done, but logan and chris took about a million photos, while miriam bert and i chilled out in the car. That's the other thing, chris has an abundant supply of energy...like a 6ft puppy...nutter. So while we lazed in the car, he was running all over the place. Gonna steal his photos on fb :) Miriam is a gorgeous dutch girl, with the cutest accent, the boys must go nuts for her. She tried to teach us this ridiculous dutch card game called tuper (spelling?) which was unecessarily complicated for a wine drinking session, but it trurns out i'm brilliant at it, even though i do not understand the rules at all. Brill. And then there's Bert. Such a character. He's a 40 something liberal catholic bostonian living in san fran, 1 of 11 siblings, pot-smoking, soon-to-be bar owner. He sold his house to pay for his travels, but instaed of selling all his furniture, TV etc, he just put it all out on the porch and put up a sign saying 'free stuff' ...what!?! Damn hippy city : ) PLus, he's taken so much pot, and more i imagine, he finds sitting still for too long quite hard, i think the car ride was quite tough on him, though he kept a constant flow of stories going the whole way. Funny guy.

Bert and Chris...nuff said

: )

I had a brilliant time here, had my first fondue ever (yum), and loved everyone i met. There was a party at the hostel for the mysterious owner who lives in the mountain, and we happened to have a proffesional chef staying at the hostel, travelling with his gf, double yum, and of course there was copious amounts of wine and cheese and limbo, naturally. I really didn't want to leave, but i[d already spent nearly 2 months in argentina at this point, it was getting ridiculous, so off i went, further north, to Mendoza, wine country...

(I must also mention that the skies and sunsets in patagonia and around are unbelieavable. There[s so much fklat land and i guess because we[re so far south, the skies...oh the skies. There's something special about the clouds too, u see feathery flurries draped across the sky and can be so transparent, yet catch the light in unexpected ways. Sunsets can seperate suddenly into blues and pinks and golds. Wow. )

I climbed a glacier!!!

I may have got a teensy bit behind on my blog, ahem... but here i go!

El calafate`s also in patagonia, and looks a lot like how i imagine old west settlements to be. little wood cabins thrown together on wild plains, windy is not the word. But of course, more snow capped mountains in the distance. To get there from ushuaia required cutting through chilean patagonia and back again, which meant about 6 immigration stops, but the scenery made up for it, plus i saw my first llamas, yey! We also had to cross the straight of magellan, which is the stretch of water that runs through patagonia, connecting the pacific and the atlantic and it`s beautiful and wiiiiiiindy, cartoon windy, blow u off the boat windy. We saw some funny looking baby orca-esque dolphins and turquoise grey waters, with pebbled shores.

The centre, if u can call it that, is gross. Too touristy, all fake wood fronting on the shops and a bohemith casino, blurgh. Plus i got pick pocketed, so double blurgh... I did meet some quality people though. And some tools. Brendan who always eats everyone else`s food and ihas a grant for a fellowship and his thesis is about computer hacking, so he`s basically paid to travel around the world going to hacker conferences and talking all sorts of brilliant people. He spoke to some German ex-SS soldiers who explained thatr cutting someone`s throat isn`t as easy as they make it look in the movies, u really have to get in there with the knife and power through all the muscle in there...nice. And then there was logan from arizona, who`s essentially a decent guy, but grew up with 4 brothers and i`m guessing a super mum, because he never pays attention when a woman talks to him. He listens sort of, but as though ur not saying anything of importance. If it`s a guy, he`s all ears, but i watched him talking to the girls in the hostel and he just doesn`t pay attention, infuriating and bizarre! Though he`s the first person i`ve met ever with a comparable movie mania to mine. It was brilliant, we talked about movies for hours, till someone at the dinner table said we should get married, since we`re so similar, except i said that if we did, they`d find us years later, hugely obese, under a pile of television guides and dvd boxes, because we`s slipped away from society in our movie frenzy, definitely not healthy!

Of course there was giant group of rowdy irish at the hostel, wasted 24*7 and one of them even peed on a sofa in the hostel while a girlw as sitting on it, none of them would fess up who it was, and they wouldn'[tlook everyone in the eye the next day, numpties...

And finally, Matt and Dan, who are sweethearts. They were on my bus to calafate. They`re english guys who were born and brought up in portugal, but u couldn`t tell at all. They`re good fun, and i`m sure dan is always getting them in trouble. When they were in Buenos Aires Dan managed to persuade matt it would be a good idea to `just see` what an argentinian brothel looks like. The moment they stepped in, they were surrounded by a gang of incredibly insistent hookers. Insistent that they hand over all their valuables ; ) With the 2 giant bouncers bound to be waiting in the foyer if they said no, they didn`t have much of a choice. Oh dear. They were going back to BA which was a shame, i wanted to take them with me : (

i know a trouble-maker when i see one!

We went on a night out in calafate, if u can call it that. It was in the community centre, and u had to go through a rather intimidating pool hall to get there. It turns out all the boys who work at the hostel are crazy good drummers, and they were all there, drumming their little hearts out, with dancing and crazy-string, good stuff. There was a boy there who was with this slightly older looking woman, who turned out to be his mum! She[d come out to join him for a couple of weeks, but she was a bit strange and did not like it one bit when he talked to any girls, and got all stroppy. Uncomfortable. The Guys who work at the hostel are brilliant, one of them took a bit of a shine to me, so free tequilla, yey!!!

The main reason people visit calafate, is to see the glaciar. It[s the poor man[s taste of antartica, except it[s breathtaking and it blows your mind imagining what anatarctica must be like. It speeaks volumes abvout the age we live in and the amount of media presence in our lives, that when i saw this fgbulous view, it reminded me of a screensaver. I couldn[t quite grasp how real it was.

U see what i mean right_ it[s unbelievable, and we got to walk across it., crampons and all.. And our guide looked just jason schwartzman. We didn[t walk for long, but enough to jump across crystal blue crevasses and drink the clearest purest tasting water i[ve ever had, straight from the pools that form in the cracks in the glacier.

oh yeah, i got mad ice picking skills yo

That blue is unlike anything else, and at the end of the trek, they take you to a little hidden dip in the glacier, where they have whisky waiting for you, with ice chipped straight off the glacier, with a pick, scotch on the rocks anyone? Unfortunately we were with a group of mexicans weho had come in the most ridiculous clothes for walking across a glacier. who wears pink fur boots to a glacier, seriously... so were walking at a much slower pace than we could have. Still, breathtaking.


Won[t be forgetting el calafte in a hurry...



More photos:

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