Advertisement
Published: April 11th 2013
I've done so much since I have last written that it's almost to hard to remember what I have done. I've noticed I say "amazing" a lot, but I can't help it, everything is amazing here. I need some new adjectives to describe everything, that part of my brain has stopped working, but ill see how I go.
Some things you should also note, I've changed..... I drink black coffee now, Malbec wine is my friend, I haven't used a hair brush since I've left home, my standards on frequency of showering have lowered, I put used toilet paper in a bucket next to the toilet. I wonder how many of these changes will stay, let's hope the toilet paper one adjusts accordingly, otherwise I apologise in advance if I come visit your place and use your bathroom.......
Everyday feels like a Sunday, my activities are usually based on what the weather will allow and using my watch is only important when I'm catching a bus.
Here is my best attempt at a snap shot! Ill cover off a few interesting things in detail.
^ checked out a glacier, amazing, especially as it breaks/carves away into the
El Bolson beer
Mmmmmmmm happy birthday Kristina!water
^ did some trekking around El chalten including the breathtaking mt Fitz Roy. A lot of OMG, this A-MAZ-ING! ^ hung out in a cool hippie town called El Bolson where we hiked, drank beer and celebrated Kristina's 30th.
^ more hiking around Baralochie, chocolate capital of Argentina. I'm over chocolate, big statement I know! The views here were amazing and then some! A great place to drink to much red wine and act like school girls!
^ had my first hitch hiking experience, yeah, I'm way cool now
^ hired a car and drove the 7 lakes up to San Martin. The road crosses between paved and dirt. Kristina thinks she is a rally car driver, I felt like I need a helmet and maybe a roll cage.
^ crossed the border back into chile where I've been hydrospeeding ( sounds cool ey) and fingers crossed tomorrow ill be climbing the volcano here. It's all dependent on the weather!!
Righto then, some story telling time!!!
El Chalten. This was an amazing little town with access to some really awesome hiking. Mount Fitz Roy was spectacular! Kristina, Claire and myself just hung
El Bolson
Made our mark here, literally, look closely out at the highest view point for a few hours after trekking Up some super steep paths. It was amazing to just sit and ponder life looking at the beauty. ( by beauty I mean the mountain, not my reflection in the water, thought I would clarify that, I know you were all thinking of my reflection ) At one point Kristina even said " The only reason I know this is real is because a unicorn hasn't flown past". True statement!
From El Chalten to El Bolson it was a 25 hr bus ride, which wasn't as surprising painful as I thought, long bus rides are just what you do here as the country is so big. They even serve meals on the buses, i use the term "meal" loosely.
El Bolson is a very chilled out town. We arrived on Krisitna's bday, which was also Easter Sunday. The weather was perfect and we trekked to a waterfall, found our way to a local beer festival, then found ourselves in the El Bolson brewery drinking chocolate, raspberry and blueberry beer. I hate beer, but I love their raspberry beer! Get it in your guts!
That night
Andes in Baralochie
Seriously breath taking we made an awesome stir fry and made Kristina cook her own birthday cake. She did such an awesome job making mine it only seemed fair.
Next We headed out for a 3 day trek from El Bolson. Some steep steep mountains, nearly slipped and fell off the edge and wondered if had I fallen, would I have survived. I didn't fall. Turns out I survived, but really pretty views. At night we made a camp fire and invited some other campers to join us. Two of the dudes who gathered around our fire had been working on Antarctica for the season and were now travelling after finishing their stint. Guess what one of the guys did there? He was a fire fighter....... In Antarctica...... A fire fighter...... You got to watch the ice down there, once that shit catches on fire it creates waves!! Maybe they need life savers not fire fighters!! Ok, I'm being silly now, but he really was a fire fighter. And for a population of 900, there are 45 fire fighters!!! Ladies, back your bags, we are going to Antarctica, chances of scoring a fireman are HOT!!
Why so man fireman? Excellent question,
Road tripping the 7 lakes
Aka rally driving with Kristina it's to cover all the airports incase something happens there. So he has been doing it for 10 years, no fires, he gets a lot of free time!
Next stop, Baralochie! Chocolate capital! Every second shop is a chocolate shop, that's no exaggeration! I ate chocolate, I've filled my 2013-2014 quota of chocolate eating!
The first thing we did when we got to Baralochie was put all our washing in to be cleaned, my whole two out fits and 300 pairs of jocks. So I was down to basically no clothes. We had planned to spend the day relaxing and back on to hiking the next day once we had our hiking clothes back. But then Kristina checked the weather and the next day was going to be our first day of rain. Kristina changed our plans, she gave me and Claire 30 minutes to get ready for a mountain trek. Kristina, oh dear Kristina, she got to meet grumpy ass bitch Belinda. She changed the schedule, I flipped my shit, my hiking clothes were in the wash!! I was down to bed socks, gym pants and a top that was feeling the effects of access chocolate! So
the whole time we were getting ready I kept saying " look at me!" ...., " I'm in my bed socks!!! Ill get blisters!!! I'm coming, but your going to hear me sook!"
A moment of self reflection, I'm a scheduler, I like my schedule, I think it's a control thing. Lesson to myself, RELAX, you can't schedule life, go with the flow, don't be a bitch head!
So the trek here was amazing/breath taking/ OMG moments. And we got to see it in good weather (Good call Kristina). Looking out across the Andes from so high made me feel like we were sitting in the clouds, highly recommend this one!
I think that evening was the evening we got drunk on cheap Malbec at $4 a bottle. funniest night, abs hurt from laughing so much. ventured to a empanada shop ( like a takeaway pizza shop )for some snacking, got the guy in the shop to open our wine for us so we could keep drinking while we waited! Kristina proceeded to spill the wine all over the floor, so we left quickly, before he kicked us out. Ended up in an ice cream shop, they
Volcano in Pucon
Going to climb this, whooohooo kicked us out of there too. Giggling school girls, everything was so funny, all passed out by mid night!! Claire and Kristina had a hangover the next day, I didn't, I love you Malbec, we can stay friends!
Oh, I almost forgot to mention my hitch hiking experience. The 3 of us went to do a hike up some other mountain and I made it to the first hut, but due to injury ( tight calves in desperate need of a massage before they snap ). The girls kept going, I walked the hour back down and hitched a ride back to town. I was 38km out and everyone hitch hikes here. I was a little scared to do it on my own, but I felt prepared! So prepared that I took my memory card out my camera and hide it in a secret pocket in my jacket so if they stole my camera they wouldn't get my photos. And I also separated my money into 3 separate places so if they took that too, chances are I'd still have some! After 5 cars passed a middle aged couple picked me up. It was very uneventful, they didn't speak
After hydrospeeding recovery
Best recovery involves drinks! English, I didn't speak Spanish, we listened to opera on the radio. End of hitch hiking story!
Next destination, drive the 7 lakes to San Martin ( Just under 200km of windy, paved or gravel road). We hired a car and took two days to drive the lakes. Very spectacular, it's kind of like driving the great ocean road, but with lakes and mountains instead. The first night we found a small town, population 500, 1 chocolate shop. That's all a town needs. The lady who made us dinner there recommended her mothers place to stay. It was a cute little place that we had all to ourselves. We had a tv, first time I've watched one since I left.
At the end of our rally car race, I mean drive around the 7 lakes we ended in a small town where Claire parted ways with us to go to Mendoza. Kristina and i crossed the boarder into Chile to Pucon. I'm heading to Mendoza after Pucon so will meet up with Claire again soon.
Yesterday Kristina and I went hydrospeeding with 10 others from the hostel. Hydrospeeding is going down the river ( grade 3 water) in a wetsuit, helmet, flippers on what looks like kind of like a boogie board, but your arms sit inside it. You ride the rapids following the tour guide. (So imagine white water rafting, no raft, replace raft with hand held boogie boards) If you can't imagine that, then you'll have to wait until I upload photos.
Oh, and yesterday morning I had 2 massages for my poor trekking legs, $25,000 peso a pop!!! What an investment!! It's only $50 Oz dollars really for 1.5 hour sessions. Bargain! I can't wait for Bolivia because I hear the massages there are about $8 an hour!!
Tomorrow, should the weather be nice ( which it is suppose to) we are trekking to the top of a Volcano!!! I've put a photo of it below so you can see what we are about to tackle. This photo is taken from Pucon where we are staying. We need ice picks, crampons, snow gear etc! Can't wait!! Ill cry if we can't do it.
I'm sure there are a thousand exciting things I've forgotten to mention, but by the time I write again ill have done a thousand more interesting things To write about!!
So how is work???? Bahahaha! Suckers!
I'm heading to some hot springs now!
Peace out
B
X
Advertisement
Tot: 0.129s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0984s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jo
non-member comment
Geez
Geez you blogs are long, they need to be shorter and more frequent. Hydro speeding sounds amazing, I would like to do that!