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(written by Holly)
Well, we're getting on to the blogging bandwaggon quite late, but having just been recommended this site but fellow travellers Michael and Sarah, Jane and I are going to have a stab at keeping it updated.
Please excuse any typos and excessively dull bits!
So, where to begin? A brief recap of our route so far would be a good place i suppose.
We left England on 27th March 2008, and flew to Buenos Aires where we had a fantastic few days watching Tango Shows, attending political demonstrations, walking round graveyards for the wealthy etc. We befriended a guy from Utah called Nick and he came with us when we then we headed south-west to Bariloche, which is in the Argentinian Lake District.
We all went horse riding, which was amazing because it allowed us to see some great views, and our horses were so docile! I called mine Pedro and he liked eating a lot. He and I got on really well, considering I don't massively love horses. Jane's called her horse Chica, and she was a lot less greedy than Pedro. Chica got really excited on open planes and
would just speed off, racing the other horses, which jane loved and has since decided to be a cowgirl in Montana! Pedro would lag behind the others and didnt believe in galloping at all..just trotting really quickly, which is really quite painful!
We left Nick in Bariloche and headed across to Chile in order to catch the Navimag ferry down from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales. It was a 4 day ferry ride, and we got to meet some great people on it - and thanks to facebook we can stay in touch and try and meet again if we happen to be in the same hemisphere! The trip down was cold (esp as there was no cold water... i was smelly for 4 days...) but really beautiful. We saw some sea otters playing in the sea beside the ship, and the 1400 islands that make up Chile's coast loomed out of the cloud in a very picturesque way!
Once in Puerto Natales Jane and I embarked on a 5 day hike!! (thats a little out of character for me!) I was really proud to have made it through 5 days and we saw some really remarkable things,
Dice playing in Valparaiso
a group of men were betting on dice in the street... our cameras bought this man good luck!including Jane's first glacier and so many rainbows. We scrambled up a valley between the mountains one day and the view up among the snow caps was amazing - all the better for having walked to see it.
After the hike we went north, back into Argentina to El Calafate. We stayed at an amazing hostal - America del Sur. There was a great sense of community there and the staff were so helpful. We saw Perito Moreno Glacier, which is near El Calafate and it amazed me becuase it moves forward 2 meters a day, and as it moves HUGE chunks crash into the sea!! Really impressive. Jane wasnt so keen on the way we saw it - there were hoards of tourists there and most of them were quite rude. Not what we're used to!
From El Calafate we took the coach to Esquel, a small town half way up Patagonia. Its not a particularly touristy area, so it was nice to escape the crowds of El Calafate. We took 2 day trips here - one to Parque National Los Alcerces, which is a beautiful National Park full of still green lakes, water rapids, and trees
Jane loves her wine!
Wine tasting in Mendoza thousands of years old; the other was a trip on an old steam train through the valleys to a place called Nauhelpan, a collection of houses and market stalls in the middle of nowhere. both days were really cool! We met several Argentinians too - it was good talking to people who actually live here rather than just tourists from other places in the world!
From Esquel we popped back up to Bariloche, where we met two Canadians who we went on the '7 lakes' road trip with. Jane and I both agree this was one of the best days of our trip so far... I have never seen such beautiful landscapes in all my life!! It was nice chilling with Jerry and Min too.
The boys dropped us in San Martin de los Andes, a small town which acts as a base for adventure sports etc. We only stayed a night there, but it was a cute little place. We ended up in a restaurant where they tried to give us a free wine tasting course after dinner...unfortunately we'd already had a bottle between us so couldnt really appreciate it fully!
From San Martin de los
Botega in Mendoza
This is how Cabernet Sauvignon is made Andes we crossed the border into Chile to Pucon, a town beside a moutain that never stops smoking! unfortunately it was cloudy the whole time we were there so we couldnt see the plume :-( but we did visit some hot spas which were just what we needed...its quite cold in chile so being able to swim in a 45 degree swimming pool was great!
From Pucon we moved on to Temuco, a grimy little town which is supposed to have the best markets in Chile...but wasnt too impressive. We stayed in the creepiest hostal ever! I kept expecting the Woman in Black to glide past at any moment. It was an old Victorian building with high ceilings and windy corridors that probably hadnt been redecorated since it had been built. The bathroom was pàrticularly sinister! I never though a frilly shower curtain could be so scary...
We only spent one night in Temuco before moving on to sunny Santiago, capital of Chile. We'd heard that it wasnt a patch on Buenos Aires, but we liked it. We stayed in a very sociable hostal, called Aji Hostal or Chili Hostal, and they were great there... they gave u
food all the time, and there was a constant party vibe! we met some really cool people there.
Outside of the hostel, we did manage to see some of Santiago! On a whim Jane and I went to see a play - Strindberg's 'El Pelicano'. it was all in Spanish but well acted so engrossing enough, even though we didnt have a clue what was going on!
We also saw some museums, art galleries, sampled the cafe culture, took a funicular up to a moutain top at dusk for amazing views of the city, and went to our first 'nightclub' of the trip! it was a good few days!
From Santiago we travelled to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar with Sarah and Micheal, who we met at Chili Hostal. ´Valpo´, as its known, tumbles down the hills surrounding it's port, and most of the houses are painted bright colours. its a very pretty place, and one of the only two World Heritage Sites that are archtectural. While we were there, we visited Neruda's house. Neruda won a nobel prize for literature at the end of the last century, and is revered by the Chileans. His house is awesome - full of curiosities, like embalmed flamingos and old world maps. Its really twisty and turny and has a nautical theme...there are several portholes instead of conventional windows.
Vina Del Mar is just up the road from Valpo, and supposedly a beach resort. sadly it was foggy when we were there, but we saw a sealion just frolicking about on the coast, and a load of pelicans - the first we've seen out here!
The four of us went from Chile back into Argentina together. We were headed for Mendoza, famed for wine tasting and sunshine. Jane and I have spent the whole trip dreaming of warm, sunny Mendoza... especially when it's been cold!
Mendoza wasnt as sunny as it could have been, but considering it's autumn it made an effort to be warm I suppose. We stayed at a different hostal to Sarah and Michael so met up with them and some others for lunch on our first full day in Mendoza, and then had to say goodbye as they headed for the Igazu Falls, while we stayed on.
On our final day in Mendoza we went on a wine bike tour, organised by our hostal (campo base). It was all good, except the group sped off without us after the first botega (winery), leaving jane and i to meander round rural mendoza over really bumpy terrain for half and hour or so! we thought we were following their tyre tracks, but it turned out that they'd gone a completely different way so there was no need for all the bumpiness! After concluding that we'd lost them, we headed back to the first botega where the guide then came to guide us to where everyone else was eating lunch. we'd missed out on an olive oil factory in the interim, but at least we found them again!
That evening we hauled our aching bodies on to a bus for 18 hrs to get to Salta, which is where we are now. It's a nice town, full of colonial architecture and has a pink cathedral on the central plaza. We went to a museum yesterday which exhibited a mummy of a sacrificed child from the Inca period, and told us a lot about 3 other mummies that werent on display but were also sacrifices and appeared to be in amazing condition. It was a really interesting museum!
Today, we visited a 'Cabildo' which is apparently an exceptional colonial building, although jane and i cant work out why! this one had a museum in it, but wasnt a patch on yesterday's.
That about brings us up to date. Apologies for the incredibly long and surprisingly dull entry, but I had a lot of ground to cover! From now on, hopefully we'll update every few days!
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anonymous
non-member comment
squee, it sounds like you're having such an amazing time! it wasn't dull at all, i love reading about your adventures!! keep having fun and keeping us updated! love youuuuu xxxxxxxxx