Blogs from Osorno, Los Lagos, Chile, South America - page 2

One month in and there are a number of thoughts that don´t fit too well in to a blog of what is going on, but thoughts nonetheless we want to remember. Sarah The amount of top 40 American pop music we hear on a daily basis is wild and unexpected. Restuarants, streetside stores, buses, the random traveller in a hostel, etc, etc, etc, all can´t get enough of it. Everyone from the kids to the older folk - a homely, 60ish year old woman on our bus had ´i wanna be a billionaire, so f***ing bad¨as her ring tone. We couldn´t stop laughing. So while the amount of music, movies and American culture is largely visible, the American people are not. We have met only a few long-term backpackers from the US (2 that I can ... read more

Saturday 17 March Only five of us had arrived last night and we walked into Osorno and had the world's best ever steak ! It was about 2 inches thick, perfectly cooked and absolutely delicious ! One couple, John & Theresa, had arrived the day before and had spent the day riding up to the local volcano and highly recommended it. My room mate, Peter, had only been in the country 4 hours and hadn't collected his bike and was done in. That left Mike & I and we decided we too would ride out to Orsono volcano in the morning. At first you could be forgiven we were in England. The sky was leaden and the countryside comprised of green fields of grass grazed by cattle. After about 50 kms were turned off to the ... read more

It ain't over till it's over It is one of these things that first you hate then you love and appreciate. I really wanted to do this trek after Marika and Byron told me that it was the best and hardest trek they have done. I can't remember if there was 'ever' at the end of that sentence but it was tempting enough to go there. They said they had encountered almost all kinds of landscapes including a desert - moonscape, hot natural baths, forest and of course the geysers - the peak of this trek. So I did it. I left Liz in Bariloche with the kids (B&M) and they kindly hosted her in their temporary flat, I then took the bus to Osorno. This was the first lone bus ride I had done on ... read more

Po chilsku cteno 'pujeue' po argentinsku 'puseue'. Argentinska vyslovnost 'y' a 'll' nam dela problem, miluji totiz 's s hackem :) (nemam klavesnici), coz me ve skole neucili. Puyehue je spici sopka, ktera v roce 1960 vybuchla, zasypala okolni kopce a lesy tunami popela, kamenu a sterku. Krajina podle toho vypada, vsude jsou hromady sede 'strusky' ozvlastnene snehovymi poli, ktere vyplnuji udolicka mezi hromadami. Nejlepsi na tom vsem je, ze uprostred hor ve 1400 m.n.m. vyveraji horke prameny, takze se tam da pekne koupat. Prvni den jdeme porad v mracich. Vystoupili jsme i na sopku, ale videli jsme kulovy. Zato jsme meli nastoupano 2100 vyskovych metru, coz je vyrovnani naseho denniho vyskoveho rekordu. Vecer taborime sami uprostred hor. Testujeme termalni vodu a asi hodinu v ni lezime. Parada. V noci mrzne. Rano je uplne jasno. Jdeme ... read more

(April 06) Considering that I wasn´t going to do this trek for another few weeks I can only say: GOOD ON ME that I postponed the other stuff, packed up and set off in a matter of half an hour that day. I hopped on a bus towards Osorno and asked to get off et Fundo El Caulle, the trailhead to "Los Baños", a series of natural hotsprings in an unwordly setting (and that for FREE!) PLUS a beautiful mountain to climb right next to it. When we came down from the Pass near the Argentinean - Chilean Border I saw the Mountain from the bus and already got so excited I could hardly bear to be INSIDE the bus! The weather was perfect, not a trace of a cloud...well, until we hit the lower lying ... read more