Pucón

After all the rain in Talca we hopped in an 8h bus ride the first sunny day we had...bugga. As we got to Pucon the sky turned grey again and in the morning we woke up to the sound of raindrops hitting the window. Oh well. We enjoyed the warmth of the hostel with two fires on all day long and ventured out for a hot chocolate and to buy me a better rain coat. Exciting.

The next day, despite howling winds and pounding rain we decided to take our chances with going to the Parque Nacional Huerquehue, as it turned out good the previous time... well, there was meant to be a nice refugio waiting for us here too, and the kind bus driver promised to drop us right outside to spare us from getting drenched yet again. Unfortunately we had imagined to be somewhat of a repeat of Altos Lircay turned out to be a hunters lodging where the remnants of the drinking and eating the night before were still lingering on the tables along with the intoxicating smell of old meat... Hence we decided to take our chances once again, and try to find this refugio.

An hour later we were still waiting for the rain to ease under the cover of the park rangers house which was deserted - he probably did not think that anyone would be daft enough to actually go visit the park on this day, and had no idea where the refugio was meant to be. After some more prograstination about what to do, we decided to walk back towards the hunters lodge and see if we could come across anything else, and so we did.

As we battled the howling winds getting soaked to the bones we saw a sign of a Hospedaje ie. family lodging. The house looked deserted but we decided to knock on the door in hopes of getting out of the rain. As we stood there looking miserable the timid face of a wee old lady appeared on the window, and on seeing us she rushed to the door telling us to hurry in from the rain. Inside a fire was roaring and señora made us feel right at home, well at your nana´s home that is. We ended up staying with her for the day and the night, and as the wind and rain turned to a storm she kept thanking the lord for sending us to accompany her while she was alone and scared of the ´satanic weather´in her words...hmm...we spent the day inside listening to the rain, reading and playing cards with old Ines, drinking wine. She treated us like a real nana, feeding us home baked bread and jam, roasted chestnuts and coffee - what a treat it was to stay with her and so amazing to meat somebody like her, enabling us to have a real peak at the inside of the culture.

The next day the sky had cleared and we had a perfect day to do a hike. The forest was still soaking from the rain, and as we came across a waterfall it was running at a speed I have never seen before. The sound of the roaring water was so loud that we could not hear each other talk and just to poke your head around to have a peak of it got you wet in a second. It was truly an amazing site, and we later heard that the very same waterfall is usually a tranquil trickle down the mountain.

As we kept on climbing, yes again this was a hike to higher altitude, which we did not realise as we started off, the wetness of the ground turned to snow and ice. Soon we were surrounded by snowy Araucaria trees and mirror clear lagoons, it was like a fairy land, a place out of this world. The path had practically disappeared under the snow, only wee paw prints of a small animal guided us along the way, along with the birds that kept following us as we entered deeper into this magical forest. I was waiting for the trees to start talking or a hobbit to appear from somewhere, and I´m sure I caught a glimpse of pairs of eyes following us from behind the bushes...

However, as all fairy tales this one had to come to an end before the sunset and it was time to descend back to real life. As we got back to old Ines´ house an hour before we had a bus to catch back to Pucon, she was giving us the proper guilt trip of not staying another night - just like your nana would! I even felt a bit guilty as she walked away hurt but pretending not to care, like a child before a tantrum. Poor old Ines, I promised to send her a few photos we took - must keep that one!

Oh, but it was good to be back in Pucon and in our warm hostel, since although it was nice and toasty at Ines´ in the living area, the bedrooms were freezing cold with no heating or insulation - kind of like being in NZ in the winter...;) Even more amazing was to see the smoke puffing volcano which towers over the town, and which we had not yet seen because of the weather. It was incredible imagining the people living their everyday lives so close to something so powerful but so beautiful at the same time.

From Pucon we headed more south to Puerto Varas to be greeted yet again with more rain. This time it never ended and after two days we decided to splurge and take a flight down to Patagonia, to Punta Arenas were we flew to last Friday. As we took off from Puerto Montt, the rain was still falling as heavy as ever, but about half way through our flight the clouds disappeared and we were able to view the beauty of the snowy Andes along with uncountable glaciers, Mount Fiztroy and the famous Perito Moreno glacier - truly amazing views which made the flight definately worth every penny!

As we arrived to Punta Arenas and stepped outside of the terminal we had our first experience of the coldness of Patagonian winter. And after two nights in yet another hostel with unheated bedrooms we decided to start moving again and hopped in a bus to Puerto Natales, the gateway town to Torres del Paine national park. But more update about the town of wind later on...

Parque Nacional Altos Lircay

We have entered southern Chile and stepped right in the middle of autumn. As we arrived to the city of Talca it was raining so heavy that after a 15 minute walk we were completely soaked - to the extent that none of our clothes had dried by the next morning. The reason to enter this murky city was to access the beautiful national park of Altos Lircay, which we almost didn´t go to beacause of the rain. But luckily we took our chances and made the interesting journey into the park.

It was still raining, though not as hard, when we got to the small village of Altos Lircay, just at the edge of the park, but we found the refugio in no time and were greeted with a fire and the refugio, which in reality was a huge amazing log cabin, all to oursleves. We waited a few hours for the rain to ease - spending that time making a puzzle...and really enjoyed it by the way (Maiju , nyt ei voi sit tostakaan sanoo enaa mitaan...;) -haha - then headed for the walk to the look out. It was a beautiful, though hard walk, pretty much climbing all the time, but we got to a look out to the waterfalls - not quite as far as we wanted to get which was a lookout of a volcano (but in this weather we wouldn´t have probably seen it anyway) - as we didn´t have enough day light left.

On our way back the sky cleared and the sun intesified the beautiful autumn colours infront of our eyes. We got back to the refugio just as the sun was setting, knackered after 18km of walking and treated oursleves to the most expensive bottle of wine we have bought so far - this at the hard price of 3,000pesos (about $9/4e)...tough life ay ;)

Valparaiso

Walk, walk and walk - it´s what you need to do to discover the secrets of this inspiring city, and walked we have. The city lies around a harbour on various hills where the narrow streets and hidden stairways are covered in street art, each house is also painted with a different bright colour contributing to the joyous feel of the city. Behind every corner is a new painting, stencil, writing - it´s almost overwhelming as there is just so much awesomness around! We were lucky enough to find a really nice hostel right in the heart of the arty barrio Cerro Concepción, all we need to do is step out the door and we find ourselves amongst it all - cute wee cafés, restaurants, design shops and more art on the streets... I think we might have found our favourite city in South America, Valparaiso is like a mix of Wellington and Barcelona - a perfect city one might almost be able to say... Well, we are in love with for sure.

Before Valparaiso we enjoyed the hospitality of my friend Henna and her partner Daniel´s whole family. It was a true wind down for us, not having to plan anything for a few days and still visit some beautiful places. It was a great break, although I suffered from quite bad stomach pain for which I finally had to go to the doctor - poor Daniel who had to translate the movements of my bowl for the past month, I think he knows me better now than he would´ve ever wanted to...sorry, and thanks Daniel ;)- I did manage to get some hard core antibiotics to kill whatever I have carried with me possibly from Bolivia or Peru... Feeling tons better now though, but a shame that my condition put brakes on our weekend in La Serena. Was still a very enjoyable time and nice to catch up with friends.

We arrived here early tuesday morning, the city was still asleep when we made our way through it´s dark, silent streets before the sunrise. As we had been advised not to walk around too much in the dark with our packs on, we decided to have a coffee and wait for the sun to come up before trying to find our hostel. And up the sun came in no time, with colours of red and yellow, finally revieling itself and lighting the clear blue sky. We headed up the hill, a steep climb and a decent work out for first thing in the morning. On our arrival, although waking the hostel owner up as it was still only about 7am, we were greeted with a smile and offered the best breakfast we have had so far in a hostel. Every morning now we stuff ourselves with fresh bread, fruit and scrambled eggs...ah, heaven...

The first day we did what we have been doing ever since - walked. As we walked down the hill into the heart of the city we encountered the ugliest dog in the world, who of course, decided to follow us for the day. We named him ´Mala Cara´ - ugly face - and magically he has searched us out every day, he just appears from nowhere, being all of a sudden behind our heels. So, we walked along the bustling harbour front where the fishermen are busy bringing in the days catch, took a cable car up a hill (thus thinking that old Mala Cara will have gone by the time we come down, but no no, he stayed loyal...at least he provided us and every other person who sees him with a good laugh) to enjoy the views of the harbour along with the whole city of Valpo, as it´s called by the locals. In the afternoon we took the long windy walk to La Sebastiana, Pablo Neruda´s Valparaiso home. The house was like a representation of the city - each wall in the house was painted a different colour, and each room was filled with paintings and extraordinary knick knacks which the poet had collected from around the world. A truly bohemian house filled with treasures.

On wednesday we set out to explore the neigbouring city of Viña del Mar - but the weather was not on our side and the spitting rain soon drove us back to Valpo and inside one of its cosy cafés. We did walk around the sea front of Viña, which was beautiful and no doubt filled with people in good weather, visited a park and walked along it´s busy shopping streets - but we found that something was missing...the rustic feel of Valpo just has its own special charm, and we were happy to return. We still have one more day to immerse oursleves into this amazing city, and tomorrow we head towards the surf paradise of Pichilemu where we will spend the weekend watching some monstrous waves and a competition which should hopefully still be running...

Here are a few photos of our bbq with Henna and Daniel and the labyrinth of art that is Valparaiso:

Norte Chico

Ok, so we have had some random experiences since we said goodbye to Iquique...we headed down south on a night bus to a middle of nowhere port town of Chañaral to acces a national park called Pan de Azucar - just as much in the middle of nowhere. The idea that this park was lush was a complete dilusion as we still found ourselves very much surrounded by sand. The size of the desert is just unbeleivable, we have travelled more than 17 hours by bus and the desert still keeps on going, there is nothing but sand, rocks and a few sad looking bushes every now and again, which is explained by the fact that it really never rains - the last rain here was 5 years ago.



Well, back to Pan de Azucar - we had to take a taxi there which was the only way to access the park if you don´t have your own transport (which by the way we don´t as we let go of the dream of buying a car after we counted the cost and the kilometers we´d have to drive), we got dropped off to a bay which was inhabited by a handfull of fishermen who live in tents or in very modest wee shacks - where there was sand, a beach, camping facilities and rocky hills (with which we had an encounter I´d rather forget..) - oh plus a pack of pelikans waiting for easy treats from the returning fishermen.

The second day we decided, although feeling very lazy and really just wanting to lie on the beach and read, to head for a hike to a lookout on top of the hills. We had been told that the hike was 9km one way, but you could return by following the ridge line much quicker. So the walk to the actual lookout was not that bad, if a little boring with the scenery being, you guessed it: sand, rocks and more sand, and as we got there we were greeted with a beautiful view of the bays and the pacific ocean - and a few desert foxes who surrounded us in hopes for snacks.

Sitting at the top of the hill was very ´tranquilo´ as they like to say here, but then we banged our stupid heads together and decided to climb down the hill to cut our walk back just about in half. Well, what looked like an easy climb turned into pretty much a life threatning decent of a vertical hill where each rock was just waiting for your weight to start rolling down to the valley...I don´t know how we managed to scramble our way down without slipping and turning into mush on the way down - Brett´s scout skills came in handy ;) - but after 1,5hours of skipped heartbeats we were on safe ground. Whose idea was it again to do what we did? Oh well, you live and you learn...there will definately be no more scaling mountains on this trip...

So we lived to see another day, which was quite appreciated...;) and we headed for the next adventure of Portofino - yet another middle of nowhere town - well ghost town to put it right - where the only attraction was good surf. Well, this place was something not far from a horror movie, and yet again just to dramatise our experience, we can be happy to have nothing happen to us. So where to begin...

We rented a bach of our taxi driver, who very helpully took us to this deserted beach settlement, which supposedly is packed with people during the summer, but with the winter only behind the corner all the houses had their windows nailed shut with planks of wood and the only one inhabitant of this eerie settlement was a legendary surfer Chico Christian, who lives a very bohemian lifestyle in Portofino with his pack of dogs. We had been told about this charater, and the fact that he was ´un poco loco´ had been mentioned as well, but as we went to talk to him about renting a board for Brett he seemed quite normal.

Well, with the money he got for the board rental he had headed to town and got back with tons of beers, with which he was waiting to meet us when Brett got out of the water. We were offered a few beers, and then invited for luch at his wee shack - ok so we won´t say no to a free feed - mistake. Well, not really, the food was delicious - even if I was a bit suspicious of the fact that he didnt eat, but watched us eat - turned out though that the food must of been fine ie not poisoned...as we were fine. But what we did get to witness was the reason why Chico is called ´un poco loco´, I don´t think he stopped to breathe between the words as he was talking to us about his visions of the world, demonstrating it all to Brett with imaculate body language, as he didnt quite trust my translation skills...it was a sight indesrcibable by words, and to keep track of all he said was quite impossible. But we did accomplish to understand that he lives in paradise, and god lives in the ocean as just the few topics of his rantings...

After a few hours we escaped back to the batch, where we hid for the rest of the night away from the sight of Chico...;) But something quite disturbing happened that night. In the pitch black middle of the night I woke up to a sound as if someone was knocking on the window - only to wake Brett up to say ´it´s a person, i can feel feet´- which kind of freaked me out a bit, untill I realised he´s talking in his sleep...after a few somewhat hard nodges I got him up, and there was the knock again, well actually a bang, this time sounding like it was coming from the back door. Not a very pleasant situation when you know you´re in the middle of nowhere...we were too scared to open the door and find out who was there and what they wanted, but just waited a bit after finding a bat and a hammer to hold on to - after which there was nothing but dogs barking like crazy, and car lights circling around the settlement...well, whoever it was, and whatever they were after never came back, and we got a few more hours of sleep after our hearts strated beating at a normal rate again. In the morning we were thinking it was possibly just some poor person whose car had broken down or something, and there we were waiting with weapons... Chico told us he had heard nothing all...maybe it was him wanting some company at night...hmm...

So yes, we decided that perhaps we have seen enough of these deserted places for a wee bit and headed down to Bahia Inglesa where we camped a couple of nights - a beautiful place of white sandy beaches and cristal clear water - if only the sun would´ve come out for a bit to warm the bitterly cold days we spent there. From Bahia we hopped on to a bus to the city of La Serena, where we are staying at the moment in a friendly family run hostel, which is a very welcomed athmosphere after our somewhat lonely, though interesting experiences...

Chile - Norte Grande

chile..
arica by night

iquique, nestled in amongst giant sand dunes

the guy we are staying withs surf machine


With our latest adventures being predominantly inland, it was a refreshing feeling to see and smell the ocean.. We arrived in arica, 20kms from the peruvian boarder, to an endless summer, apparently it never rains and the surf is pretty much consistant all year round.

We stayed at an awesome hostal that was run by a rather random guy, but i guess you have to be a bit strange to paddle out into 40ft surf.. The hostal had a boxer running around, and massive chill out area, and no roof. We fired up the barbie most nights with some great group cook ups with some californians who were rather amused at the Kiwi accent. Especially the word "veggie".

We spent 5 days in arica and moved on to Iquique, the wave paradise in amoungst a desert of the north. Enjoying a solid 4ft with perfect barreling peaks 100m from where we are staying.

Iquique is like wave paradise, there is about 10km of reef coastline with perfect breaks and sunny days CONSISTANTLY all year.

These are a few shots from what has become known as "toms reef". ´Nick named after one of the californians we have been hanging with, who took his first nasty reef beating. Props to the veggie sam for surfing this place on a fun board with only one fin left... It was a gnarly right over shallow rock bottom..







The next few days we surfed the actual surfers spot, we found out toms reef, is pretty much a body board wave.. This other one, is pretty famous in front of the Vertical surf shop and competition tower, a punchy left that has spitting barrels that swallowed me occaisionally.

It doesnt look it but the set waves were easily stand up overhead classic blue barrels..




Today is our last day in Iquique, we are off for our first taste of chillean camping in the lush national parks of the 3rd region.

Machu Picchu

Where to start with Machu Picchu - from the herds of people racing and fighting to be the first to get their piece of this lost Inca city; or the view from the top of Wayna Picchu when the mist suddenly cleared, like pulling the curtains open on a view of all of the city in its incredible might and height? Being at and seeing Machu Picchu was definately an experience of a lifetime.

We got to Aguas Calientes aka Machu Picchu village on thursday night, ready to get our few hours of sleep before the wake up at 4.30am when the race started. We had thought about walking up to Machu Picchu instead of taking the oh so touristy bus - but as we got teh tickets free with the train and hostel booking we couldn´t resist but not - walk that is. At 5.10am thinking we were quite early as the first bus doesn´t head up the mountain untill 5.30am - we found ourselves standing at the back of a huge line in the moring drizzle along with the rest of the world - except Peru... I don´t think I´ve ever witnessed so many people lining up for anything - it was like waiting to get into a rock concert where all the fans are fighting to get the closest view of the star. Just unbelievable. Well, we did make it up in one piece, only to be greeted yet with another huge line of people now waiting for the gates to open, ready to pour in.

And that wasn´t the end of it. As the gates opened the next race was to get to the line of Wayna Picchu, as only 400 people a day get to climb the mountain providing a panoramic view of Machu Picchu. Luckily we´d been coached by our guide for the quickest route - and got tickest number 285&286...phew...;) what a place - but oh so worth it!!


The early morning was very drizzly and cloudy, we could hardly make up anything from further than a few meters away - but just as we started our climb to Wayna (a pretty much vertical climb of stairs with a drop of I´m guessing about a 1000m only inches away...) the clouds started to clear and literally as we got to the top a breath of wind blew the remainder of mist away and uncovered all of Machu Picchu infront of our eyes. The view was just amazing - and I know that doesn´t say much, but how to describe it? You are standing at the top of a mountain of 2400m looking down at a huge city that was built hundreds of years ago which looks like a scale model from the height your at, on both sides of the skinny mountain top your standing there´s nothing but a vertical wall of rock untill it touches the ground deep down in the valley. All you can do is stand there with feelings of vertigo and amazement mixed with a little bit of fear...

The rest of tha day flew by as we explored the ruins, we had spent 8hours at Machu Picchu when it was time to head down to catch our train back to Cusco, but could´ve easily spend a lot more. As we made our way down the drizzle came back as if to close of the show.

Here´s a few photos to accompany my desperate description of the wonder we wintnessed...

The Inca ´death´Bridge...

photos

Heres a few shots from our journey so far.. at the moment we are stuck in cusco for a week, and holy crap is this place gringo´vill. It is a nice city but full of tourists, and after barely seeing any toursits for 3 weeks, its quite a shock. If your wondering were the rest of NZ and australia is, they are in bolivia and peru, actually along with quarter of the states and canada.. Cusco is like a little north america, everything is priced in US dollars, and the prices are to match.. luckily we have found a sweet little hostal with million dollar views of cusco to spend our time in.
All the people here in the hostal are pretty freindly, with the stay kicking off to a great start, arriving 2 hours late to the hostal boy waiting at the bus terminal to give us a free lift to the hstal, followed by a free feed from a canadian chef, who has proceeded to cook us world class feeds each night.

So heres a few photos from argentina to bolivia.. we will put more after our bankrupting trip to machu `pichu in a few weeks..



petra at the salt flats.



some cactus´s



View from the mystical fish island.





punamarca aka ¨mars¨

Bolivia

We are now in Uyuni, Bolivia in a dark internet cafe, spending time as we are waiting for a train to Oruro which leaves at midnight... I will try to catch up from where I left with writing last time...So, from Cafayate we headed north to Salta - a city of beautful colonial building with streets swarmed with people...there we visited the most interesting and disturbing museum I think I've even been in...it was about Inca sacrifices of children, and on display were two of the real actual children found at the top of the highest peak near Salta (can't remeber the name now...), it was such a bizarre feeling to see these doll looking characters of actual real people of more than 500years old...the first child on 'display' was a 15year old girl who looked like she was sleeping away peacefully, where the next one had a frozen cry on her face with mouth wide open...I'm surprised I haven't had nightmares as I normally can't stomach anything like that...however, it was an interesting visit and just incredible to imagine a life so different from our that existed not so long ago...

From Salta we headed towards more small towns, firts stop being Purmamarca ' a town of 500 people hidden away in a valley of Humahuaca. The town lay surrounded by a hill called 'the hill of seven colours' - which tells it all, the hill had shades of green, red, orange, yellow...add a few more to make it seven and you have it! Such a beautiful wee setting for the town, where all the houses were built of bricks made of the very ground they stood on, thus blending into the nature perfectly. Here we were lucky enough to find a camp ground, which however turned out to cost almost as much as a hostel - go figure, but there's nothing quite like camping is there...well, with thunder closing in on the town we were thinking the hostel wouldn't have been such a silly choice...luckily it did just brush past and only after we had retired for the evening... the town was covered in craft shops and people selling scarves, gloves etc on the streets, and as we arrived there was a small concert of some sort on the plaza which was cool, though by the time we had sussed out the camp ground it has finished...

The next stop after Purmamarca was Tilacra, pretty much a clone of the first except in larger size. Very pretty and peaceful, and it also had the first campground with grass that we've witnessed in Argentina!! What luxury... Brett unfortunately got sick from possibly some salami that was a bit old he had for lunch...and we ended up just taking it easy not doing much but relaxing at the camsite - which actually was quite nice after being on the go for 3weeks.

The next morning we caught a bus to La Quiaca, a town which seems to exist only for the purpose of border crossing to and fro from Bolivia. Which was also the very reason we found ourselves there. As Brett was still recovering and there was really not much to do in this town of empty streets and closed down stores, we ended up spending a bit of time in our wee room with cabel tv...haha thats exactly what we came here to do right...but oh well, Blades of Glory along with other cheesy - the only type - of movies in English that were on offer...

Early saturday morning we once again lifted our packs on our backs and started our walk to Bolivia. Was such a weird feeling to be able to just walk down the road, cross a bridge and be in another country. At the border we had to actually ask to get our passports checked, it would have been just as easy to walk across without anyone blinking an eye. Also as we got to the side of Bolivia it was merely a quick stamp in the passport, no-one was interested in checking our bag or anything - which we cursed as being used to NZ border control we had left all our fruit behind...

After 7hours wait at the train station on Villazon we finally hopped on the train and started our shaky journey towards Uyuni. The scenery was beautiful with hills filled with cactuses, mountains far in the horizon and the occasional pack of llamas munching on nonexistent grass. We arrived to Uyuni at midnight - the same train that we are waitig to catch tonight up north- and visely for once had booked a hostel just across from the train station, to prevent a laborous walk around looking for a place in the middle of the night...yeah no.

The next morning as we walked out of the hsotel we were literally surrounded by people trying to get us to go on their tour of Salar de Uyuni - we had to just brush past from all of them as it was way too overwhelming...we took our time to go into travel agents and talking to people trying ti find the best company to go with - but in the end decided to go with the first company we talked to and eneded up getting a nice discount of 100B as they were desperate to fill the group. Before we knew it, we were crammed in a 4x4 heading towards the salt flats... and how to describe it...I think we will have to put up photos to speak for themselves, as the scenery was just indescribable...just something out of this world. Just whitness and complete flatness as far as your eye could see, and in the horizon everything looked as if it were not touching the ground but floating in the air, it was not untill we got closer when the reality of it all was visible.

The first night we were pleasantly surprised to stay in salt hotel - yes, everything was made of salt including the bed, tables etc...it was amazing. On the tour we had our own cook who prepared the meanest meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner - its the most we've eaten since been away!!

The second morning we had a wake up call at 6.30 to head towards laguna colorada where we would spend our next night. Along the way we visited an active volcano, which however has not erupted for over 400years. We were also lucky enough to see flamingoes in many of the lagoons that we visited along the way. The landscape was just amazing, and a feeling of being in the middle of nowhere like never before. The size of these countries is just so immense, its hard to grasp... We spent the second night in a veryvery basic accomodation with all of us on the tour in one room. The night was freezing and I found it cery hard to breathe with my nose blocked and being at the altitude of 4200m...the wake up call for the next mornig came at 4.30am...wow, that was hard. It was pitch black and freeeeeeezing!!! I would guess it was at least -5C, our snowboard jackets - which had annoyed us with their size and weight in the heat of Argetina - came in handy for sure.

The reason for the early wake up was to catch the sunrise by a site of gheysers (how to spell...) which was amazing - and even more amazing was the fact that you could actually walk rigfht up to the gheysers and touch the hot air coming out of them! There were people jumping through them, but I was only brave enough to warm my frozen fingers on the hot air. From the gheysers we headed to another lagoon, had a bath in natural hot pools and started our longlong journey back to Uyuni. We arrived back at 6pm, exhausted but happy. Had dinner with our co tourers, two British girls and a couple from Oz - and crashed into bed...

Hopefully we can catch a few winks in the train tonight, as we arrive to Oruro at 7am having to find our way to La Paz from there...there's a game of soccer on at the mo - Argetina vs Bolivia, and its getting a bit heated...lets hope for the best!!

La Rioja, Tucuman - Cafayate

It is 4.30 pm and the town of Cafayate is sleeping away its siesta, we find ourselves again in a beautiful little town - this time in the province of Salta. From Valle Fertil we travelled north to a town called La Rioja, a small town but not small enough have the feel that we are looking for - so only stayed for one night in very strange lodging on the ende of town centre...it was run by an old lady as thin as anything with a voice so quiet you had to almost stop your breath to catch what she was saying. The place was as hot a an oven, even in the evening when it was quite pleasant outside, and natural light must have been a big no no to this lady as she kept pulling the curtains shut around the place.

The next morning we took a bus to Tucuman, the 5th largest city in Argentina - so none of that small town feel there. It was a nice town though, and didnt feel quite as big as is really was. The town was also spotted with beautiful architecture and around the plaza many stools selling local artesania.

On wednesday we headed finally towards a small town of Tafi del Valle, hidden in a valley among the andes as the name suggests. It was a pretty wee place, surrounded by the greenest hills and the streets filled with shops selling beautiful crafts, ice cream and the famous empañadas - which Brett has been lucky enough to have tons along the way, where Ive only had the priviledge of tasting one vegetarian one - yum!! Here we were lucky enough to find a very cute mountain cabin for the night for the same price as the hostel - well really it found us, as the owner practically chased us down the street as we were walking with our pack to come and have a look at the place, we had a look went to compare with the hostel and returned, as the wee place with whitewashed walls had already spoken to us both. Tafi felt quite like being in NewZealand, the hills and the mountain air felt just like being in a hidden spot not far from home, and for this although it was a picture perfect wee place we felt as we need to, once again, keep moving on.

Yesterday we found ourselves in Amaicha del Valle - not far from Tafi, but a lot lot smaller, and with a definate feel of being far away...the town roads were all dry grvael, with clouds of dust hovering behind scooters and cars driving along. We ended up sucking up and decided to give camping another go - and so glad we did as we found a great campground - showers with warm water and no toads around ;) Once again we managed also to borrow a pot to cook our meal - might pay to get one our own I suppose... We met lots of lovely people at the campground, and also managed to get a local señor to take us to the nearby Quilmes ruines of local indigeneous peoples of the same name and afterwards up to Cafayate.

Mariano - our chaufer for the day - turned up nice and early to pick us up, prepared with a piece of rope to tie down the boot of his car as we had told him we had 4big packs...it was no problema - he jsut chukced the pack in the boot one on top of another push the boots shut to about half way as it would not close no more, and tied it up with the rope. Along some of the bumpiest bits of the road we had to have a few glances back, just to make sure we didnt leave anything behind...The ruins were very impressive - a whole village of remains of stone buildings, wach towers built up in the mountain and almost the whole wall of the town still remaining. We were told after all our amazement that 50% of the town was reconstructed in the 1970s, a fact that did not make our amazement fade - it was incredible to imagine the life of the people in this hidden valley so long ago. The heat of the day along with the altitude - although only that of 1900m - made it harder than we thought to climb up the hill, but good practise for what lies ahead...


Now we find ourselves camping yet another night in a very established campground only a few blocks from the centre of Cafayate. The heat is still intense, but we got ourselves a wee shady spot and count on the temperature lowering overnight again. Tomorrow we will hopefully find a waterfall that we heard lies along the river not far from town, and perhaps even get ourselves a taste of local wine, as the town if covered in wineries...

Valle Fertil

Our first impression of Argentina was not the best, as everything felt very expensive in Mendoza, accomodation in a 7bed dorm was $25NZ...we were going to do a wine tour on bikes, which sounded lovely, but ended up figuring out itwould have cost us 1/4 of our weekly budget so had to skip it... However, as we loaded our pack on our backs and headed out of the city to a wee sleepy town of San Augustin del Valle Fertil, I think I can speak for both of us when I say we fell in love with the place. As we stepped out of the bus from Mendoza, it felt like we were stepping into another world. Time moved at its own pace at this little township, there was no hurry, nothing was a problem, people sat around talking to each other outside shops and wee cafe´s, everyone walking past was greeting each other - just a picture perfect place... We ended up camping for the first night, and Brett has already shared a few tips for anyone wanting follow on the same line of travel. I´d say I´m a pretty good camper, and nothing that much has really phases me - but this was camping the wild style, and I think it might have been enough of an experience of camping in South America...if it wasn´t for the toads covering the floors of the bathrooms, or the dogs howling outside our tents all night the experience might have been ´tranquilo´like the camp owner assured us...haha but what an experience, let alone to find out the next day why no-one else was camping - the drieness of the time of year draws poisoneous spiders along w the toads towards any source of water (read camp toilets)... but all´s well that end´s well..;)
Miraculously however, despite all the wildness, we managed to sleep in - our tour to Ischigualasto - Valle de la Luna was leaving at 8am, and we only opened our sleepy eyes 10min prior...luckily the slow pace of the town and casual nature of people meant our guide Alejandro didn´t mind waiting for us gringos to get our gear ready (he had waited for us at the supermarket for about half an hour the day before, as he kindly offered us a free ride to the camp groun a wee bit out of town and we asked to have a quick stop to get some food...) - and off we went towards the magical land of the moon in a bumpy minibus w latin music blasting out of the speakers.
Valle de la Luna was something out of this world, a huge area of indescribable landscape which continued as far into the horizonas you could see...amazing rock formations, complete silence that almost hurt your ears and huge red rock mountains climbing toward the sky. The temperature was far above 40·C - an intense heat like nothing I have experienced before, Alejandro informed us that the night temperature can fall way below the zero as well - all of this along w wind and rain (that doesnt fall often) contributing to the formation of the valley.
On our return we decided to stay in a lodging rather than camp another night the wild style, and eneded up staying at a lovely, somewhat rustic hospedaje de los Olivos - a family run accomodation. There we used the kitcthen alongside the grandmother who I could hardly understand, the somewhat grumpy grandfather who howered around but chose to ignore us, the children running around and curiously watching our every move and the two brothers in charge of running the hospedaje always either busy fixing something or sitting outside drinking mate and smoking cigarettes.
On Sunday, me and Brett went on a horse ride around the town and got shown rock paintings and ancient ruins of the local indigineous peoples houses. We were also lucky enough to be provided a mate break w our guide Pedro and his family who came to meet us along the trek. Lovely people, genuinly interested in where we came from, what NZ was like etc. I have spend a lot of time practicing my broken spanish, but feel like its getting better. People just want to chat and are so lovely, it really does pay to know a bit of Spanish travelling around here. We were almost sad to leave this beautiful little place w its people, gravel roads, and one set of traffick lights - but it was time to move along to new experiences....

4 tips for wild camping in Valle Fertil

We just spent an awesome few days in the Valle Fertil, a tiny township near Valle De La Luna.

1. Purchase all camping equipment from home before leaving. In argentina, camping gear is sooo expensive, along with many other things a simple butane tramping bottle costs about 15$ NZ.

we had to borrow a pot, from a friendly loacal to cook any food.

2. Ignorance is bliss, when wild camping, dont ask people what you should watch out for, or really why is there no one else camping at this time of year.

If you enjoy hundreds of frogs, poisoneous spiders, wild dogs and wild horses, then wild camping is for you.

3. Dont camp by river beds, a german tourist camped by a river bed in this desert town and a flash flood swept his tent away.

4. Learn a bit of spanish, the locals in this town are insanely friendly and we had the best time getting to know them, having the local mothers tell us we wer'nt cooking right etc... sharing food and laughs, it was awesome.

Santiago

So we have arrived to South America in the midst of beautiful colours, busy streets and very fast spoken Spanish...;) Our hostel is really lovely, located in Barrio Bellavista- a lively but peaceful neighbourhood dotted with cosy reastaurants and cafes, and away from the madness of central Santiago. We are also only two blocks from Pablo Neruda´s home (now a museum) and the Parque Metropolitano - the first that we anyhow didn´t succeed to visit as we read the opening times wrong...such a disappointment, but at least we will have something on the list for when we return here in about a month. We did however drag our exhausted selves to the park after arriving yesterday afternoon. Foolishly we thought we could walk up the top instead of taking the touristy cable car - only figuring out after a wee climb that the cable car is actually our only choice unless we wanted to walk 6km up the hill...hmm...might have to start reading those maps properly - and before heading to a direcion - that shuld really be our motto for the trip from now on I´d say, after walking in circles in the centro most of the day...and thus missing the visit to Pablo...oh well, you learn as you go I suppose ;) However, we did manage to get up the hill in the parque and witness the amazing views of all of Santiago - so breath taking despite the greay smog hovering over the city. On the way down Brett experinced a close encounter w a scorpion - I didn´t even know to expect them - luckily this individual was a dead one...;)
Anyhow, we did manage to find our way to where we needed to go with my bad spanish and Bretts awesome map reding skills ;) we managed to get a RUT (tax) number sorted, which you need to purchase a car in Chile, found our way to the bus station to book ticket to Mendoza tomorrow morning, managed to order a vegetarian meal at a restaurant and sorted out prices for a SIM card - which we decided to get once we land in Argentina, since they ony work nation wide. In the end, I think we have done pretty well for our first few days, our brains being on slow mo and still tired from the time difference...
We shall post more as we go along, untill then hasta luego y besos para todos!! ;)

Petra.