Thursday, December 17, 2009

Day 65 &67: Mendoza, Argentina


We arrived into Mendoza on a Sunday afternoon. It was only a 6 hour bus ride from Santiago, our last bus ride (thank goodness), and the scenery was very pretty as we winded up and then back down the Andes. Mendoza is the cutest little town. Everyday we were there the sun was shining and the weather was nice and hot. Tall and green trees lined the streets as well as cafes and Mr. Dog resturants, apparently a very popular hot dog resturant here.

On Sunday there was hardly anyone in town. For the most part, in South America, everyone stays inside with the family on Sundays. The grocery store was open though so after exploring our hostel we went and bought groceries. That night we made dinner, correction Dana made dinner. I´m the onion chopper and salad preparer. Although I think I´ve perfected the onion petal cut. After dinner we sat outside on the patio underneath a grapevine and talked with some other guests of the hostel over our free glass of wine. The hostel offered a free glass of wine for all their guest every night. This may or may not have been a deciding factor in our choosing it.


Mendoza is wine country. They produce over 70% of the country´s wine. Surrounding the town that we were staying, in there were over 100 winieres and vineyards. We only had about two and half days here so we got started right away. The next day we woke up and had a nice breakfast that was provided, also a deciding factor in choosing the hostel-free cereal and coffee. The day before we called a booked a wine tasting course at the winery Familia Zuccardi. We rushed from one bus stop to the next and made it to the main terminal right in time to catch the bus that would take us into the countryside. We arrived at a bus stop in the middle of no where and asked a local if there were taxis that drove by because the winery was still about 5 miles away. Luckily there was a gentleman who worked for the bus company that helped us flag down a ¨taxi¨ to take us the the winery. The taxi was a pickup truck with a large wooden box on the back. He said that in the country people need to haul things with them so they all used this kind of public transportation. Anyway, we made it.

We could see the vineyard and the property was beautiful as we drove up. The vines spread out for acres and were all in neat rows. The staff was very nice and welcoming as we approached. The hostess showed us around their main entrance and entertaining room and the shop. Upon arrival they gave us a sample, also know as two full glasses, of their sparkeling Rosé. It was the best champagne I´ve ever had. Afterward we were greeted by our guide and teacher. We first did a tour of the winery. They had several wineries on the property and the one we were at in paticular was their Santa Julia winery named after the founder´s granddaughter. This wine, we learned, is a young wine and is the most popular among Argentinians. Young wine just means that it doesn´t take long to make so its not aged in oak barrels at all, and that once you buy it you should drink it then. Young wines are popular because they are cheaper and are easy to drink. Now for the good part.

After the tour we went back to the main hall upstairs to the tasting room. Inside there was a bar on one side and long dining room table on the other. The table was set for three, two place mats on one side and one on the other. In the middle of the table, inbetween the place settings were about 20 - 30 wine glasses, all full of fun stuff. On one end, the glasses were full of fruit like pineapple, apple, lemon, and plum. Other glasses were filled with a range of different things like flowery tea, yeast, cinnomen, milk chocolate, white chocolate, olives, raisens, and coffee. She sat up 6 glasses in from of us. We were going to sample one sparkling, one white, three reds, and one port. One by one she poured the different wine and we discussed in depth the color, the smell and the taste. The glasses that were set up before us were all there for us to pick out the different aromas in each wine. The younger wines are much more fruity and less layered. The older, much more expensive, wines could have as many as 7 different aromas and several different tastes, and this is why they are so expensive. Everything she gave us to try was amazing, of course. We ended with port, which is a dessert wine that is very sweet and more alcoholic than the rest. We drank this with some chocolate from one of the glasses in the middle. We were so incredibly pleased with our tasting and we learned a lot as well.

That night we went out to dinner at a restaruant that our teacher had suggested. She had worked there when she was in high school. Now I don´t know if you know or not,but Argentina is not only known for its wine but also for its steak. We had a mushroom covered steak with potatos and it was very nice. We probably plan on having at least 3 more steaks while we are here, and you´ll here later Dana´s account of the steak we had the next night.

Day 62-63: Santiago, Chile

Today we organized a wine tour of Cousiño Macul Winery on the outskirts of Santiago. According to the websites directions, we had to take two different lines then walk 30 minutes east. Who do you know carries a compass on them every day? We walked 10 minues then asked someone for directions. The lady told us that we needed to continue on in the same direction a bit further. 20 minutes later we asked another woman and she said we were right next to it, so of course we thought, "Wonderful, we are hot and tired." We walked around the block and didn´t see a sign or even one grape, so we asked another person who said we were really really far away and pointed in the other direction.

That is when we came to realization #3: Chileans can NOT give sufficient directions.


So we took a taxi to the winery and in the end it was worth all the hassle. As we walked into the winery, we passed horses and vineyards and beyond that we could see the snow-topped Andies Mountains. At reception we recieved a Cousiño Macul wine glass and met our tour guide. He brought us into the old fermentaion tank room first. The room was filled with massive oak barrels that they once used for the first step after crushing the grapes, fermentation. The room still smelt of wine. Then we stepped into the rooms with the metal casks where they make their premium $100 bottle of wine today. Unfortunately it was after their harvest, so we couldn´t see the process of making wine. The next stop was the old bottling room, where they kept all their original equipment. They still had all the old stencils for exporting cases of wine all over the world, including the US. The coolest part was walk into the candle lit cellar, which looked like an old movie. The first thing we could feel was the cold draft from the Andies, which was such a difference from the Santiago summer air. The wine cellar had hundreds of oak barrels filling the room; however they were all empty. The company doesn´t hold their wine in Santiago because of the pollution. In the back of the cellar there was a room that held the families collection of wine dating back to the 1800´s. I believe most of it is vinegar now, really good vinegar.

After the tour we tasted two wines: a pinot noir rose and a cabernet savignon. The rose was really refreshing and we enjoyed learning the process of how a rose is made by leaving the skin of the red grapes in the juice for 20 minutes or so. We finished our wine while chatting to the other two Americans in our group. They seemed to know their wine and that is when Allison and I made it our mission to learn about and taste all the wines we could in South America. That night we made some comfort food (mac and cheese) and watched a movie.

The next day we really explored the city. First we checked out Pablo Neruda´s house, a famous Chilean author. The graffiti was amazing around the house and the neighborhood. All of it is tasteful art and some are political. We continued on through the historic district and walked around the Plaza de Armas. There is a Plaza de Armas in every city, but this one was quite the hotspot. There were art vendors all over the place and people singing and dancin. The children were even playing in the fountain in their undies. I don´t think they would appreciate it if we joined, so we just watched. The icing on the cake was a man pushing a barrel painted in all gold. No one else seemed to think this was odd, which made it even more entertaining.

Later that day we visited the local clinic to get some medicine for my face, and I was entirely impressed by the whole place. Everything looked clean and new, and we were in and out of the clinic in 30 minutes. Afterwards we ate our last dinner in Chile. I must say it was bittersweet having our last delicious salmon and our last pisco sour.

Day 61: Santiago, Chile

After yet another 12 hour, overnight bus, we landed in Barrio Bellavista, Santiago. We immediately knew in the taxi ride, that we chose the right suburb when we passed a sign for the zoo. Although we never actually went to the zoo, it was comforting knowing it was there. The neighborhood had a bohemian feel with impressive graffiti on many of the walls. The streets are lined with cute restaurants that all have outdoor seating (no one eats inside) and the trees shade the entire block. In such a large city it was easy to feel at home.
The hostel fit perfectly into this trendy neighborhood with an interesting combination of funky, classic yet modern decor. We were pleased with the large and fully equiped kitchen and the comfy beds. Therefore, the first thing we did upon arrival is take a nap.


Since Chile is quite expensive, we found it best to cook 2 out of the 3 nights in Santiago. We then headed out to the supermercado, checking out the town on our way. We discovered two very important thing as we walked: (1) people enjoy plastic, pleather outfits, and (2) the mullet is socially acceptable in Chile. It was astonishing. When we got back I had to stay inside due to my nasty burn/rash on my face from the volcano. Allison however went for a lovely stroll (actually it was more of a hike) through the park bordering the hostel. Up at the top of the hill, you can see the whole city. Later that night we whipped up an excellent dinner and chatted with two Irish guys we met on Death Road.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Day 60: Volcan Villarrica

I woke up this morning at 6am and prepared for my hike up Villarrica Volcano. Honestly I had no idea what was in store for me as I made oatmeal for breakfast and a lunch to take with me. I arrived at the tour office at 7am to meet the four other people hiking with me, two younger Chilean girls, 17 and 20 years old, and a Brazilian couple about my age (they had no idea what they were getting into either). Everyone spoke spanish, therefore I had to do my best communicating without Allison there with me. After gathering all our gear including an ice pick, a helmet and snow suits, we headed to the base of the volcano.

The entire hike was 3 miles, ascending 1,400 meters (4,593 feet). The first part was partially on some dirt where the the ski lifts start for the winter season. Followed by the lifts were 4km straight up the volcano with snow packed under our feet that was meters thick. I haven´t seen snow like that for years. The boots the company gave us were the least bit flexible, making it even more challenging. However, I figured out that if I followed in someone else´s footprints, it was much easier. For the first two hours, we were walking through the cloud cover and I felt as though I was in a movie trying to escape a storm. But it wasn´t a scene from a movie and I indeed paid to be in the those conditions. Once we were on top of the clouds, the sky was completely clear overhead and the clouds looked like a carpet of cotton balls. For the next three hours we walked, stopping every now and then as our guide shouted at us ¨¡Camina más rápido!¨meaning ¨walk faster!¨. I didn´t appreciate his tone, so I responded with, ¨Listen I´m walking¨in spanish. It sounds a bit better in spanish, but you get the idea. I was quite proud of myself for that.

I thought we had reached the top several times as we approached the top of a hill, but was very disappointed when I could still see the smoke spilling out of the volcano hundreds of feet ahead. After 5 hours of walking, we reached the peek of the volcano. The wind was blowing fiercely, nearly knocking me down. Then I peaked inside the volcano, a desire that I had for days. Unfortunately I didn´t see any lava, just tons of smoke. The smoke is toxic, so we had to make sure we were on the side the wind was coming from. After I took my victory picture, I was ready to descend immediately. I have not been that cold in many years, and being cold is one thing I have trouble coping with. The guide then strapped on our butts and the back of our legs a canvas material covered in duck tape. This was to be our ride down the mountain. We mostly slid and walked a little bit down the mountain for 1.5 hours. I realized that is why we needed the helmets, and we used the ice picks as a brake. It was a whole lot of fun, even more so if we got a train of people slidding down together to pick up speed. I wasn´t able to take pictures because my camera was deep in the layers of clothes I was wearing.

Once we reached the bottom, we had a victory hug and got into the van for the ride back. That is when I realized I got a serious wind/sunburn on my nose and a rash under my nose from the canvas glove. As I am finishing writting this now (3 days later), I am still recovering from the burn on my face which has developed into a beautiful scab. Super attractive.

Later that day Allison and I had some Salmon at a local restaurant. A football (soccer) game was on the TV in the bar of the restaurant, and I believe 80% of the town was watching it. Shortly after we arrived, the game was over and the people went completely crazy over the winning team, running in the streets screaming and cheering. Kids had flags and every car honked their horn as they drove down the street. Absolutely insane; people love thier soccer here. Anyway we are here in Santiago and will share storied with you all about it soon.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Day 58 -60: Pucon, Chile


We´re here in Pucon, Chile. Its a little town nestled right in between a beautiful lake and the most active volcano in South America. From our hostel you can actually see the top of the Volcano and see that it is smoking all the time. We like to sit outside in the afternoons and have tea or wine and look at the Volcano. Its called Volcán Villarrica if you want to look it up.

Dana and I have really enjoyed Pucon just because its so quaint. All the buildings and houses give you that small town feel but if you go inside the shops you can tell the prices are set for a town that is run on tourism. Pucon is actually an adventure traveler´s destination, as our book calls it. There is a lot to do, if you have the money. There are hikes through the National Forest, hot springs, horseback riding, rafting, repeling, rock climbing, and the main attraction climbing the active volcano that is also right next to the town. Dana is actually climbing the Volcano today. They suit you up with all the needed equipment including snow shoes with the spikes coming out the bottom. When you get to the top you can actually peek into the crater and if its clear, see lava! I had to pass on this adventure because my ankle that I hurt doing Machu Picchu has been giving me problems. I´m excited for her and I´m sure she´ll let you know how it was, with pictures of course. We both went to the hot springs the other night. If was about a 45 minute drive out of town and then right beside the river were 5 pools. The pools had been fixed up with rocks all around but the bottoms were still natural sand and rock bottom. We spent about 2 and half hours relaxing in the hot springs and gazing up at the southern hemisphere´s night sky. It was beautiful. We also really like our hostel here. Dana loved the kitchen and we have made dinner together every night. Tonight we are getting back on a bus for an 11 hour ride up to Santiago where we will spend the next 3 days. After that, we´ll say goodbye to Chile and head to Mendoza for some wine country and spend our last week in Argentina.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Day 54 - 57: Valparaiso, Chile

Ahhh Valparaiso. We arrived here after a long, foodless journey across the driest desert in the world. The bus ride itself took 24 hours. There were two hostels right close to the bus station so we decided to check those out first. We went with the second choice because we pretty much had the place to oursleves and it had a stocked kitchen. Richard and Tiffany who we made friends with on our Salt Flats tour came with us and we all bunked up at the hostel. The girls had one room to ourselves and Richard got his own room.

The first thing we did when we arrived was everyone took a shower. We couldn´t shower for the past 4 days and needless to say it was much needed; we even had hot water! After that we were on a mission for some food. We walked down by the water, which is not really by the water because there are train tracks that separate the city from the shore because Valpo is a bustling port city, and after a 30 minute walk we finally found a place called A Taco Bar and had the best chicken and steak we´d ever eaten. ( Maybe it was just because for the last 27 hours all we had were potato chips, Ritz crackers, and cookies but still, we were happy.) After our meal we went to the grocery store and bought food to stock our kitchen for the next couple of days. Dana and I like to pick hostels with kitchens because you can save money by eating in, especially at dinner. Chile is just a little more expensive than Peru and Bolivia and towards the end of our trip we need it. Plus, Dana has missed cooking so she doesn´t mind and I don´t mind to eat it.

The next day, we all packed up and headed to the beach that we were oh-so-ready for. We hopped on a minibus that took us to a seculded beach called Laguna Verde. We were pretty much the only animals on this beautiful stretch of sand except for the dogs, like Tito (Dana named him), who decided to come lay down next to us. The wind picked up the later it got in the day but the sun was shining and that´s all we really cared about.
... Tito
The next day was pretty cloudy so we were glad we took advantage of the beach when we did. We explored the city and discovered street empanadas, possibly the best discovery we´ve made here in Chile. Empanadas are dough stuffed pockets full of meat, cheese, and onion depending, and are baked or fried until golden. They are delicious and about $1 each. The city is beautiful and busy just like everyone says it is. The buildings are all a mix of new and old but the city itself is very modern. Everywhere has a toilet seat here. This night Tiffany, Dana, and I went out for a very nice dinner downtown. We ordered a a parrilla which we didn´t know what it was just that the owner said it was the best. When it came out, we were more than happily surprised. It was a mountain...of everything. There was a fresh fillet of fish, a whole chicken, perfectly seasoned sausage, and shellfish like I´ve never seen before. All of this was piled together in a cast iron pot that was sitting atop coals that they had obviously been cooking on. We were starved and dug in. Every bite was better than the last. The chicken was cooked perfectly, the clams and oysters were so fresh they still had sand in them, and the sausage was fantastic as well. After dinner we tried to find a place to go dance at, and although there were plenty of choices we just couldn´t find the right one. Mr. Egg, a club that was well recommended in our guide book, had a line 2 blocks long and 7 people wide so we passed on this place. The next place we went into we were the youngest in there by about 20 years and the final place we ended up at we were the oldest. We got our dance on a little bit but returned home a little early.

The next day was a lot of the same, exporing the city, empanadas, and booking our next travel destinations. That night Dana made a fantastic dinner for the two of us. She made a sausage speggetti with steamed broccoli and onion not to mention a wonderful bottle of Chilean wine. After dinner Dana and I took off to go see Luna Nueva or New Moon at the movie theatre. We spotted the movie theatre the day before and nearly fell over when they had New Moon...in English!

The next day-same thing-city, empanadas, computers and packing. This night we were off on another 12 hour journey, this time to Pucon.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Day 50-53: Salt Flats Tour

Saturday night we took a bus down to Uyuni the jump off point for the Salt Flats tour. It was a 10 hour bus ride through the night and the road was SOOOO bumpy. You could either sit back and enjoythe bumps like a massage for hours or be annoyed that you couldn´t sleep at 3 AM. Dana and I took some motion sickness pills and slept ok.

We loaded up our bags on our jeep and met the other people going with us. Tiffany from the Yukon in Canada, Richard from Ireland, and a Spanish couple from the Basque country Spain.

The first day we headed out into the desert into the Salt Flats. We visited the Train Cemetery, which was a place right out side Uyuni that had several old, rusted trains. The trains are actually leftover from the first trains and railways in Bolivia in the 1820´s. We stopped, took some pictures and continued on to Fish Island. The Salt Flats are so neat because its really like a big lake with no water. The neighboring communities make their living off harvesting and selling the salt. They even make houses out of the salt. Fish island is exactly that: some small hills where cactus grows in the middle of flat nothingness of salt. After lunch, which was prepared by our driver-not bad for out of the back of a jeep-we took lots and lots of pictures. This is actually the really sad part is that the camera that we took the pictures on, mine, was lost on the bus ride from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile to Valparaiso, Chile. So we only have a limited amount of pictures from the Salt Flats. They were really cool pictures though! Because its so flat and white you can take pictures of people far away and close up and you can google and see what I mean. The rest of the day we were in the Jeep driving and riding to our hostel that we stayed the night at. That night we sat around and played cards before dinner and then went to bed fairly early.

The next day was kind of like the first. We rode around in the Jeep for hours and stopped to take pictures at cool places. There are several lagoons in the middle of the desert that are home to different species of flamingos. There is also different microorganisms living in the lagoons that make them appear different colors in the afternoon when the wind blows. We saw a green one and two red lagoons on travels to the next hostel. The hostel is right next to a huge red lagoon full of flamingos that is situated in a reserved park. The wind that night was incredible. On our walk back from looking at the lagoon, it took twice as long to get back to the hostel as it did to walk there because the wind was blowing so hard. Our driver/cook had hot tea and hot chocolate for us when we got back that was much appreciated. After a dinner of speggetti we all went to bed really early because we had to wake up at 4:30 in the morning, before sunrise to go to the next spot.

The last day, everyone woke up and quickly put on our warm clothes and packed up our stuff. We were staying at about 4,900 m. Really high up and really cold. It was about an hours drive to the gysers. We were able to get some really beautiful pictures of the sunrise. I´ve never stood on a volcanic gyser before but we did. There were signs everywhere saying how it was a volcanic area and to not get too close. From here we went to a natural hotsprings where Dana, Tiffany, and Richard all took advantage of the hot water. After a nice warm bath our driver, Raul, had breakfast prepared on the back of the jeep one more time. We had hot tea, yogurt and cereal, and pancakes! Raul drove us to the border through the Desert of Salvador Dali (artist who painted the melting clocks painting). We hopped on a minibus there and entered Chile. The bus ride from San Pedro to Valparaiso was 24 hours and probably deserves a post in itself.