Bariloche and things...

Last weekend I went to a town in Argentina called Bariloche. It is tucked up in the Argentinean side of the andes and it is situated right alongside a high mountain lake, really an incredible place. At some point I´ll be trying to get some photos out to you all but for now, if you wanna check it out i´m sure you could type in ¨bariloche¨ into a google images search and come up with some pretty amazing photos. Speaking of amazing photos/views, while we were there we went to Cerro Campanario, which is basically a viewpoint of the lake and the andes, and as a matter of fact, National Geographic rates it in the top ten viewpoints in the world, i.e. pretty darn cool. Also while we were there we went to Cerro Catedral which is definitely one of THE places to go snowboarding in South America. There we didn´t actually rent any gear because there wasn´t much snow left on the mountain and only two lifts were open so we weren´t quite sure if it would be worth it, but we still bought the ~15 dollar ticket to get up to the lodge on the mountain and check out the views and at least be in the snow a little bit. However, I had the incredible luck of running into one of the guys that worked at the hostel we were staying at and he lent me his gear so i was able to, for 15 bucks, make a couple of runs (3 to be exact) in south america. I´ve got to tell you that it is definitely high up on my list of things to do to return to chile/S.A. for a winter and experience the ¨real¨ season down here. I can´t even begin to describe the magnitude of this mountain range, it truly is something that I never could have imagined... hmmm... what else? that night we came back to the hostel and where they were to be cooking up an asado (bbq - but definitely different than the kind of que we might do in the states, i´m talking like grilling up half of a cow for 20 people). It should be said that the Argentinean meat is famous for its deliciousness, and rightly so. Probably some of the best meat that I have ever tasted (no homo). Anyways, we each paid about 10 bucks, 40 argentinian pesos, and ate sausages on bread hot dog style (aka choripan), four courses of meat, salad, and potatoes, as well as plenty of wine to go around. I´d say that´s a pretty good deal. It should also be mentioned that at the hostel they had 3 beers on tap from a local microbrewery (friends of the owners) that we about 2 bucks a pint and delicious. At the hostel they had a couple of hammocks and I definitely spent a lazy afternoon reading, napping, and checking out the view in one of them. All in all, a very good vibe and an enjoyable weekend to say the least.

Now I am back in Valdivia. This weekend is pretty exciting here. There are a couple festivals going on: a film festival (which is apparently a pretty big deal here, people come from all over south america... something I didn´t know before coming here, but whatevs) and a brew festival with about 10 localish breweries and there beers (this is the first time ever this is happening here, kinda cool). So I will definitely be trying to get out and see the festivities this week. Another thing is that I am going to be filling in for one of the gringas at an english institute and I will be leading conversation classes (in english) for 10 bucks an hour. I´m hoping that I will soon surpass Miles and that I too will be earning a salary (lol, much love homie).

Really i´m not sure what else to tell you all about, hopefully you have been enjoying reading my memiors. Until next time, peace out yall, hope you are all doing well (whoever is actually reading my posts - and to the others I don´t give an S about you, jk). Ummm, yeah... keep on keeping it real in the states and I will do the same down here. chao, y a las chicas, besitos, anden con paz! me voy!

day 3: diez y ocho continued

If you havn´t read about the lagoons and the bike adventure that took place on day 2, please check out the last half of the previous post...

Day 3. The following photo is what we woke up to... gorgeous. A little side note, we were in the desert and so as we were sleeping the tempurature dropped to below freezing. Personally, I was fine because my bag is ¨la raja¨ (really good in chilean), however the other gringo that i was travelling with was far from fine, in fact, he was freezing because he didn´t not have a sleeping bag, pobrecito. He slept wearing all of his clothes as well as all of mine and he was still pretty darn cold, but he didn´t die and we had a grand ol´time, so it was definately worth it.


we went back to the B&B and opted to take a tour via auto this time because our hind quarters were a little sore from the bumpy ride. This was to be our last tourist destination in San Pedro, because we had decided to save money and catch a bus back to the Valdivia (1 1/2 days in bus) so as to be back there to celebrate the 18th (chilean independence day). So we went to Valle de la Luna (valley of the moon) and Valle de la muerte (valley of the dead), la luna being probably the most visited attraction around San Pedro. I believe they call it valley of the moon because it honestly looks like what I imagine the moon looks like. anyways, a photo is worth a thousand words (give or take) so check ´em out...

valle de la luna

valle de la muerte

salt formations in valle de la luna

valle de la luna again

the owner & staff of the Incahuasi B&B (definately recommended to anyone who ever makes it to San Pedro de Atacama)...

we returned to Valdivia and I had an excellent time celebrating the holiday in true chilean style (excessive amounts of food and drink)

la semana del diez y ocho

Over the last week we didn´t have school because it was the week of chilean independence (the 18th), and so almost all of the gringos went off on their own adventures. I chose to go to the Atacama desert (about a day and a half in bus to the north of valdivia). I went in search of the sun, and i found it. I went with one other gringo, Jordan, and we had an excellent time. We did quite a bit for the little amount of time we were actually in the desert.

The first day, we arrived in the morning, because the thing to do is to take the bus during the night so that you don´t have to pay for a bus ticket and a place to sleep, you just sleep on the bus, and we struck out into the city... town... pueblo. San Pedro de Atacama is the name of the pueblo and I believe there are only about 1000 inhabitants year round... aka tourism. Anyways, we got off the bus and were immediately offered some pamphlet about a B & B called Incahuasi (house of the inca) of which we didn´t think much and we continued into the town to find a place to put our bags and sleep, at least for the night, and also a place to get some grub. We ate, and walked around and talked to the hostels and camping places and discovered that everything was incredibly expensive and that no where offered us the same kind of package as the Incahuasi B&B. For Ch$ 10.000 (chilean pesos, about 20 bucks) we could use their bicycles, have a bed to sleep in, and be fed in the morning... bottom line, pretty good deal. So we went to the Incahuasi, told them that we would like to stay, at least for the night, and they showed us to our room where we put down our bags and literally turned right around and left on their bikes on our first adventure. We were to ride the bike 30k to the termas (hotsprings), the only thing was 30k is pretty far and it was all uphill and I am not in the kind of biking shape that my travel buddy, Jordan, is in, so I ¨hice dedos¨ (hitch hiked - literally meaning ¨to do fingers or thumbs¨) and a pickup of workers picked us up and hauled us up the road to where they were working on the highway, some 5k short of the springs, close enough. We did the rest of it by bike and when we actually arrived, we realized that it was completely ¨vale la pena¨ (worth the pain/effort). Absolutely beautiful, see for yourselves....

And here´s Jordan on the return trip, which was downhill the whole way.... very, very entertaining

Somos gringos locos (we´re crazy gringos). We rented these bikes that have motors attatched to them for Ch$10.000/day, and we took them out to some lagoons out in the middle of the salt flat desert where we camped over night. The stars from there (in the middle of no where) were unreal. It was about 30k one way to the farthest lagoon. We left in the morning after breakfast so as to seize as much of the day as possible. The plan was to visit the two closer lagoons on the way to the third and camp along side the third, watch the sun set and check out the stars from the southern hemisphere perspective. Excellent I must say, sadly I don´t have the high quality of camera needed to take a night photo of the stars, so you´ll just have to believe me when I say it was incredible. The milky way stretched across the entire sky directly above our heads, practically dividing the sky in two. Also the southern cross was out and I made it a point to locate it, pretty cool. And I´m sure there were all sorts of other constalations that we saw and we had no idea we were seeing, but whatevs... anyways check out some of the photos.

ready to embark

this is in laguna cejar which has enough salt content in the water that you can float without moving, much like i´ve heard of people doing in the dead sea

flamencos (flamingos-if you couldn´t figure that one out i´d be very disappointed)... they apparently eat an insect that thrives in these salty lagoons, that insect has a pinkish hue and that is where the flamingos get their coloring (just a little ubi for you guys)

Laguna Cejar

inbetween the first two lagoons and the last are two holes in the ground that are filed with water (as shown above)... check out the bikes, bad-a

at the final lagoon, Tembinquinche, we were out there battleing the elements... here we used our rain fly to create a shady spot to eat a snack, rest a bit, and wait for the sun set

confused....?

what a camping spot!

the mountains during the sun set...

the lake during the set...

I´ll have to tell you about the next day in the next post