Chile is giving us the cold shoulder [/lame joke] so we are outta here. Starting with a drive along the shoulder of the freeway at 8:30am to Santiago from Valparaiso to catch a 12:30pm flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Once arriving in BA, it´s all aboard a bus for a 45 minute bus ride from the main airport to another airport which coincidentally just happens to be about 45 minutes away! And then we wait…
…and wait…
…and eat while waiting…
…and wait…
…and compute while waiting…
…and wait…
…and wait to wait while waiting..
We waited for 5 hours for a delayed flight from Buenos Aires to Mar Del Plata. The plane was about the size of a torpedo, so I can´t imagine why it took so long to get here. There were about 2 dozen passengers, 1 flight attendant, and 3 cookies for us all to share as our in-flight snack.
Once we landed we took a cab to our new digs.
And I thought the hostel in Pucón was bad. That place was like the Taj Mahal! This hole in MDP was the worst hostel/hotel I’ve ever seen in my life. Straight out of a movie. Wooden panelling lobby with an overweight man behind the desk smoking like a chimeny. A homeless guy with filthy feet sleeping on the couch in the lobby. Giant 5 pound lead ingets attached to the room key to prevent you from stealing it. As if I’d ever want to come back here. Beds that were concave, a TV about to fall on the bed (maybe that explains the concaveness), dirty towels, constantly running water in the bathroom/shower, broken night stands. At least there weren’t any cockroaches! I’ll give them that!
Luckily my cousin Diana and her husband Gabe have a nice vacation apartment that they are letting us borrow for a few days. So we´ll tough it out in this non-roach infested roach motel and then live in luxury at the apartment. Thanks Gabe & Diana! You saved us!
Authored by: Jason on January 29, 2009.
Filed under: Argentina,South America,Travel | No Comments »
There isn’t a whole lot to do in the city of Valparaíso, but it is a great city for photography. I sort of wish I had more time to walk around on foot to take more photos, but I was spoiled (and a tad bit lazy) having access to a car.
Some might think of it as ugly graffiti that is just defacing public buildings, but I quite enjoy looking at all of it. From the colorful posters and stencil art…
…the the full on murals…
…to the hand drawn chalk drawings expressing dietary suggestions…
…and you can’t have street art without stickers on street signs.
One street vendor even re-created a Happy Tree Friends cartoon character and framed it to sell.
I tell ya they’ve got it all here. I definately want to come back again when I have more time to take it slower and take more photos.
Authored by: Jason on January 28, 2009.
Filed under: Chile,South America,Travel | 1 Comment »
After a well deserved rest from a long 11+ hour drive, we rolled out of the hostel this afternoon to explore our new habitat in Valparaíso. It was too dark to see much of anything when we arrived, so we took this opportunity to orient ourselves to our new surroundings.
I keep noticing a lot of similarities between California and Chile. Valparaíso reminded me a bit of San Francisco with it’s various different neighborhoods and it’s extremely hilly topography…
…with old houses…
…of various pastel colors lining the streets.
They also have a busy harbor on the Pacific ocean…
…and even electric powered buses that follow the power lines hanging overhead. That’s so SF!
A couple hills over from our hostel was the Naval and Maritime museum that we perused to kill some time…
…and kill some encroaching enemy warships.
We lost a few good soldiers in the battle, so we paid our respects at the cemetery a few hills away.
And then it was full speed ahead…
…back up another hill…
…via one of the many rickety funiculars the city has so that we could find some food.
On the way back to the hostel we got stuck behind this bus with UTAH license plates!
Now I REALLY feel like I’m back in California! What the heck is this thing doing here!?
Authored by: Jason on January 27, 2009.
Filed under: Chile,South America,Travel | 1 Comment »
We had planed on checking out some hot springs after yesterdays grueling hike, but due to unforeseen circumstances (a.k.a. BBQ meat, corn and beer (the beer was not barbecued)) we never made it. So instead of taking a nice long relaxing soak in a hot tub of water, we are going to take a nice long drive in a Nissan. Allllll the way back up highway 5. Past Santiago, to the city of Valparaíso. That same drive (and then some) that we split into two days, we will now tackle in one day!
We were sent on our way with a farewell escort…
…and then herded along in the right direction by some wild sheep…
…who as it turns out were not quite sure of the right direction themselves.
So, we went the other direction, and left them to figure out how to get back into their field.
About 10 hours later, we had made it back to Santiago and were now headed west on the 68 freeway to Valparaíso, only to be stung by a traffic jam. Moments after exiting the toll booth, we were stopped dead in our tracks by bumper to bumper traffic. And we were making such good timing too! Google Maps had clocked the entire trip at around 16 hours, and we were so close after having only been on the road for 10. So we sat, and we waited. Sat, and waited. Sat, and waiting. Sat, and waited for the clean up crew to remove a large vehicle that had crashed into the side of the wall in a tunnel through a mountian. Finally after we got out of now smog-filled tunnel, we made it to Valparaíso in about 40 minutes with only a few drops of gas left in the tank and a few drops of room left in the bladder. After driving in circles for a good 20 minutes trying to find the hostel, we finally threw our map out the window and followed our instinct. Ahh good ol instinct comes through again. At least we now have a working toilet and a shower! Totally worth the drive.
Authored by: Jason on January 26, 2009.
Filed under: Chile,South America,Travel | No Comments »
Ya know, it’s interesting how there can be quite a few similarities between Queenstown, New Zealand, and Pucón Chile despite them being so far away from each other. There’s something about really large mountains surrounding a lake that just screams out “ADVENTURE SPORTS!!” And since we were suffering a bit from an adrenaline withdrawal after having left good ol’ Queenstown we decided to answer the call of duty, and bring our levels back up to abnormal. Today’s adventure of choice:
Scaling the active Villarrica volcano!! Now that’s one thing Queenstown does not offer!
We woke up at the crack of dawn and grabbed a quick breakfast before walking over to the meeting point. After suiting up with our gear, and throwing some snacks, lunch and water in a backpack, we hopped in the truck…
…ready to trek over 9000 feet to the crater…
During a rough and bumpy 40 minute ride to the base of the volcano the guides presented us with the option to take a ski-lift part of the way up.
HA! We don’t need no stinkin’ ski-lift! We’re warriors!
Oh crap, 9000 feet is kinda tall. On second though we’ll take you up on the ski-lift offer.
And with that, the ski-lift took us up the volcano a little farther — just to the edge of where the snow was…
…which meant it was time to strap on the cramp-ons so we could dig in to the icy snow.
Despite the icy/snowy conditions, within the first 45 minutes I was already peeling of layers of clothing to cool off.
This hike was no joke! The heart was pumping and the sweat was pouring. We forged ahead, zigging, and zagging up the mountain side with our pickax and cramp-ons keeping us from sliding all the way back down to the bottom.
We kept up a slow and steady pace for about 4 hours! Only stopping 3 times along the way to take a few photos of the volcano…
…as well as other nearby volcanos.
We stopped once more for a lunch break and a few more photos…
…and then continued on up and over the jagged icy rocks…
…that had some really cool ice formations…
…that formed an ice throne for me.
Finally as the 5th hour approached, we had reached the summit! Exhausted and tired, we clawed our ways to the tippity top of the volcano…
…determined to see the lava filled crater.
And while the crater was just too deep to see any molten magma, we could certainly hear the burping and gargaling lava, and smell the farting sulfuric fumes spewing from the pit.
The crater was gigantic! Take a look at the full size version of this photo:
and check out how tiny the people are on the leftern edge of the rim to get a sense for just how big of a whole it is. It’s one of only 4 volcanoes on the world that has an active lava lake in the crater! I wanted to see if I could get a better vantage point to witness some actual molten lava, so I hiked all the way around the crater, taking in some great views along the way…
…including some cooled off lava chunks…
…and some glacier wave formations.
Unfortunately, even from the highest point on the edge, I still wasn’t able to see deep enough down the hole to see any magma. If only I had a helicopter to see far enough down the hole! 
After about an hour at the summit, it was time to head back down. We had two options, hike or slide. Since hiking would most definitely result in some blisters forming, we all agreed that sliding down would be the best (and most fun) method of descent. So we put on all of our gear again, and slide down most of the mountain on our butts.
It was SOOOO much fun! Some trails were faster than others, some more windy than others, but every single one was a blast!
It brought me back to my days of Topstone Dr. in Bethel, CT where we would spend hours out on the hill sleding down snow covered hills. Eventually after about only 40 minutes of sliding, we reached the point where there was no more snow to slide down.
So we footed it all the way back down the whole way that the ski-lift had taken us, and all the way back to the awaiting van. We all piled in and headed back to the shop where it was decided that we celebrate or accomplishment with a barbecue back at the hostel.
Ya know you’re in South America when BBQ meat tastes this good! DELICIOUS!
A great way to end the evening. Relaxing in the back yard with some steak, corn on the cob and a beer with our friend Villarrica looking over us from off in the distance…
..under a firey sky.
A great day in Chile!
Authored by: Jason on January 25, 2009.
Filed under: Chile,Orgish,South America,Travel | 1 Comment »
