Valpo - La Serena - Caldera/Bahia Inglesia

Valparaiso

Studied spanish for a week and stayed with a Chilian family up a steep coble stone and dirt street lined with a mix of multi-storied brightly painted houses and small tin walled and roofed shacks squeezed in where space allowed. Took a few breaks from school while in town and visited Pablo Neruda´s house (Chilian poet and communist figure), treked up through graffiti walled streets to a sanctioned "open air graffiti muesum" that displayed less artwork than the ascent, and visited touristy Vina Del Mar (beach 15 minutes to north).
Highlight of town was staying with the family. Two nights they had family or friends over and included me in festivities. Early in night I could communicate a bit as questions were said slow and repeated often. Later in the evening the words flowed like the wine and cheap beer being thrown back and I was reduced to the ever smiling, ever oblivious tourist.

La Serena

Stayed in beach town 2 nights 7 hours north of Valparaiso. Water was too cold to swim, but highlight was playing in a beach soccer game with 6 Peruvian and 3 Brazilian guys.


If you can zoom in on picture you can see first hand the complete awesomeness of the zip off shorts... once again coming through in the clutch.

Two of the Peruvian guys invited me to the bar with them later in the night to watch the World Cup qualifying match between Chile and Peru. After a bit of thought I decided I valued my life too much and skipped out on the invitation.

Caldera and Bahia Inglesia

Yet another 6 hour bus ride to the north (Chile is a long country) I currently find myself in Caldera. A town supported by fishing and tourism, with the summer tourist boom having been over by almost 2 months now. I´m exploring the town with two girls from Holland that I met on the bus and we stayed in a hospedaje in the middle of town with only two others last night.


Just a few kms down the beach and pictured below is Bahia Inglesia, a traquil resort town to the core with empty streets this time of year, minimal restaurants and hotels open and clear water lapping at the shore. A good stop for an afternoon.

Next
Taking a night bus tonight to the northern desert town of San Pedro de Atacama. Should have a few more pictures in the next posting. Is it really almost April?

Valparaiso and a quick mention of Santiago

Since there isn´t too much to report on from the last week below is an excerpt (possibly slightly over-written) from the journal...

As I write this, sitting on one of many steps that cloth a large portion of Valparaiso´s hills, I can gaze through the fog and smog and blaring 90´s pop music to capture a blurily visible 8-sided straight-edge cutout of the Pacific pasted between color-clad row houses on the horizon. In the foreground are colors and wires. Lots of overhead wires that jut out to attach to anything, and maze their way above the coble streets and dirt roads acting almost like chains. One of many components keeping complete "beauty" from entering this city, but also successfully managing to lock-in authenticity from above.

Authenticity well deserved as a port city I can view in minature fashion on my free glossy 4-color tour bus company map with a half-halo of freshly inked black "X´s" indicating barrios to avoid. However, everywhere I´ve gone there has been colors climbing the hills and no black smears yet, in this brighter, more extreme and much poorer replica in a sense of San Francisco.

A few days ago I was in Santiago which the best description I can think of is "a big non-descript city" (I´ve never been a city person though). The highlight of my time there was when I opted not to pay $1.25 for a train ride to the top of a mountain in the middle of the city and instead walked up the road. After 20 mins or so I started talking to a passing biker and over the next 4 kms he slowed his peddle and I quicked my pace, and we both talked horribly in the other´s language about many things (some of which I still don´t know). At the top I was met with a fine, yet smog filled view of the sprawling city and surrounding mountains and of course verbal exhaustion.

Next up:
I´ll be staying in Valparaiso for the next week, and hope to piece many of the vocabulary words I´ve been learning from traveling and reading kids books together... through formal Spanish classes and in discussions with the Chilian family I will be living with for at least 6 days. Should be interesting to escape the comfort of English tounged companionship found at almost every hostel. It also wll be interested to see how bright the city´s colors appear at the end of the week.

El Bolson - Bariloche

El Bolson

A much needed place to relax we thought for 2 days that instead turned into 7. Took in the hippyish market, town´s plethora of home-made ice cream and microbrews and blackberry bushes linning the hillsides.

4 day hiking trip in surrounding mountains - landscapes weren´t as epic as the south, but will fondly remember for two reasons.

1. the Water - Pictures and words do not give it justice, but here it goes anyway... Glacial fed, winding through to dot the bottom of the curvy valley´s "V", clear to this translucent blue hue, where the trout swim just below the surface. Criss-crossed by suspension bridges with broken boards that act as the one way to make the ascent possible and also a fine entry point into manhood reducing clear blue refreshment.



2. the Refugios - Stayed in these mountain-top/river-side huts/shacks instead of camping. In other places refugios are often nice huts at the side of a camping trail where you can stay in realitive luxury and recharge. These refugios were people homes of sorts, constructed largely out of materials from the forest and 6 hours and 3,000 ft up "the hill" from town. We slept on a old mat on the floor for $6 - $10 per night.
Some of the construction of the cabins is reminiscent to 1800´s carpentry and is truly remarkable while other parts like using trash for repairs is a bit interesting. They also make their own food and more importantly brew their own beer. The beer actually wasn´t that good in flavor, but when you drink it sitting next to a glacial stream as the sun goes down, there isn´t much else better.

Suprised I haven´t seen the passion for soccer I was expecting, however, this field a 6 hour hike up and an hour down from a glacier is impressive dedication

Bariloche
2 hours north to the "large city" of Bariloche. Michele and I and an Australian guy Tim that we met at the Hostel rented a car and toured the siete lagos (7 lakes) for 2 days.

At one point we went through a military checkpoint while I was driving and got stopped. So my spanish is still "a bit iffy" and when there is pressure it´s non existent. So I understood that the military guys were asking me if I had any drugs in the car. I meant to say, "no, I don´t have any" but instead I said, "no, i don´t have the drugs anymore". So the dog went through the car and the bags and luckly, it was true, no drugs.

Day Hike up to Frey Refugio just out of Bariloche

Crazy clear/blue lake, the border looks dirty but it´s just that the water is so clear and somewhat shallow you´re looking at the bottom

As a final note - I need to pass along my thanks to Michele. We´re headed our separate ways for now, but over the last 2 months or so of traveling together she was my spanish professor, (although I´m not sure if that is a good thing for the resume), translator, pseudo mother of sorts of a sick "child" with mountain top food poisoning and more importantly good friend.
Auf Wiedersehen. Au Revoir. Adios. Widerluege. Laew phob gan mai. Goodbye

Fitz Roy and a 30 Hour Bus Ride

El Chalten / Fitz Roy

Arrived in this small Argentian town (likely the same line I will use on almost every posting with a different country name inserted) which has many hiking trails for the Fitz Roy mountain range leaving from several points of town. Did a 3 day backpacking trip around the park and a longer day hike. Incredibly lucky again with deep blue skies.

Hiking (unfortunately you can´t see the beard which is growing in nicely)

Highlights included:



Picking the way along the a river bed and then climbing over bolders for 1/2 a mile to have our own front row seat to a glacier and glacial lake.


Climbing a pass and experiencing the furor of the Patagonian winds as people were dropping to all fours at the summit not to be blown away (lake pictured above, just below pass)



Climbing over 3,000 ft in less than 3 hours, the last hour off the trail and almost straight up, to have a 360 degree view from the peak of a mountain

34 Hour Bus Ride
Patagonia in context - taking a 34 hour, largely dirt road bus trip north and passing though maybe 3 places you can call towns (actually 34 isn´t a fair number as this is the time the bus office claimed, however, with the bus arriving over 2 hours late (we were the origination point) and an unexpected 3 hour bus transfer we still made it in just under 30 hours). An interesting trip though as it had hints of the Kerouacian era route 66, but you can feel the tourist boom to this area coming in the fresh dirt and asphalt currently being laid parellel to the old route.


A common view out the front windshield

Now in a town called El Bolson, and I´m sure you already guessed it but it also has great hiking, but slightly different landscapes. The town is very organic/hippish and has several microbrews I´ll be sampling tonight.