Mendoza + Vino Roja = Mandozing (blissfully)

Alright this will be the last post in the catch up series! By the end of this you should know all the highlights between us heading to Mendoza to us lounging in hammocks in San Pedro de Atacama as we currently find ourselves.


As strongly hinted at in the last post we thought that Mendoza was fantastic.  The weather was pristine blue skies with temps in the mid twenties everyday...that alone was enough to bring massive smiles to our pasty faces.  Our hostel (Legares for anyone thinking of going) was great.  Laidback, helpful and friendly staff, great showers and a 6 bed dorm all to ourselves, result! As part of booking 3 nights at the hostel we were given a free biking tour voucher which we saved until the last day of our trip (more on that later). 

Lake in Mendoza park

We spent a couple of days walking around the city and the parks, taking a look in the shops and markets and generally getting to know the place (good gourmet empanadas and rubbish chocolate shop).  But Mendoza is known for one thing only, vino and lots of it.


So on the recommendation of a few friends from our hostel we booked a bus tour that included visiting 3 wineries and then a late lunch.  The wineries were keen to show us how they made the wine...I think they may have misread their audience though as the tastings only came at the end of each very informative tour.  I mean it was 11.15 before we had our first drink! Outrageous.  Some pics of the tour and the spectacular lunch below:

From the cellar of the biggest winery in the region

Cecchin organic family winery

First tasting (drink) of the day.  I even put a shirt on for the occasion

Our amazing lunch (first course) was worth the price of admission alone

After the bus tour we took a day off to rest up and organise our next journey.  Yas chose that day to cash in her birthday massage voucher and booked an hour and a half of luxurious bliss at the spa in the Hyatt.  I started to count the days to my birthday at this point. 

On our last day in Mendoza, another spectacular sunny day, we took our biking tour round some other vineyards with Mr Hugo.  Again, if you are in the region and want to do a biking tour, Mr Hugo can't be beat.  We arrived at 11am and immediately got to sample Mr Hugo's caraffe red wine while he got our bikes ready and gave us tips and discount vouchers for various places. It soon became apparent that he was quite happy for us to sit drinking his free wine all day if we chose and he was always on hand to top a glass up. 


Thinking that we should probably see something else that day as well, we and our new Aussie friends Sarah and Marcel took off on our sweet rides.  We visited a place that specialised in olives, olive oil, liqueurs, dips and chocolate first just to kick start the day with a shot or two (we ended up purchasing a small bottle of a liqueur called "Lady Passion" which we both thought was delicious but I had to get a whiskey as well to make me seem more manly). 


From there it was off to a vineyard, then a beer garden, another vineyard...then another before finally arriving back at Mr Hugo's and his neverending caraffes. 

Unfortunately (pure bad planning by us) we had to jump on a 20 hour bus to Salta in Northern Argentina at 8.30 that night.  By hour one I was hungover.  By hour 19 I was murderous.


When we arrived in Salta all we wanted was food and sleep so we set off for the main plaza to find something easy to eat.  We had heard that there was a religious festival on in the main plaza but weren't prepared for the reported 500,000 people jamming into the square and waving white hankerchiefs.  Apparently the festival was to commemorate a major earthquake that they believed was stopped by people gathering in the plaza to pray.  I was so out of it I had forgotten to take any sort of camera so you'll just have to take our word for it.


Salta, don't go there.


We tried to get a bus out as soon as possible but had to stay an extra night until a bus was scheduled.


The bus ride from Salta to San Pedro de Atacama took us back over the Andes into Chile again.  Unlike the snow covered journey over, this pass was rocky and barren with salt plains stretching for miles on a large plateau at the top.

Suffering a little from the altitude

What can you say

And that brings us to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile (woohoo current events) where we have been for the past 3 days and which we will leave via jeep for Bolivia tomorrow morning, crossing geyser fields, hot pools and salt plains all at high altitudes for 3 days. In the meantime we have indulged in a few of the local activities as well.

My best crash of the day

Like a pro

It was an unreal landscape.  Guide said it rained for 1 to 2 hours 5x a year.

Sand got everywhere

Sunset over Valle de la Luna

Hello!

Told you I was writing this from a hammock

If you are still reading WELL DONE!

Will check back in with our thoughts on Bolivia in a wee bit.

Love
Mike and Yas

Chile (the part after the volcano fail/triumph)

Santiago

After a few rainy days in Pucon resting our bodies we had the choice of heading further south into the Patagonian wilderness or start the beginning of our long trek northwards.  In the end the promise of some sun after two weeks of solid greyishness turned us north towards Santiago, the capital of Chile.

We hadn't heard many people say great things about Santiago as a destination but we thought that it was a great city with a bit of an alternative character to it.  Santiago is ringed by mountains and you can see the snow covered Andes peaking out at you from between the high-rises in the CBD.  We spent a relaxing 5 days wandering the streets and markets, catching the views from the lookouts, reading in the parks and having a drink here or there when the mood took us.

On top of San Cristobal with part of the city and the mountains behind us.  Note the blue sky! Not warm but sun was great.

Yas making friends. It is incredible the amount of wandering dogs we have seen in South America so far, this guy looks a bit more cared for than some others.

What do old guys do in NZ and Aus? I don't recall seeing many hanging out in parks but it is a full time occupation round here.  Maybe all our old fellas are at the TAB or the pub.

Ahh scenes from Dunners. Students with a couch on the middle of the street making the trucks go round them.  Not sure what they were collecting for but I gave them a couple of hundred peso (about 50c) for the nostalgia.

Daisy

Stressful park time

Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar

After Santiago we headed for northwest for the coast and the town of Valparaiso.  It is dominated by a port and a navy outpost but has a cool set up with the shape of the surrounding hills.  The harbour is ringed by steep hills that have mini cable cars everywhere for those that would rather not carry the shopping up every day.  Valparaiso has seen better times, a lot of buildings were run down and some areas we were advised to keep well away from even in the daytime. Recently it has been dogged with students protesting for free education, the protests apparently happen every week or so and are usually sorted out with a bit of tear gas. 

We had a dud hostel for the couple of nights we were there (we were the first people to sign the visitors book for 5 days and they didn't like people cooking in the kitchen other than in microwaves???) but we had an interesting time walking around the town and catching the train to nearby Vina Del Mar to see where the richer folk live and walk on the beach.  Highlights were watching the pelicans soar just over our heads, the seals restlessly annoying each other on the rocks, sand between the toes (hello Pacific Ocean...no land between us and home!) and a brief glimpse of some protests on the walk back to the hostel.

Yas missing the real Melbourne cafe scene.  The owner had spent a year in Melbs and brought back muffins and paninis to shake up the Chilean cuisine scene.

More furry friends.  We have never been short of animal company in Chile, in Pucon packs of dogs will just walk down the street with you like a canine escort.

One of the cable cars

The beach at Vina Del Mar and my attempt at getting in front of the camera!

Yas protecting the foreshore

Unhappy at small horse treatment (frowny face)

The police preparing to stop the latest wave of protests.  Yas wouldn't let me get any closer.

We tried to leave Valparaiso for Mendoza in Argentina but struck our first bad luck with the busses.  The pass over the Andes was blocked by snow and ice so our bus was cancelled.  The cheeky bus co told us to wait for 2 hours at the station before informing us of the cancellation and then tried to say that if you wanted your money back you had to approach them in the first hour after cancellation! Thanks to several others in the same position and the help of a friendly tourist information/interpreter girl we stood there laughing at them until our money was returned. 

Instead we caught the bus back to Santiago for a night and managed to make it over the pass the next day on a packed bus (so packed in fact that we rode with our bags under our feet because all the local ladies had decided to move all their belongings to Argentina that day and there was no room in the hold for our bags...we had no sympathy for the lady whose 8th and 9th bag were left on the concrete, although she seemed quite peeved about the injustice of it all).   The drive was spectacular, as was the cheek of the customs official who searched the bags then asked for a tip for the privilege.

As we go back, back and forth and forth (just a little Wu Tang Clan reference there...i'm tired ok)

Will update shortly on Mendoza (just a preview, it was awesome).

Hope everyone is well back home or wherever you are reading this from.  I've been getting up at all hours to catch the cup games when I can (thank you live streaming) and NZ looks like an amazing place to be right now. Yas being the technical brains and beauty of our outfit has figured out a way to make commenting on the blog easier (no need to sign up to an account or anything) so fire away at will.

Much love

Mike and Yasmin

Pucon (or That Awkward Moment When Yas Climbed A Volcano And Mike Didn't)

From Bariloche we headed over the border to Pucon, Chile, on possibly our most beautiful bus trip so far. It had been snowing the night before and was still snowing in the morning, so we travelled through a swirling winter wonderland, of fresh, untouched white powder.

Pucon is a gorgeous little town, heavily aimed towards tourists. However as the majority of tourists come in the summer (fools!) we mostly had the town to ourselves. We stayed in my favourite accommodation so far... a hostel run by two ladies, our 'room' was a bedroom in a little cottage out the back, complete with lounge, kitchen, fireplace and tea cups and saucers - heaven.

Our cottage - sigh...

We were lucky enough on our second day to have fine weather to attempt to climb the resident active volcano, the 2847m high Volcan Villarrica.


The view of the Volcano from our hostel

 We turned up to our guides office at 7am to be fitted out with waterproof pants, jackets and gloves, crampons, packs, boots and ice-picks. We had a group of about 12 people. I was pleased to see a few other girls, who also had no idea what crampons were.



The group heading off



The first section of the climb. Note the chair lift in the background... we didn't get to take it



There were a few different groups climbing the moutain that day, including 2 people who climbed to the top with their skis ON. The groups soon merged together, and about 2/3 of the way up the mountain they split us into a "fast" group, and a "slow" group. Stupidly, I (Y) found myself stuck in the fast group with 5 guys and spent the next 2 hours wishing I was dead and trying not to look down. Eventually we made it to the top (well the guys made it to the top, I trailed (read: staggered) along about 10 minutes later). At the top I was rewarded with toxic fumes, blizzard weather, and biting cold. Ahhh.... the life of a volcano climber.



At the top, with the volcano behind me. I was not taking one step further back as I did not want to be a sacrifice because I am such a good whistler

Mike: It's at this point that Yas has asked me to put my own 2 cents in about the volcano climb (or torture trek as I like to refer to it as) this is because it is probably the only time we have spent apart since arriving.  I would like to give some sort of excuse for not reaching the top but I have none.  All I have now is shame.

The first 2 hours of the climb were ok, my legs were burning a bit but it was a spectacular day and our guides were great.  The going got a bit harder as we hit an icy shelf and had to don the crampons and carry the ice axes, but up we climbed, stopping every half hour or so for a quick drink/bite to eat/leg rest/view appreciation time.  Our team seemed to be charging ahead of other company's on the way so it felt good to be passing people.  As we got higher I really started to struggle sucking in the oxygen, it felt as if I had a hessian sack over my mouth and very little air was getting through and I started falling back from the pack then crawling back on to the end of the line. You know how you hear people describe others as "80kg of pure muscle"...well in the soft snow I was 105kg of hot lead, sinking faster than the Titanic with each step.

The group split happened after one of our breaks and a blind man could see I didn't belong in the fast or "rapido" group, but Yas was doing great and was the only girl to make the cut.  About 25 minutes after the fast group had taken off ahead I turned to my inspirational guide and asked "At this rate will this group make it to the top in time?", he looked deep into my eyes, reached into his soul for those motivational words that would make all the difference and said "You will never make it to the top". I can't remember the guide's name but it was about this point I started referring to him as Dick. I also think it was at this point that my sole focus of reaching the top started to fade.

And so it was that the slow group stopped 400m below the summit and had the pleasure of some magnificent views and 40 minutes of Dick regaling us with his lifetime mountain climbing expeditions.  I was glad when he finally released us as a captive audience and let us slide on our bums to the bottom.

So, while Yas dug really deep and got the well deserved prize of first female to the top, I was relegated to the dubious honour of first back to the van.  Yep, cool.  Might just head out for a run... Back to you champ.

The rest of our time in Pucon was unfortunately plagued with constant rain which put a bit of a dampener (ha) on things. We made the most of it by visiting lots of cafes, cooking, drinking endless cups of peppermint tea, birthday celebrations, hot pools and exploring the town.

El Bolson and Bariloche

From BA we jumped on a bus (26 hours in total - backpacking is a glamorous life) heading South, to a little town called El Bolson. The Lonely Planet had described it as “Hippies rejoice: there’s a must see destination for you in Argentina, and it’s called El Bolson” so naturally I was keen for some hippie spotting (and to ask them where they got their happy hippy pants).

El Bolson is a sleepy little town, surrounded by stunning snow-capped mountains. We stayed for 2 nights in a lovely family run hostel, where we ran into John and Julia from the UK who had been staying with George and Coops a few nights before!

The moutains surrounding El Bolson

We borrowed some mountain bikes, and went for a bike ride to a chocolate shop about 12km out of town. There are a lot of dogs around. And they like to chase people on bikes –incentive to pedal faster. On Saturday we went to the local markets – this is where all the hippies came out of the woodwork. Oh and Mike watched the All Blacks but they lost. I stayed in bed. And then we got on a bus back to Bariloche. El Bolson, it’s charming but not much happens – bring a board game.

The chocolate shop in the wop wops

Bariloche was an interesting town – there is a clear divide between rich and poor here. On the bus out of town there are lots of run down houses, whereas near town and the ski-fields there are plenty of large, swanky looking places. The town was mostly full of tourists skiing and snowboarding. Unfortunately the weather was absolutely poos when we were there, so we didn’t get to have a look at the mountain or go to the National Park. Bariloche is also known for its multitude of chocolate shops – so when it constantly rained we went there instead.



Bariloche - the weather really doesn't do the mountains justice



On the way out of Bariloche.... stunning



The remnants of the ash-cloud.... ash. Not so stunning.



From Bariloche we headed onwards to Pucon, our first glimpse of Chile!