Osorno, Bariloche, and El Bolson

The brewers of John´s beer of preference.

We drove to Osorno, struggled a bit in the big city, and then found an alright place to stay. As soon as we could we set off to find this craft brew party that Jeff had told us about. John led us about 10 blocks in the wrong direction with his GPS enabled phone, before he realized it was wrong, so then we walked allllllll the way back, stopped at the bar that was hosting the event, and were directed to the party.

John was searched upon entrance, metal detector and all, I was given a pass as soon as I started to empty my pockets. The music was LOUD. and not live, like the posters had promised. There were about 10 craft brewers from the region, though, which was fantastic. They all had at least 2 beers on tap. I started with a Belgian Ale, a style rarely found here, and was pleasantly surprised. Soon Jeff met us with a friend from Germany who was travelling the world on a motorcycle. Unfortunately he wasn't feeling well, so left too soon. John and I sampled most of the beers, definitely all we were interested in, but that Belgian was by far my favorite. I made a slight mistake of ordering empanadas,   the only vegetarian thing on the very limited event menu. I asked for two, but they only came in a serving of 12, so I agreed. I was hungry! $7 USD later, John gave me a bit of a hard time, but after we found some hot sauce I think he agreed it was a solid purchase. I had a giant skewer of meat-chicken, sausage, and lomo- as well as 7 of the empanadas.

I make goofy faces while eating empanadas, and yes, those are 3 cups of beer for the two of us, we couldn´t let Jeff´s go to waste!

We left earlier than we would have liked because we had a bit of a curfew. I called Justin because it was his birthday!!!!!! and ended up going to bed way too late. The next morning I woke up to the woman of the house asking if I was going today. She woke me up an hour before check out!!

I was just walking up to the hostel from a morning walk to get Acacia up in time to make some breakfast, some coffee, and get out of the house by 10 when she met me at car saying the lady working there had kicked her out. Lame. No breakfast is devastating. We drove to the nearest supermarket to get provisions for the next few days since we´d be trekking, and then wandered through the municipal market hoping to find good coffee and some good pastries. We found bad coffee and pastries in the market and settled. Then we drove east towards the Argentine border and knew there was a private farm with access to a trail in the national park surrounding a volcano. The trail was supposed to go to some hotsprings, geysers, and a huge crater in a volcano. So it sounded pretty awesome. We arrived at a closed looking restaurant with the same name as the farm we were trying to go to, knocked on the door, and were greeted by the guy who collects money and registers hikers.

Turns out the volcano erupted in 2010. Our guide book was written in 2009. Which meant that the hotsprings and trail we were trying to go to had been covered by lava and no longer existed. Damn. We paid our 20,000 pesos to get in anyway, and headed off up this road to a refugio that was an ´easy 3 hour hike`, and the biggest concern the guy at the restaurant had was that we don´t get lost since he had to search for an Israeli a few days earlier. For an easy hike, it was an uphill battle on the steep, muddy terrain with a race against the sun to get to a refugio before it got completely dark. It was especially hard because the trail was SO eroded.

We arrived to find a legit refugio complete with a wood stove and a stack of wood, a couple kettles, and a table to do all our cooking  right around sunset. Perfect. Warm fire, mango coconut milk rice, several rounds of hot chocolate whisky, and a cold enough night for me to not be too hot in my sleeping bag. And it was a perfectly clear night, so no rain, and a lot of shooting stars.

The following morning after a slow start with pancakes and coffee, we decided trekking 9 hours along exposed volcanic terrain and camping there didn´t sound as fun as a shorter day hike up to the crater and then another night in a refugio with a fire. We hiked up the face of the volcano with some pretty epic views, but with some pretty dense clouds coming towards us. About 20 meters from the top the ice on the mountain got a bit too sketchy for Acacia and I, so we carefully slid down a bit of the volcanoe on our butts and then raced the rain to our refugio, which we got to just as the first few sprinkles got us. WHITE OUT. It was quite the storm outside, and I was super stoked we weren´t trying to camp. We gathered some wood, made a fire, played some backgammon while drinking some whisky hot chocolate, and I made some pancake batter to rise for the next morning.

Chilly morning

The view out the window as soon as we got inside

The storm was pretty friendly to us. Rained all through the night and shook the refugio quite a bit. but we had a crisp clear morning to relax at our refugio, toss the frisbee around, clean up from the pancake batter rising over the edge of the pot, and enjoy some coffee in the sun. Perfect morning. We snapped a few quick pictures with Rocky the Racoon, and took a leisurely pace down the eroded trail back to our car. We played some more frisbee. Must catch all the frisbees at no expense! Acacia hucked a curve into some bushes, and I was determined to catch the disk. Owwww! Turns out there was a ditch on the other side of the bushes that I fell straight into. Acacia had quite the laugh. It was a leisurely night of camping in the restaurant parking lot.

The valley

The stars were extra twinkly, John was pretty sure it was the elevation. I was positive he was full opf shit, since we weren't even above 1000 m. Seems to be a reoccuring theme. John thinks that we are always significantly higher than we are, and attributes everything to it. 

Anyway, we left the next morning, bound for Argentina. We had our first border crossing with Alejandro, no problems.

On our way to Bariloche there was a pull out with a view of a lake, which also happened to have a photorapher taking tourist photos of families. Not too unusual, except that in addition to the spectacular view (behind the clouds, I'm sure), he also had a spectacular dog to pose with everyone too. His name was Hector. We skipped the tourist photo, and it seemed wrong to take our own of Hector, so we decided to just snap a quick one of the sample photos.

We continued on to Bariloche, stopped at the Parks Office, and learned that many of the trails were closed because of the season, and that high wind and some rain was expected. We decided that it would be best to continue to El Bolson, the hop capital of Argentina, although we didn't see a single hop plant while we were there.

We chose a hostel called Joy, that was owned by a man who was learning English, his favorite phrase in English was a very enthusiastic ¨´HELLO!´and ´Very Good!´ and his favorite in Spanish ´papas fritas con vermouth. Strange. We drank beer from the local brewery, this one was pretty unique because of their huge variety. Between us we tried 5 styles? I think. The standout for me was the aji, or spicy pepper beer. The first I have tried. and mostly well balanced for having such an overpowering non beer flavor. 

We continued our night at the hostel with 2 Spaniards and an Argentinian, and then grabbed a couple of other Argentinians who were drinking wine on the street while we were grabbing more beer. We played something like yahtzee, learned the crucial phrase of ´betchu frio´which means something like cold hearted, but is thrown around sometimes as a joke, but other times seriously.

It was a late night. 

The next day we took it pretty easy for awhile. It was raining and we figured we could hang out in the hostel, try to get some photos uploaded, and have a low key kind of a day. We met the hostel owner´s english teacher from the states, thought about going on a day hike, and spent the majority of the day reading, playing some chess and backgammon, and hanging around the hostel. We tried to find a laundry place with no success. But, I found a phone store so I bought an Argentine sim card for the phone, and we planned a bit for the trek we´d hopefully start the next day when the rain stopped.

The next day the rain didn´t stop. But, we had a late start waiting for the weather to clear. Also, I met a group of guys staying at the hostel, one of which was a forester in Alberta. Crazy? We ended up driving out to the start of the trek at a place that advertised having beer. Closed for the season. Poop. So we made some quick sandwiches and headed off down the trail to the campground outside of a refugio, which was really a few homesteaders opening up there homes to hikers. The trek was pretty nice. We crossed 2 super sketchy bridges held together with wire and rotting wood, made a decent climb up to another bridge that was less sketchy but would have resulted in a tumble to death if it hadn´t held, and got to the first refugio. This refugio was run by an old Chilean guy with a farm of sheep and horses, and a lovely apple orchard. It was a pretty epic place to live. We continued a bit further to the second refugio where 3 guys lived and immediately offered us water and yerba mate upon arrival. We hucked the disc real quickly before it got too dark, then set up the tent and hid our stuff from the rain. We made some pasta and played some backgammon. He's being pretty dramatic about this weather. It was sprinkling on and off this day, but not even enough to wear rain gear.

John´s always packing the camera and having to dig it out immediately after packing his bag

Hudson would hate it

Does it get any better?

The following morning I made some pancakes in the rain, met a fellow trekker from Buenos Aires who was headed up to the same lake/refugio we were heading to, and took off for a decent muddy climb to a spectacular refugio setting. The hike was amazing! We were following a pretty big river for most of it. This day it was rainy enough for rain gear, but it wasn't too bad. A couple waterfall views and fall colors. The highlight for me were more Alerce trees. Soon after we reached the refugio by a lake. Certainly scenic, even though the clouds were pretty low.

Yes, the trail is a log that is attached to a cliff with wire

The revised fire location

 By the time we reached the refugio I wasn't feeling very well. We knew nobody would be at this refugio, but that we could still camp. After scoping things out and determining everything was locked, except for a shed for showering (where I made some hot water for tea out of the rain and wind) we heard a cat. It was behind a locked door on the second floor of the refugio that had definitely been closed for the season. It seemed pretty frantic to get out when it heard us. We tried the windows, and picking the lock. No good. John, uncharacteristically, was pretty worried about this cat. After inspecting the roof I was pretty sure that it could get out, though. Sure enough once John stopped trying to open the door, it was on the roof. After setting up the tent I decided I had enough of the rain and crawled into bed pretty early, with a terrible headache and a sore throat, but luckily a book too. After sleeping terribly that night, the next day I did the same, except I didn't have anything to read anymore.


Before Acacia went to bed, I was determined to make a fire because our jenky stove was not working that well and I was hungry. After about 2 hours of solid attempts I finally got the fire to light, even in the wind and the rain, using the last few pages of my write in the rain notebook. Apparently writing and making fires in the rain don´t require the same set of characteristics from paper, because it did not work that well. In any case, I made some pasta pretty quickly, and let the fire die after that so I could go to bed. As usual, I was out of the tent a couple hours before Acacia and had made some pancakes and coffee. Acacia was feeling terrible though, so instead of hiking up to another lake as originally planned, we spent the day at the campsite. This meant I had a day to kill, and I don´t do idle very well. So I went to work finding a wood fired, super rusty stove laying by the side of a building and carried it over lakeside next to a bench carved from a giant log. I found a stack of dry wood under an awning and went to work making myself a fire again. This worked like a charm. I spent several hours making tea and stoking the fire as I sat in the rain next to the lake. The rain was just hitting the outside of the stove and immediately evaporating which was pretty fun. My Buenos Aires buddy had gone off hiking to the lake we were going to head to, but had turned around at a river crossing and got pretty stoked on the fire. But, he didn´t like the rain. So we stuck a large stick through the stove and precariously carried it over to underneath a roof where we could cook out of the rain and stay warm. I pretty much spent the rest of the day hanging out with my buddy and stoking the fire while serving tea and food to Acacia. We kept the fire going into the night and Acacia came out to hang out a bit, but we both ended up getting into the tent pretty early.

Whata Tree

The next morning was a long 28 km hike I think it was more all the way back to the car, since we had registered with the national park office and told them we´d be back that day. Basically we just walked for 9 hour straight and ended the return right at dark. We headed back to Joy hostel for one more night there and met a group of Israelis who we shared a dorm with. They idled all evening, but decided to pack for their early morning bus, right before they left, around 3:30 am. Loudly. 

We left the next day, with the plan to head north and cross back into Chile to Pucon.

Chiloe

Cheers readers!  Its been a while since our last blog, but that´s because we haven´t stayed at a place with internet in a while, so we have a valid excuse or somethin, right?

Anyway, we´ve covered a lot of ground since Puerto Varas. Word on the street was that Chiloe was ¨bonito`, or that´s what we kept hearing from the locals anyway. Acacia knew this meant beautiful and I just took her word for it. Plus Chiloe is an island and required another ferry ride to get to, so it seemed like quite the desitination. I had met one of my John has Korean friends!?!  Korean friends in a grocery store in Puerto Varas and he also recommended it. Our last night in the house hostel we were in, we knocked on the door and the owner had left for the night, but another guy who had knocked the night before, also after the owner had left, let us in. We made ourselves at home and were informed that the hostel was without water for the immediate future. This made our last morning in the hostel a fairly quick one since showering was out of the question. We were on the road to Chiloe by about 11 in the morning.

It was raining. You know, bummer. The ferry ride was an uneventful trip, but pretty efficient by Chile standards. Once off the ferry we drove to Ancud, the nearest town of any size. I have been seriously sweater deprived, but have been holding off, because if I am going to own any sweater on this trip (really not very practical because it is bulky) it isnt gonna be store bought. Or even from a vendor who bought it from someone else, like many of the markets near here. I guess I have high standards. the second we arrived at the market I spotted it. THE sweater. Made of undyed wool, still scratchy. I am in love. The woman selling it told me it was from here, and told me to smell it, as proof. She was right, it definitly smelled like a farm (which reminded me of a girl I was in first grade with who also smelled like a farm. No one wanted to play with her because she smelled, but I liked her because she could build great cube towers). Anyway, then we ate some empanadas, and decided to cruise the backroads to a village that had been suggested to us by Carlos. A combination of John's navigation and a terrible map led us down the wrong road. We finally ran into a dead end with a gate into someone´s farm, which we entered and then quickly realized the road ended because it was private property. We got out of there with a few dogs barking at us, and dodged the pigs, and asked the first guy walking on the road how we get to the town of Chepu. He directed us, and originally pointed to a turn off the road we were on, but then said we could only get there on foot. So we were mislead because whoever told us directions wasn´t expecting us to drive or something. We arrived in Chepu right around sunset.

In Chepu, the plan was to kayak up a river and then head farther south on the island. Carlos had said that the Chepu Adventures had good kayaking, but was super strict. Didn´t really know what that meant, but we found out real quick once we arrived. Chepu Adventures was an `Eco Hostel¨ Timers on the showers only let you take one for 3 minutes, there was a code to get into the bathroom (because people stole water from the toilets?), and we had to sign waivers agreeing to the rules of the place with our pinky prints. The couple that ran the place was originally from Santiago, and had moved to Chiloe. I dunno where he was going with that. 

My issue wasn´t the rules, since I imagine it would be pretty hard to run a place like that sustainably, especially since the guests aren't always like-minded. I had an issue with the inconsistencies. The best example- in the summer when water is in shorter supply and there are more guests, they aren't able to wash the bedding on the premises, so instead they deliver it to the nearest town. Meh. bummer. Anyway, we rented what they called a dormis, a little cabin without bedding, and bought a bottle of wine at cost to compliment our backgammon. 

The next morning the rain had stopped, according to pictires John had a cigar at sunrise. We signed more waivers with our pinkies, were informed of the kayaking rules, and set off down the mellow river. The sun was out and there was no one around. Perfect. There were loads of dead trees to cruise through, like a maze. Some birds. On our way back I spotted a river otter, the treat of the trip. 

After our kayaking adventure we cruised the backroads to a town called Castro, the capitol of the island. It´s a pretty good little town, but we were planning on just stopping to grab some groceries and then head west towards the Chiloe national park about an hour away. For some reason everything was closed. And not the usual siesta hours around here, EVERYTHING was closed. Then it dawned on me that there was a national holiday I remember was happening this week. Must have been what was going on. Anyway, we found a kiosk that was open, and bought 4 days worth of food and libations at a tiny little corner store, which held up the other half the town also shopping there because instead of grabbing your groceries off the shelf, you have to tell the only cashier exactly what you want, then he gets it. Then off to the national park!

We were kind of racing the sunset out to the coast, and picked up a couple hitch hikers on the way, but didn´t make it for sunset. We entered through a gate at the first sign we saw for the park, and wandered along some trails for a bit until we found something of a camp ground and a restaurant where some guy came to greet us, showed us around the camp, and told us to drive up the road to the other entrance to the park. We set up the tent, made a quick dinner, and I crashed early.

The next morning I woke up and walked down to the lake for some pictures and then walked down to the restaurant where I found Alejandro (the camp host, not our car) and asked him for some advice on trails in the park. He pulled out a picture book of the trails made by some University of California students who do research in the area every winter, and showed me a few of the trails.

I slept. When we decided to leave John had a vague idea of where the trail was, I had the previous research I had done, which didn't make the trek we were planning very enticing. Turns out we couldn't even find the trailhead, so we spent the day on the beach, the first time on the west coast in awhile. I had recently discovered 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo´series, so I read all day, while John went for a run... and???

After our beach day we headed to a hostel that was suggested to us, but it was full, and so was everwhere else, or too expensive. We finaelly found a room, fed my olive addiction with bulk olives, and relaxed.

We were met with more overcast rainy weather, and traveled up the east coast of the island. It was a nice day of rural driving. We stopped in a town that had a restaurant with people selling fish outside, seemed like a good call. Turns out everyone inside was just drinking. We ordered some fish, and then John saw a guy eating a fish stew, so we ordered that too. The highlight of the meal was probably the hot sauce, we cleaned them out, but everything else was great too. 

After finishing our drive through the countyside we hopped on the ferry again, where we received an email from Jeff, the guy we who told us about the beer event before, this time telling us he was in Osorno and there was another beer event there. 

Beer, Big Cities, and Our Rented House

The morning in Hornopirens we woke up to a flat tire. Greaaaat. Another broken piece on our car. After jacking up the car, removing the wheel, and carrying it to the closest mechanic, he inflated it and told us it didn´t have a flat. The valve must have gotten pinched that night or something.

We put the wheel back on and headed the hour and a half to Puerto Montt. I was immediately overhwhelmed when we got there. Huge city! Especially after 2 months in Patagonia. Driving was stressful, and finding a mechanic to check out our car seemed impossible. After speaking with an English speaking tourist information employee, we followed his directions to the area of town with mechanics. Within an hour we had a mechanic working on replacing the radiator and CV joint. In the meantime we sent some mail, and Acacia´s taxes finally! We also bought 6 ears of corn, myself a fanny pack, a dulce de leche covered soggy waffle from a street vendor, and some Chinese food. When we went back to get the car, the mechanic said they didn´t have the CV joint so we´d have to wait until Monday to get it fixed. Still, a new radiator in 3 hours start to finish seemed impossibly fast compared to our previous experience in Coyhaique.

We drove the 20 minutes to Puerto Varas, and after drivng in a few circles trying to navigate the one way streets of the town, found a hostel. It was pretty fantastic. Huge kitchen, dream catchers, the receptionist was working on an art project, large wooden steps and bunk beds, a nice back yard, book exchange, etc., etc. Serious, the best place we have stayed I think. It reminds me a lot of the Faulkner house. Plus there are trees stenciled on the wall!

 I checked out the casino in town while Acacia read at the hostel. We got in contact with Jeff, who was also overwhelmed by Puerto Montt and just flown right through to Puerto Varas, albiet getting a flat tire in town.

We basically just sat around this huge hostel all to ourselves in the morning, drinking coffee and reading until about 2pm. We then headed to the Chester Beer event. Stoked! It was a couple kilometers out of town to Chester´s house where he also brewed beer. It was an awesome setting; surrounded by apple orchards, cow pastures, with views over the lake, it seemed kind of like a Bennet Valley family gathering. All the rural neighbours all got together, brought their kids, and drank beer (not wine), and ate great cheese and sausage. And somehow we had managed to hear about this? I was impressed with that. Anyway, Chester is from Philadelphia, had come to Chile while fleeing SARS when teaching English in China, and got into the brewing scene about 10 years ago. He brews out of two shipping containers in his backyard.  There was also a guy selling cheese at a booth, and another selling sausage. 6 bucks got you in and a full sample of each table´s offerings, and then another 2 bucks for round 2s or 3rds...or 13ths... The crowd was surprisingly foreign, although we were some of the only travelers because most of the foreigners lived there. There was the US/Hungarian family--Vince, his wife, two kids, and nephew Chris, the British guy Brian, his wife and their daughter, an Irish dude named Shane, Jane from Maryland, another from Philadelphia, another American who was a 'serial entrepeneur', a Dutch guy (who also thought that just about everything came from Holland), and a few Chileans who had lived in the states for some number of years. Quite the international crowd, with Jeff of course. 6 hours of such an event was enough for some serious social lubrication. We chatted with everyone there who spoke any English pretty much. This included meeting our friend Carlos who was a rafting guide trying to start a community/cultural experience at his home for a better way to travel to the area with the option of cheap accomodation in return for helping to work the land. I also discovered that Chris had just graduated from structural engineering at UCSD in March and had lived in San Diego his whole life. He is down here to help out his uncle and get some experience because his uncle runs a construction company or something. Also, the cheese guy had graduated from University of British Columbia in 2008?, worked as general manager at the Waldorf in Vancouver (super crasy for Vancouver folk according to Acacia) and ended up getting into cheese sales after a project with some family member had fallen through in the area around Puerto Varas. What!? Two UBC grads, and UCSD grad(ish)s at this gathering of like 50 people a hemisphere away? That blows my mind. And, trust me, we drank a lot of beers. We caught a ride back to town with Chris who was DDing for his uncle, and hung out at the after party at a bar in town. Although we got back to the hostel around 11pm, it felt way later after 8 hours of partying.

 Chester, the brewer

 The sausage man

The last few days have been spent hanging around Puerto Varas kind of chilling. We went to a murta, a local fruit kind of like a currant, festival with salmon empanadas and hella desserts. I got dragged into dancing Cueca when one of the lady dancers pulled me onto the dance floor for what seemed like the longest song of the festival. All the other locals had the dance down, but I must have seemed retarded. We also did a lot of reading, and watching movies for me. We made a trip back to Puerto Montt to get the CV joint replaced, hung out for a while at Carlos´s awesome cabin with great decorations and furniture made from local wood where we made pizzas and hung out with his dogs and lady friend from Venezuela.  Tomorrow we are off to Chiloe!