Crossing through the middle of nothing (Argentina)

Surprisingly we left Maipu for Cordoba later than we had plan (sarcasm). Pedro suggested we take Ruta 20 because it was much nicer than the alternative. After attempting to navigate with our lonely planet map meant for backpackers taking busses and our only other map, the AAA map of the entire continent, we discovered that we didn´t really know which alternative he was referring to, because there were loads. 

We struggled to even get out of town, but once we found the highway it was easy and boring and hot and ugly and dry and flat and dusty and without plants after we left the vineyards. Gross. I don´t know how long we spent in the car  that day, but I was not diggin it. We took the main highway to a town that was at a whole bunch of crossroads, somehow missed the road we wanted, but decided to take another that was going roughly north east because the terrible maps we had didn´t show any difference. More boring driving. I think we listented to all of the music we have on both sd cards. More driving. Straight roads. no hills. BORING. The highlight of the trip was that I saw a small wild cat, which was a legitimate highlight, not just relative to the brown dirt alternative. 

Driving to Cordoba. Lots of dry desert. This was the best view of the trip though! Altitude and rocks!

It got dark. I wanted to stop (like I did all day, though). We finally asked for camping when we stopped for gas and got directions from an attendant who I remember being especially nice, but can´t really determine why. He was just really genuine, maybe? We followed his directions and ended up at the municipal campground, which was empty and unattended, but with an open gate. Dinner, movie in the tent about a group of African American boys who were wrongly convicted of a rape when they were teenagers. It was infuriating. The Central Park Five, if you are interested. I drank more of that terrible wine that we bought in Santiago and Pedro wouldn´t let us drink. 

**An aside, we are now in Brazil, land of the terrible beer, and I realized tonight as we were drinking terrible beer that both might be improved if we mixed them. Yikes.

The  next morning I woke to chainsaws. There was a crew of 5 pruning all of the branches from all of the trees in the campground. I enjoyed watching the haphazard work (Not worksafe certified, that´s for sure) while I ate my eggs. I would have liked to ask them why they were cutting off all of the branches, because it would have been much easier to just cut the entire tree down, since they will almost definitely die now. But, like I said, they were pretty unapproachable with the falling branches and dangling chainsaws.

Artesans on the way to Cordoba

Instead we left and drove the next 150ish km to Cordoba. Turns out it was good that we left it for daylight, because it finally got interesting as we climbed a mountain range. Once in Cordoba we stopped to try to find a place with internet so we could find the hostel where Tyler, a Montanian (Montanner... ummm) had been working for the past month. 2 coffees, a couple of chocolate treats, and a ham and cheese something for John we were on our way again. Man, I hate city driving. Too hectic and everyone wants to be a racecar driver and everything is one way and all the people want to be hit. The other thing I hate about cities-paying for parking, which we had to do once we got at the hostel. 

Playing Foosball with Tyler in Cordoba

When we arrived at 2pm Tyler was asleep. After learning that he went to sleep at midnight we decided to wake him up after we checked in (in his defense he worked for a couple hours in the morning). Obviously after all of that terrible timing we decided Tyler should join us for his breakfast- a beer or 3. Then we toured the city on foot, much more managable than in the car and saw a surprise for Sierra and immediately after one for Daniel. We went for another beer first though, because we needed a smaller bill to pay for them. 

On the way back to the hostel I think we got empanadas, but I am not positive because that is pretty much all we ate while we were there, so all the trips run together. Turns out this hostel had a patio with a foosball table, which I obviously couldn´t resist. I think Justin and I played something like 200 games last year, almost all in just the 4 months I lived in Vancouver. I LOVE that game. Although, without good beer and Hudson hangin around it is a little less fun. The table was missing a ball so we wandered for a while trying to find a store that sold one, but finally settled on a bouncy ball. We had burned some serious calories doing all that walking for the bouncy ball so we grabbed some empanadas on the way back. After some serious shit talking (hah, I wish, I am probably the world´s worst shit talker). I lost to Tyler (still better than John. I´m not willing to accept the loss though, because the table was unbalanced and in a generally poor state and the bouncy ball definitely changed the game.

We took a break from the tournament and I made popcorn. 

WARNING. This is turning into a story about a night of drinking and probably won´t be very interesting, except for Priscilla, since my mom has already heard the details. Also, I am likely exagerating because I have no idea how many bottles were consumed.

Drinking Game Called ¨Shots¨

 A few days before while talking to Daniel Robbins the topic of our (mine and his, it was that bad) worst hangover came up. It involved tuna casserole and bacardi gold. So when the bottle of bacardi gold was pulled out I maybe should have been more cautious. Yeah right. We were introduced to a drinking game that was too addicting. Acacia had mentioned something about wanting ice cream, which meant that I wasn´t going to bed that night without some. We finished that bottle--ice cream anybody?--perhaps another, again I asked for ice cream, and were out of liquor and again I suggested ice cream, so an unnamed employee picked the lock on the liquor cabinet. More consumption. Then we were really out so we started playing with shots of fernet...

First attempt at super famous wall pic

The fernet showed up after a bit of an intermission from the hostel activities. Finally I seized a long enough break without a flow of booze to convince the entire shots drinking game crew to go out for ice cream. Except for Benja, he must have been acquiring more booze during this time. Anyway, we either couldn´t follow directions or got bad ones, but it took us about 45 minutes to find Freddo which was about 6 blocks from the hostel. We ordered some dulce de leche ice cream dipped in chocolate in a waffle cone. Yum! And, we sat down in a bench awkwardly close to a couple clearly out for a romantic date because Tyler had run into it trying to get to the ice cream and that meant we just had to sit there! Obviously. This couple handled us pretty well. The lady was from Cordoba, but had done some studying and/or worked in Chicago and the dude was from Salta, a big city in northern Argentina. They are getting married in Salta in July and we actually got formally invited to the wedding. After saying our goodbyes to our new friends we stopped for some Acacia-on-my-shoulder pictures in front of a super famous wall. This happened before icecream. We also found a man to buy gum from, because I have been missing it. fed some dogs our cones I certainly didn't do that, and I am pretty sure no one else did, skip raced through downtown back to the hostel, and, naturally, stopped for empanadas on the way back. Alright, back to fernet shots

...Not what I would suggest. Once that was gone another bottle of fernet turned up, but John, Tyler and I decided we should move to foos again. Benja, a major proponent of this game specifically, and seemingly drinking in general, brought the game to us so we ended up continuing to play between goals, every goal. Lucky for me Benja and I formed an equipo, which may or may not have limited my drinking, but I really have no idea. At one point we tried to get empanadas again, but it was closed this time. Bummer.

Second attempt at super famous wall pic

Around 3 John called it and Tyler and I kept playing. Bedtime around 5 AM, but sleeping wasn´t really happening. I dreamed of flying because of the fan, which was nice.We were planning on leaving that day. NOPE. At some point the next morning (could have been afternoon, I really don´t know) I was finally up. Feelin mediocre. John made me coffee and bought a treat, I brought it to the sunny roof, which was crowded with Argentinians drinking their afternoon beer and wine. I couldn´t finish either, sat for awhile, and then went for a shower. I was pretty sure I had recovered. NOPE. We left for a restaurant that had pad thai (everytime we are in a city we search it out and are always bummed. Vancouver spoiled me). Half way there I was feeling pretty haggard and exhausted again. We ate some pretty questionable pad thai, and then went back for a nap. Big day. For the rest of the day we took it pretty easy. I walked through Cordoba a bit while Acacia was resting at the hostel, and found a Casa de Habana. Bought some cigars, sat in Plaza San Martin (every South American town has one of these I´m pretty sure) and watched a protest of sorts and the cutest dog and little boy running around and playing in the fountain. Back to the hostel. More empanadas. I didn´t drink that night, but somehow John and Tyler both managed at least another shot each. We called it pretty early. 

A blurry picture of Tyler testing the camera

We planned on leaving Cordoba at 8 in the morning. By the time we had coffeed up and eaten some breakfast bread we rolled out of Cordoba around 9:30. Our next destination was Iguazu Falls, and the local receptionist at the hostel directed us along the route that goes predominantly east and then north as opposed to the one that goes mostly north and then east because he said that the drive was not as dry and dessert-y (if it was desserty I would have chosen to go that way). Leaving Cordoba was about 300km to Rosario, which is the other city that competes with Cordoba for being the only thing of any size between Mendoza and Buenos Aires. This stretch of the drive was about as boring as the I-5 and equally as dry and brown. Not particularly exciting but at least the speed limit was 130km/hr so it was a fast 300km. Rosario is on the Parana river, so we crossed a pretty cool suspension bridge on the other side of Rosario and this is where the drive got a bit more interesting. A lot more green, with marshes and swamps along the road and a few more animals. After about an hour or so of this, it also wasn´t terribly exciting. When we´re driving through the police check points at random intervals along the main highways, we stand out pretty hard for the police and are often stopped because of the foreign plates and general gringo-ness. Normally they ask where we´re going and why we have a Chilean car as Americanos, and then we ask them for directions. Generally an ok experience. But today was by far the most uncomfortable cop stop. We were pulled over and after giving the cop all the paperwork he asked for, he then asked for Acacia´s passport because John stupidly handed his over without being asked for it. He kept asking if Acacia and I were married while telling John and his coworkers I was very nice looking and young and that John and I were brother and sister, making me available in their opinion. Fuck that. I was incredibly uncomfortable. And angry. and then told us we needed to have a fire extinguisher in our car so we were being fined for not having one. When we didn´t have enough money to pay the fine on the spot (as he was requesting, shady? He even asked if we had dollars) he held on to our passports and the car documents for a long time and was being pretty reluctant about letting us leave. Eventually he gave us back our stuff and told us he was letting us go because we didn´t know the rules and could get an extinguisher at the next service technician. Bullshit. Although googling it now it looks like we actually did need it. At one point we ended up on a dirt highway and that changed it up a bit, and meant no cops. Eventually we reached the town of Federal which is a pretty small town in the middle of super rural (I wouldn´t classify it as super rural, it was just a farming community, it seemed to be fairly inhabited, just with large tracts of farmland breaking up to communities)Argentina. It was kind of like being in a small version of Modesto. Anyway, we grabbed some sandwich ingredients, got gas, and discovered that the only hotel in town was way too much money so drove a few kilometers out of town and slept in our car.

The following morning we hit the road for Iguazu pretty early after only a bit of delay in figuring out which highway we were supposed to be on.  We stopped once for some coffee at a gas station and got a couple drumstick like ice cream cones, but otherwise it was a fairly uneventful drive. About half way along the drive things started feeling really tropical. Palm trees, brick architecture, sandals, and jungle. It definitely felt more like my vision of Brazil than Argentina. As it got dark we were still 200 km from Iguazu.

Another gas station in hopes of directions to camping led us to where the woman thought there was a campground, but as far as we could tell it was a closed private reserve. Luckily there was a tourist map with a campground on it, just off of the detailed part of the map. We wandered in the direction the map made it seem like we should go, and luckily found signs for the agrocamping location (John kept on making jokes about having to pick ears of corn as payment because of the name, which I would have been into, but this wasn´t the case).

We pulled into the campground and didn´t see anyone. There were lights on at what appeared to be a little camp store, or maybe even a reception area. We could tell everything was closed up, but there was the noise of the tv quite loudly inside, so we knocked, on pretty much every door, window, and wall. No answer.

In the past for situations like this we have set up camp, assuming someone would come collect our money later, so that´s what we did. After about 30 minutes a man with a flashlight approached, we greeted him and asked if we could camp there. He didn´t respond. We repeated. He looked suspicious and made it very clear he had a gun on his hip (read: in his hand as he approached our tent, then he put it in his ) he was ready to use. Somehow we managed to sort out the situation, and then he was completely friendly. Turned on some lights, sold us a beer, and jam and pickled beets his wife made. 

As expected, we immediately sampled some of the jarred goodies, and then called the beer dinner. I made some pancake batter to let rise for the following morning, watched the end of Stand Up Guys and then called it a night while Acacia read-

The next morning the old man who owned the premises was up bright and early, and I was out of my tent shortly after hearing him, and proceeded to begin pancake production. He came over (as he did say we would talk more in the morning when neither of us was tired) and proceeded to explain that his grandparents had moved Argentina from Germany and that he was fluent in German, Spanish, Guarani, and Portuguese, but not English. He also had a lovely little log book for us to write in, and an article he wrote for the news paper in which he criticized the mono crops of Pine that were being planted in the area. He was also very curious about us, the car-which he deemed very low to the ground for the trip we were doing-and was also curious about the pancakes and the stove I was using, so I offered him one, but sadly he rejected.

Anyway, we parted from the campground and headed the two hours to Puerto Iguazu. The drive was fairly uneventful, with only one toll booth, and I´m pretty sure no cop stops. Beauty.

Argentine Wine Country!

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After settling in at Huar Hostel, the place in Maipu, we headed out for Acacia´s first wine tasting! We were advised to go to Trapiche, a large industrialized winery but that was open later and had cheap tastings. However, as were driving around trying to find this place, we saw a couple of dudes riding bikes out of the Trapiche parking lot, one of them being a tall Dutch guy. Pieter! The guy I had a beer with on top of the volcano. He and his friend from San Francisco were almost through day´s worth of wine and bike touring, so they were looking a bit flush. We decided to meet them at a winery a couple kilometers away that they were heading to. Seemed easy enough, right? Wrong! Acacia couldn´t tell if the map the bike tour agency had given Pieter and subsequently passed on to us was right side up or upside down, or even why the main road in town didn´t appear to exist on the map. After following behind the bikers for the first few turns to get our bearings I revved Al´s impressive 4 cylinder engine and we arrived at Tempus Alba in time for us both to put on some deoderant and change our shirts before Pieter got there. There were some lovely signs making for a quick self guided tour, and a pretty big tank room and cellar for barrel aging the wines that we got to check out. Then the tasting! Between the 4 of us, we bought enough tastings to cover their entire line up of wines except for the super premium ones. Acacia and I both liked the Tempranillo the best, and liked the Malbec, which is the wine known for the region, the least. Too fruity, not enough pepper. We chatted for a bit with Pieter and his San Francisco friend, and then they had to leave to catch the bus back to Mendoza.

Tank Room

Tempus Alba Grapes

Is that a beer garden on the wine map? Needless to say, we checked out the beer garden before heading back to the hostel.

Writing letters at the beer garden

Back at the hostel, Jeff was planning a huge meal for the whole family and us. The family at the hostel was a huge friendly family of 5 children, more grandchildren, and they were big wine and meat consumers. For dinner, they got out two giant kitchen tables and placed them end to end to seat 14 people. It was a loud family dinner, and reminded me a lot of reunions at the Vivio´s house, it was pretty great. And, since we were Jeff´s friends, we were the guests of honor. There was some vegetarian pizza for Acacia, and Pedro, the man of the house caught me drinking terrible Chilean bulk wine, told me it was for travelling but that at his house I had to drink his better wine. Well I don´t mind if I do. Dinner was roasted chicken with potatoes, carrots, and some kind of other root vegetable. And no shortage of food! Like a chicken per person with an equal amount of the veggies. About half way through dinner, Pedro dumped Acacia´s wine back into the decanter and busted out a bottle of some reserve wine which he offered pretty much exclusively to the guests of honor. It was a great night.

Except for the actual sleeping part :( I woke up around 4:00am with food poisoning. Everyone´s best guess was that it was from the chicken skins. I got sick every 30 minutes from 4 to about 9. Then it ceased for a while and I thought I could handle bread. No dice. This was rather unfortunate because Acacia and I were planning on getting up early and doing the wine and bike tour that seemed to be all the rage in Maipu. However at about 10am that morning I couldn´t think of anything worse than a wine and bike tour. We spent  most of the day blogging and hanging out at the hostel. Pedro and his wife took super good care of me, feeding me crackers and tea. And this wasn´t just tea, it was Boldo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boldo) and coca tea with a scoop of honey and some butter. Best tea I´ve ever had? I made it out once during the day to send some mail with Acacia. Acacia went for a run at one point while I took a nap. Other than that, pretty mellow day. We had about a 5 hour Two and a Half Men marrathon which was actually really good because I´d been feeling deprived. By the end of the night I had managed to hold down some Sprite with Fernet Blanc (a liquor that´s good for stomach issues) (I know you said no alcohol Priscilla, but you know John!), a few crackers, and a half a banana, so things were looking up.

Huar Hostel with Pedro and his Wife

The next morning I was good to go. Had a full breakfast with coffee and everything. There was even Dulce de Leche involved. So, today was bike day! Pieter had told us about a wine museum where your entrance fee could be used towards the purchase of a wine bottle, and since it closed early that was our first stop. After I navigated us to the museum, we walked in and had to pay 5 pesos, not the 50 Pieter had said. First indication we were at the wrong place. We got a guided tour of the place which ended up being a historic house. And didn`'t have any wine. But it dad have the coolest toilets I have ever seen. After that we biked through town, grabbed some things at the hostel, and headed towards the wineries. Our first stop was  actually an olive oilery? Or whatever you call a place that makes olive oil. In this case the name was Maguay. One of the owners gave us the tour which was nice because he knew a lot more about the production of the olive oil than some of the winery tour guides did. The tour started with a series of 5 bottles of olive oil all with a different variety of olive or unique blend of the three types of olives they were growing. Acacia´s eyes really lit up when the owner asked `would you like to sample the olives that were used to produce the different oils?` Why yes, yes we would. We had a lot of questions about the olive production and oil production process since it is Acacia´s new addiction and then got taken out to the orchard where we learned that most of the laborers who pick the olives come from Bolivia or northern Argentina. Also raw olives are terribly bitter and exceptionally astringent. Don´t eat one before embarking on a day of wine tasting because it kind fries your palate. 

The first winery we went to was a USDA certified organic winery called Cecchin. The tour started in the vineyard where the vines are left to grow without much human influence, aside from the harvest and one pruning after the harvest. To manage pests the vineyard was bordered by olive trees and they didn`'t do any weeding. Then we went into the winery and saw the tanks, which we giant cement pools. The tour guide explained all of the pressed wine is sold to the bulk market, which ends up in the tasty box wine we have been drinking throughout the trip. The winery did almost no barrel aging, so in our opinions, the wine wasn´t the most impressive. There were a few unique varietals from Italy and a sulfate free malbec, which made them especially unique. 

As we were leaving the tour guide told us not  to worry about the police who had been hanging around the winery while we (the only ones) were there because they like to check up on tourists. She also ensured us that the area wasn`'t dangerous at all and suggested we take the back way to the main road through the vineyard. Solid suggestion, except at the back of the vineyard the police were waiting. We waved as we road past, turned onto the highway, and realized we were being trailed. We focussed on riding soberly and eventually pulled over to look at the map to figure out where we were going. While we were stopped one of the officers came to talk to us. She gave us directions to our next stop (which was nice, but the map certainly would have sufficed) and told us she would continue following us. At this point John was sure we were being baited. They would lead us to all of the wineries throughout the day and after we spent all of our money, arrest of for BUI. The last intersection before the winery John, the leader, made a wrong turn, so the police honked and turned on their siren to redirect us. So much for appearing sober (I am totally joking, we were quite sober at this point still, but very anxious about what the police perceived). 

·intermission (you know, half-time in a play, right, C?) I had to take a benadryl with a beer (hah). So John's going solo

Biking through town

Cecchin Grapes

The cops left us at Floria, the next winery on our tour. This one was known for sweet wines, so, like the organic wine place, I was a bit skepticle. The tour was about the same as the last one, but then the lady explained how they cook down the juice to concentrate the sugars and add back into some of the finished wines as well as distilling some of the juice into grappa to add back into the wines to increase the alcohol concentration. So it was one of the more educational tours I´ve been on. And the wines, actually pretty good! But in my completely uneducated opinion, not for the same reasons that make wine good. They mostly tasted like they should be poured over ice cream. Some of them were really caramelly, so they were really good to sip after a meal, but certainly not something you could have glasses of. Leaving that winery we seemed to be clear of police, so we booked it to the next winery, Carinae. But it was either hard to find, or we were feeling buzzed because we rode past it three times in two different directions before noticing a wine tour bus pulling into the winery´s drive way. This was definitely the best wine of the day! We opted out of the tour for this one, but the guy pouring wine was studying wine production himself, so was very knowledgeable about the wines and actually probably provided more information about the wine culture and styles in the region than either of the previous ones. At the end of the tasting he hooked it up with a glass of one of their reserve wines for free and then reassured us about the police following us, saying that they follow all the bike tourists to protect them from cars and locals (apparently Maipu citizens don´t like the wine and bike tours because of traffic). The last winery we hit up was some family bodega. It was also the oldest one around which made it special, possibly the oldest winery in the Americas? I dunno if I believe that one, but basically, its old. Which apparently also means that all those old people working there closed up shop early at 4:30. Gettin kicked out as we were pulling in were a couple other bikers, one of them being Gal, one of the Israelis we met on the Paso del Viento trail and then again in Coyhaique and a friend of his. Nice to know we were´t the only slow travelers. I am quite happy with our speed, and if anything would like to go slower. Anyway, the four of us all tried the next closest winery which was also closed. No more wineries on the way back to return the bikes with only 25 minutes to get back and about 7km of uphill biking, which was unfortunate for two reasons. First, it didn´t really feel like downhill on the way there, and second there was no more wine to drink AND we hadn´t had dinner yet. Much to our enjoyment, though, Tierra Huarpe Rental Bikes poured us 2 huge glasses of shitty cold red wine and gave us some trailmix snacks upon returning! I´d highly reccommend those guys. They were also selling some artesan products and Acacia was stoked on one of the backpacks which ended up having too high of a price tag and clearly was´t being sold by the people who produced it, so no dice. 

After heading back to the hostel I decided my stomach was still a bit tender so wanted tomato soup and grilled cheese for dinner. Finding an open store for tomato soup ingredients was difficult so I ended up getting tomato paste at the only open kiosk, and Acacia was highly skepticle I´d be able to produce a decent soup. We both had a bowl and grilled cheese while watching some X-Men First Class in Spanish (optimistically hoping it would improve my Spanish) and blogging for a bit. A few Americans were also staying at the hostel so we chatted with them for a bit and I had a relatively early night.

National Parks and Some Long Drives

We were given directions to the rustic hotsprings by Peter, the hostel owner in Pucon. He told us to drive 20km past the last bus stop on this gravel road through a fairly populated valley. Well, the bus stops going because the road turns into a bit of a roller coaster, super steep up and down, but way more down than I thought we went up. It was quite disorienting. After roughly 20km, as it was getting dark, we saw a sign for the Rio Blanco Termas, and followed this turn off for about another 5km to a private property where steam was coming from all the streams. We made it! But had no idea where to camp or who to talk to about staying there. As we were kind of driving in circles around the campground, we saw a guy carrying a flashlight coming towards us. He came up to us, introduced himseld as Patricio, and told us where to camp, about 50 feet from the best thermal pool. Perfect! He also told me I spoke Spanish really well, it is laughably untrue, but nice to hear anyway.

We immediately set up the tent, quickly made dinner, and then soaked in the hotsprings for about 3 hours. We had our bottle of Carmenere wine, and a clear sky above us, which was great for looking at shooting stars and made it super cold outside, definitely below freezing. The cold was nice though because it kept the thermal pool at a reasonable temperature, and allowed us to thermoregulate better by switching between pool and air.

I look like Green, the Edelstein tortoise

The next morning I did a morning soak while Acacia slept. Of course my towel and suit were frozen so I had to dunk them in the hotsprings in order to use them. Then we packed a day pack for a hike up into Huequehue national park, which has several lakes and good stands of Monkey Puzzle trees which are native to the region only above 1,000 meters. First we had to cross a bridge to get to a fancy hotsprings resort, and then find a road leading up into the valley in front of us. While searching for the road we saw some Chileans milling logs with this fancy field milling machine. The hike was a gravel road for the first couple of miles with some logging going on (Acacia can tell you more), and it went past several homesteads that appeared to be empty, at least for the season. Past the homesteads the gravel road turned into a fairly steep path when we reached the park boundary. Near the top of the first crest we started getting some Monkey Puzzles and it flattened out a bit. The ground was frozen which was pretty fun, we got to crack some ice covered puddles and some icy mud. Then the trail went back down to a valley where there were some buildings/refugios and other infrastructure that seemed pretty closed up for the season. We saw a sign for a place selling bread and beer, but followed a different trail up to a lake (bet you didn`'t see that coming!), which was another pretty good climb. The lake was pretty incredible. Surrounded by Monkey Puzzles with mountains on the oposite side that we had come from. We hung out there for a bit, ate some delicious apples we had brought, and then headed back to the hotsprings so get there before dark. We ended up timing it pretty well because it started sprinkling right when we got back. We quickly jumped in the hotsprings for some more soaking which lasted quite a while.

Baby Monkey Puzzle

A Friend on the Trail

Forestry of Sorts¿

We had a late start. a morning soak, and then cruised on a dirt road around a couple of lakes and to a town about 60 km north. From there John competently directed us to Parque Nacional Conguiellio.  We paid the admission fee, and were driving through the gate when we were informed that ´tienen una pinchado´- we had a flat tire. No problem, we figured. We put the spare on, planning to get the tire patched when we got to the nearest town on the other side of the park. Wrong. Our spare was flat too (I am blaming this one all on John, because I KNEW that we should check the spare for air when we bought the car, but after pushing on it a bit he was sure it was inflated. Turns out the weight of the car is a little bit more than John's little tap to see if it had air). We got pretty lucky, again, because one of the ranger told us he would drive us back into town, if we paid him. Sounded way better than trying toe hitchhike with two tires and two of us, so we accepted. In town he drove us to a shop that was closed. It was a long weekend and I was pretty sure we were stranded and out of luck, but then he drove us to a house, where there was a man who had the tools required for tire patching, and who inflated our spare. Only about an hour later we were back in action.

The road through the park took us across a fairly flat plain, where a volcano recently erupted, although we couldn´t see the volcano because of the clouds. We turned off of the main road toward Lago Verde, but the road split into 4x4 trails across the old lava. I had a bit of fun in the Sub, and after checking out the lake we continued. The road continued on near some lakes and through a stand of monkey puzzle trees. Up a hill some and then back down. We finally reached the campground, but it was closed for the season. We hadn't planned on that. We were met with more luck because the ranger directed us to the closed campground and told us it would be okay if we stayed for the night, free of charge. 

Driving through the Park

The next morning started with a nice sunrise (for me too, uncharacteristically), ice, and a hike to a notable monkey puzzle tree (1800 years old and 2.1m dbh (diameter at breast height--about 5 feet off the ground--for the non-foresters) Canada, man, who uses feet^?!). 

The Big Monkey Puzzle

After we checked out a trail called Sierra Nevada, which was a ridge walk above a lake, through quite the variety of plant communities, before arriving above the treeline in a cloud, and finally just below a glacier. We hiked back pretty quick, cutting the estimated trail time in half (it is kinda a disapointment when we can't do that). Hopped in the car. Listened to Shovels and Rope, who may be taking over my Current Swell/Jon and Roy addiciton. Maybe. We arrived to the next town in the evening and had to decide between a week long 2 volcano summit backpacking trip in mediocre weather (my choice) or heading farther north.

Me and a monster

Spaghetti Burrito- Robbins family ingenuity 

After some research we opted for north. Left town around 6:30, after dark. 15 minutes out of town we went down a hill with a couple switchbacks, across a bridge, and were starting back up when the car.. malfunctioned? John can tell you more since he was driving. It seemed like the brakes were sticking, or maybe he was just in the wrong gear. Either way, it felt like a big enough problem to drive back to town. We had no more issues on the way back and easily found a mechanic who seemed to just be waiting for us. He was literally standing in an empty garage with the light on, but no car to work on. He went on a test drive, checked out under the car, and told us there wasn't a problem, or at least not an immediate one and sent us on our way. It was great. We made it to Victoria, Chile, which is not nearly as nice as Victoria, Canada. We struggled to find downtown, went down a one way street the wrong way and after asking at a gas station found a place to stay, which was only advertised with an 8 1/2 x 11 paper in the window. 

Best hospedaje ever? We´ve had some bad experiences in hospedajes that generally ends with us getting yelled at, normally for cooking food at un-welcomed hours. But, after asking this lady if we could use the kitchen she offered us some food. Red sauce noodles with mushrooms and pretty good spices. Then some bread with butter and jam. Then some bananas. And tea. It was the perfect meal before a bit of bedtime reading (strange, I know, but I was so close to finishing my third book of the trip). The next morning Acacia was up uncharacteristically early again, which was nice because we were showered and fed by 9am. Breakfast was the bread with butter and jam, which the lady explained was country butter and homemade jam, no wonder it was so good! No Vivio blackberry jam, but compared to the colored sugar paste they´ve called marmelade throughout the rest of the trip, it was a pleasant change. Then we hit the road north.

It was a big driving day, the longest and farthest one yet. We were considering a hike we had been told about form the Santa Cruz guys that was 90km southeast of Santiago, so we pulled off in Talca, a town we figured would be out of that 90km range, to do some internet research to figure out if it was worth heading to and how to get there. The cities were getting progressively larger being within 150 miles of Santiago and on the main highway, route 5, that runs north/south through Chile. Talca was no exception. We pulled off and then drove through the city streets for a bit trying to find a place with internet or wifi, a task that was surprisingly more difficult in a town without a central square and wasn´t particularly touristy. Eventually we found a couple promising looking restaurants. One looked like a typical American bar and grill type place, and the other claimed to have ¨Fresh¨ foods. So we went to the fresh foods place (my choice as well as Acacia´s), ordered two coffees and a smoked salmon sandwich, got some wifi, and determined we wanted to head to the park that evening. This meant we had to get some provisions for a couple days of camping. As we drove out to the highway we found a grocery store on the way. We enter the store, and I´m immediately grinning from ear to ear. Is that a 20 kilo bag of flour? A 6 pack of liters of milk? 2 pound chocolate bars? It was like Costco! Without the produce. So we did all of our non-produce shopping there and it took every ounce of mental strain for me not to load the cart with smoking deals on huge portions. Across the street was a market of produce vendors where we found ginger, the last ingredient necessary in the collection of ingredients we´ve been acquiring to make a pad thai for the previous week or two. It´s been really hard not to just devour the peanut butter.

Back on the road north. Driving highways in Chile differ from the U.S. in two important ways. First, every 50km or so there´s a toll station, so we ended up spending about 25 bucks driving through toll stations on our drive. Second, the toll stations force everyone to stop, which is a perfect spot for vendors to hang out trying to sell anything from beef jerky, to wine in the 45 seconds you have to wait to get through the toll booth. At one point there was even a ¨don´t eat pig¨ protest at one of these toll stations (that is completely false, it was a political protest about pig farming, nothing about vegetarianism). Anyway, we had not purchased any bread for our next couple of days. So, at one of the toll stations I rolled down the window and in my eloquent Spanish said ¨pan?¨. Well, this caused quite the uprour. All 20 people or so started screaming Pan! Pan!...Pan! until the pan guy got the memo, opened up this cooler full of warm bread I imagine, tossed it to the lady next to my window, we traded money for a bag of warm bread, and the lady tossed the change in through the window as we were pulling away. Quite the efficient shopping experience. Also, as we were getting closer to Santiago, there were these artesan shopping areas as a pull off every 20km or so, marked with an official artesan sign for the exit and everything. However, it wasn´t like a variety of artesans, it was more like ¨i´m driving by with my tractor trailer and just remembered that I want a huge stone fountain, so I´ll check out these 2 dozen artesans all selling the same giant stone fountain¨ kind of shops. Seriously though, there was the basket exit, the dining room chair exit, the second basket exit, etc..

To get to this park, El Morado National Monument, we had todrive through the outskirts of Santiago suburbs. This was a challenge. The park, nor the town we had to go through were not large enough to have signs while driving through Santiago, so we had a picture of the directions list from google maps, which had directions like ¨go 28km and then take the exit south¨. So we struggled getting around the highways, and then this strruggle was amplified as we had to wind our way through the suburb streets of Santiago. Eventually we ended up in a bus station and decided that the directions list had led us astray. So I decided we should ask the parking lot guard, who gave us an essay´s worth of directions all in Spanish, but it was enough to get us to the main road going the direction we wanted and then signs for the town started showing up. We ended up getting to the town of San Gabriel around 8pm and stopping at a kiosk for directions to a hostel or the park. After we felt good to go another hour or so to the park, low and behold, the car didn´t want to start. Perfect.  Acacia looked under the hood (because I knew exactly what the problem was. It was the first thing that went wrong with Alfonso, the flaming cock that I bought in Port Angele-battery connection) while I tried to start it a couple more times, and then the kiosk owner came out, pushed the battery connectors a bit firmer onto the battery terminals and Al started right up. He then brought out a couple wrenches and tightened the connectors. After driving down what was obviously a resource road normally used by heavy equipment, but completely empty at night, we turned off toward Baños Morales. Right at the turn off we met a VERY drunk gaucho leading his horse and stumbling. He happily waved and we continued on) We reached the town of Banos Morales around 9pm, discovering that the park and campgrounds were closed, and that the town was closed. We were literally the only people in town. Not even dogs barking. After burning the clutch a bit trying to turn around on a muddy, curvy incline, we found a solid pullout and slept in th car. Definitely best car sleeping spot yet. Quiet, no rain, great view, no other cars going by us. We had a couple beers, worked on Cali´s birthday present and then I went to bed.

The next morning we walked to the park entrance, which was a locked bridge covered in barbed wire. On the other side of the river was a barbed wire fence that said ¨no pasar¨. Seemed like the thing to do was cross the river, squeeze through the fence and begin our hike. After all, the sign on the locked bridge gate said it was supposed to be open by now. The hike was nice. Up a glacial river valley through pretty dry terrain with some ¨wild¨ horses, desert looking bushes, and views of some pretty high, snow capped Andes mountains all around. It was a fairly gradual uphill, super sunny, comfortable temperature, and we were the only ones on the trail. Crazy scenery too. Pretty much the only disappointment was that the glacial lake at the top was pretty unimpressive, and looked a bit too grimy to drink out of. But we played some frisbee and took some handstand pictures at the top. We reached the park entrance on the way back around noon and the Chilean working there was like ¨did you guys register?¨ which we told him no, and then he just waved us through without paying the entrance fee or registering. We were on the road again to cross into Argentina over the Andes. We had to drive through Santiago, and then a bit north to cross over the pass into Mendoza. For this stretch Acacia was driving

Our Car Sleeping Spot in Banos Morales

Driving through Santiago was a smoggy, traffic-y, loud struggle. Then after fighting through the center of the city we drove around a curve in the main road out of the city and were on the side of a mountain! What!? Of course it was hard to see the buildings at the bottomw because of all the smog. Then we followed some highways towards the pass to Mendoza, and reached a road closure about an hour from the border at 4pm. We waited. And waited. Played some frisbee. Waited some more. Took some pictures of the sunset. Watched a movie. Made dinner. Ate dinner. Then the traffic started moving around 8pm. Ridiculous wait, and for no apparent reason. Once the road opened, it was a race to the border.

Line of Cars Waiting

Sunset While Waiting

Literally like a level in some racing game. The other drivers knew something we didn´t because they were in the lane for the opposite direction as if nobody was coming. And nobody was. But two lanes became 4 as cars, buses, trucks, and motorcycles squeezed around tight switch backy-y curves up to a 10,000 foot pass, with bolders fallen in the road, cones all over the place knocked over by the crazy drivers, tunnels, and construction. Luckily Acacia kept us alive. And we didn´t even get last place. (Obviously this means I won the race, and a certainly performed better than I do when I play those arcade games) After crossing the border we stopped in a town about 3 km past the border, Puente del Inca, because it had a natural stone bridge. After asking for beds at a couple hostels and determining it was too expensive, we crashed again in the car.


The next morning I woke up and was the first one awake in the town pretty sure. I did the 3 minute loop of town, and then found a guy walking out of what looked to be a restaurant. I asked if he had coffee and he did, so he invited me into his home and started the hot water. Was this guy just serving me coffee because I had asked? So friendly. Nope, he led me into a back room where he had a bar, a giant TV, and tables. I went out to the car to let Acacia know I was getting coffee, and then watched some of The Office as the hot water heated up. Acacia and I both got some coffee and then went to find the bridge. It was about 100m from where we had parked the car. I struggled through reading the Spanish signs to Acacia, then we walked to look at the bridge, which had some natural hot springs that helped form it and had been turned into a bit of a resort for a while until part of the resort collapsed. Then we checked out the artesan market, with a variety this time, and left the town around 10 in the morning.

Puente del Inca

We drove down from the Andes pass, flanked on one side by Aconcogua, the tallest mountain outside of Asia at 6,994 meters, and the only real excitement was Acacia attempting to brush her teeth in the car and then spit out the window.

We drove down into the city of Mendoza. It was a city! Way bigger than expected at just under 1 million people. We went to a Vegetarian lunch place, checked a hostel that seemed too expensive, and then drove to Maipu, a suburb town outside of Mendoza, which was also really close to a bunch of wineries. After stopping at the tourist info and being directed to the one hostel in town, we knocked on the door and this tall white guy with a marvelous beard peared through the window. Jeff! The guy who told us about the beer events was at this hostel. Apparently this was Jeff´s South American home, the place he had spent 2 months ´working´ at the year before. We had to stay here.

Pucon Chile

After crossing the border, where John forgot my set of the car keys, we drove through a rainstorm into the town of Pucon and found El Refugio Hostel. While we were looking we were approached by a man offering a guided trip up the volcano. We knew if we were going to go, it'd have to be with a guide because of the rules of the park. Bummer for us because every agency offered the packaged deal of a guide, gear, and transport, 2/3 of which we didn't need. We told him we had our own gear, and he was willing to give us a huge discount. We decided to still think about it and told him we'd be back the next day. Our first night in Pucon was pretty laid back. We played a bit of backgammon and met a few people. We opted to sleep in the dome tents in the backyard, which were a bit damp, but totally fine. Especially for me because the hostel owner, Peter, would come and plug in the heater in the morning while I was still asleep.

View of the Volcano from our Hostel

The next morning we went and met with the man who had offered the guided volcano trip the day before and told him we were down. He told us that the next day was the day to go, according to the weather, and to meet him again at 8pm that night. Once back at the hostel we decided to go hydrospeeding. With a name like that how could we not? We were supplied with helmets, wetsuits, flippers, and a foam boogie board kinda thing. It was around 10 C (50F) both outside, and in the water. Cold. So cold that I put my sweater back on over my wetsuit before we got into the water. We cruised down the river on these boards through some pretty tame, but still exciting rapids. Super fun, and of course, we concluded with a beer. We were led by a guide, who was taking pictures the whole time, which we were given for free. Nice touch. 

After getting back to the hostel we met a Danish couple, the first Dane´s of our trip, a couple from Ashland, Oregon who was heading off to a bar owned by a couple from Oceanside, California that we were going to try to get to but didn´t make it that evening because I was busy makin apple turnovers. It isn't fall without baking with apples!. It was another fairly low key night back at the hostel which was turning into the best group of fellow travelers we´ve run into. Everybody seemed to click super well. Around 8pm we headed to the guide agency for the volcano trip, and the owner told us it was going to be super windy the next day so to wait until Thursday. Since we were planning on staying in Pucon another couple of days anyway we decided to sign up for Thursday instead. Back at the hostel we met a Dutch guy who was planning on doing the Wednesday ascent and informed him to switch to Thursday, which he did. Now we were responsible if he didn´t make it to the top because of weather Thursday or something. We concluded the night just sharing stories with other travelers and then headed into our geodesic dome tent.

The following morning I was up pretty early and surprised to see the Danish couple and a few others up and early getting ready for a hike up to some lakes that was a part of our trek in a couple days, so we didn´t join. Instead we hung around until early afternoon and headed out with a group of others all heading to a waterfall that was a couple hour hike up this private road. First we had to coordinate getting all 8 of us into taxis and communicate with the taxi drivers to get us to the right and same spot to start walking up the road from. This was a pretty great hike as well. Through some farms with horses and cows, good views of the mountains around us, and an easy grade up. Though, the crummy hand drawn map could have had some better landmarks, we eventually found our way to this 50 meter waterfall after scaling some pretty steep terrain up and down a few times to find the trail. We all felt pretty dumb once we found it and it was super obvious. It was quite the impressive waterfall, although a bit cold hanging out in the mist. We made some epic sandwiches and had a couple beers at the top of the waterfall and then continued back to the spot in the road we were dropped off.

On the Way to the Waterfall

Eating a Delicious Apple at the Waterfall

After getting back to the hostel we convinced the whole crew to head to the Oceanside couple owned bar which had happy hour, hotwings (which the Dutch guy Pieter thought was way too spicy, a common trend we´ve noiced among the Dutch), and fish tacos. It was also pretty fun to talk to the Oceanside couple about thier story. We left the bar and pub around 9 and continued the party back at the hostel. We met a couple guys from Santa Cruz, got some tips on some treks around and had a long conversation about Organic labelling in the U.S. It was a pretty late night.

The next morning was volcano climbing day! Which made the late night a bit unfortunate because we had to be at the guiding office at 7am in the morning. I didn´t forget breakfast though, so we had some oatmeal and french toast, though we ran out of time for coffee which was dearly missed by me anyway. Since we had all our own gear it was pretty quick showing up at the office, grabbing some ´¨ass protectors¨ for sliding back down the volcano once we reached the top. That morning the owner was super happy that he convinced us to climb today because the group the day before had to turn around due to too much wind. Which also meant we saved Pieter from having to turn around the day before. We got to the base of the climb around 8 in the morning and had about a 6 hour return trip to the top. It was a fairly leisurely pace because there were definitely people who weren´t in the best shape, which was actually pretty impressive when most of them made it. It was a super clear day and you could see all the way down to Pucon, the lake, and about a half a dozen volcanos in the surrounding area. The first hour and a half up was without crampons or ice axe, and ended at a ski lift that wasn´t running, so the entire dozen companies and all their clients, about a 150 people, all hung out in the shelter of the lift. It was fun because we ran into the hostel crew (it was controversial for us to go up with a different company, but for half price, ya know) and ate lunch with all of them. Then we all got our crampons, helmet, and ice axes prepped and continued on up. This is the point where a few of the out of shape people from all the groups headed back down. It was a fairly gradual switch-backy climb up with a few snack and water breaks. We shoulda brought more water after a night of drinking :/. But we were one of the first groups to the top which was nice to take some pictures and see the views before all 150 people were having a party on top. We peaked over the crater and got fumes of toxic sulfur smoke, so that was a quick peak, and then attempted to document the entire view around. We made super epic sandwiches and cracked a beer, which all the smart climbers had, including Pieter who had  a Dutch beer. We hung out on top for a bit, Acacia convinced a couple girls from the hostel crew to Mt. Babe with her, and then we were one of the first groups to start heading back down. Going down was much faster, kind of just giant falling steps down to be caught by the crampons on the snow.

Meal-in-a-bar bar anyone?

We made it to the top!

Picture with Rocky the Raccoon

The active crater at the top with super toxic smoke

 I tore my rain pants by stabbing them with crampons. Besides that it was a fairly quick descent, and we were back to the hostel by 4:30. We left the hostel to send some letters, grabbed showers before the entire rest of the hostel, and then ended up going back out to the Oceanside bar and pub for some drinks with all the hostel climbers. After hanging out there for a while, we all got hungry and went in search of an ¨ethnic¨ place which ended up being way too pricey. Thus began the long journey all over town with a group of 12 people - Team Famished - to find an open restaurant. We ended up finding an Arabic place, so ethnic after all, and had some pretty ok falafel, hummus, and tabouleh. I went to bed pretty soon after we got back because I was exhausted.But not before we capped the night with the worst rum I have ever had. Everyone knew the bottle only cost $4, but after it was portioned out I was the only one who shot it. Hah. oops.

The following morning we had a pancake celebration and/or exposition with the Danish couple. They were making crepes, and we were making American style yeast rising pancakes from Brodie´s recipe. It was the best! So many pancakes, with peanut butter, jam, fresh strawberries, bananas, chocolate, dulce de leche, and walnuts. Quite the spread. A few other people got in on it and marvelled at the miracle that is pancakes. Yum. This lasted from about 9am to 1pm. Lots of pancakes.

Pancakes With The Danish couple and Pujah

After cleaning up and coming down from our sugar rush we went out and got some food for the next few days of trekking, searched for propane for our stove but got some white gas instead to use with the stove we originally brought down here. I was stoked to try to make it work again. On our way to the grocery store we passed a vendor on the street. Then stopped, looked at eachother, and rushed back. There were two bottles that were originally apple juice, but were now homemade hot sauce, one red, and one green. We couldn´t resist. Immediately after purchasing we opened them for a smell. OH MAN. YUM. The green was avocado based, with cilantro and spicy. The red was much spicier, and chipotle pepper based, perhaps. 

Our Hot Sauces

I bought some shoe laces since the ones on my boot broke, and we finished up some things on the internet, played with the dog at the hostel a bit, and then headed off towards the mountains! Except I realized that I left my coat, the phone charger, and new laces at the hostel when we were getting gas, so we had a minor delay, but were off to find some hotsprings and some mountains by 3pm!