Chilling in Chili and Argentina
Holaatjes allemaal!
As we mentioned the last time, we really loved Santiago. The weather was great (around 25-26 degrees) and it was really sunny. One evening, we took a cable car up San Cristobal hill, which is known for its beautiful sunsets over the city. Of course, we did it in style and took a bottle of champagne with us and half a kilo of cherries. The view and the sunset were indeed spectacular and we spend a couple of romantic hours up there, just looking into each others eyes..... ;-)
The next day, we took a bus to Mendoza in Argentina. It was an 8 hour drive straight through the Andes, quite spectacular. Mendoza, of course, is well known for its wines. The first surprise was to see that Norton (a commonly available brand in Dutch supermarkets) was situated next to a huge factory spitting out dark fumes all over the region...we will never drink that stuff again!! The only way to really enjoy Mendoza was to accept the fact that we were about to spend obscene amounts of money on wines, wines, wines and some carne...
...which is exactly what we did. Probably the best thing we did in Mendoza was having lunch at a so called 'Bodega' or vineyard of the Zucchardi family. They pampered us with glasses of wine with every course (about eight...) and one of the best barbeques we ever had. They really know meat in Argentina. The wines they served were of great quality and sometimes it was hard to choose which one was best...
After our indulging lunch, we bought one of their best bottles and had another ‘drinkgelag´ in the evening, going to one of the local restaurants in town where you could bring your own bottle of wine. The next day we did the same thing all over again, gaining all the weight we had lost over the last few months.
From Mendoza, we travelled to Buenos Aires. We heard many great stories about the Argentinean capital but found ourselves to be a little bit disappointed. Main reason was probably that it was burning hot as the city was suffering a heat wave. This meant +35 degrees Celsius which due to the humidity of about 100% felt more like 40-45 degrees...suffocating and not the climate that makes you want to do a lot. Added to this, we booked a room in a hostel that did not have a window, which made us feel like sausages being cooked in an oven. Fortunately BA has really good restaurants so we tried to forget our disappointment by... well... drinking more wine and eating more carne and - big surprise - that worked quite well...
From BA we took a direct bus back to Santiago - a 22 hours ride, a record for us. Fortunately, the busses in South America and Argentina specifically are quite unlike European busses. In general, they offer two different classes, semi-cama and cama. The lowest class, semi-cama, provides huge 80% reclineable chairs and with about a meter of legroom (!!), which will get you through the night quite comfortably. However, the price difference between semi-cama and the highest class - cama - is often only a few euros so cama is our drive of choice. In cama you have even bigger leather chairs which are 100% reclineable (we ended up having this biggg matrimonial bed). Moreover, they have stewards that will help you with your every need, show movies and serve breakfast, lunch and diner (including - of course more wine(!!)). All in all traveling in these buses is more comfortable than flying business class in an airplane...although it does take a big longer...
We spend one more day in Santiago where we visited the well known fish market and indulged ourselves with a complete King Crab for lunch and of course more wine (do you see a pattern emerging??). No need to get your hands dirty, a guy actually comes to your table and patiently extracts all the meat the Crab has to offer, wonderful!
The following day, we took a bus to Pucon which is located in the Chilean lake district. The lake district is known for its lakes of course, as the name suggests, set in farm land and overlooked by snow capped volcanoes...spectacular! The town of Pucon itself is the center for outdoor adventure sports such as wild water rafting, speed boarding and climbing. Lots of people only stay 2 or 3 days, but the moment we arrived we decided to stick around longer because it was such a cute village, lots of German styled wooden houses, a beautiful lake shore and Villarica - an impressive snow capped volcano - always in the background.
Unfortunately we had to drop the first two activities on day one when the guy at the counter of the outdoor shop started laughing out loud when we asked him if it was ok to do rafting or speed boarding 6 weeks after breaking a collar bone...so we settled for hiking.
Didn't we mention that we would never ever ever ever (!!) climb a mountain again after the traumatic experience of Villanaraju in Peru. Well - guess what - the first thing we did was exactly that...we climbed the Villarica, a very active volcano that still spews out fumes every day. Fortunately it is somehow connected to the same magma field of Chaiten, which exploded last year and covered most of Patagonia in ashes. We were told that if one volcano is active the other one isn´t and vice versa. So it was considered quite safe to climb Villarica. The climb was pretty hard, going from 1500 meters up to 2900 meters above sea level, which is more than the height difference of the Villanaraju climb for example. However, the relatively low altitude makes a huge difference, because the air is much denser and you don't have to stop every 5 meters to regain your breath.
Just when we got to the top, huge clouds of phosphor fumes engulfed us, making us cough like mad and reducing our live expectancy by at least 15 years...The biggest treat was still waiting for us - the way down is...sledding (!!)... on your bum with help of one of those little plastic sleds that you see little children use in the French ski resorts. Think about it, that´s a sled ride covering 1400 meters of height difference and going straight down at ridiculous speeds in the tubes that were carved out by the many sledders before you... just like bobsledding. It was an amazing experience and in itself worth another climb up the mountain.
Two days later, we did the so called 'tres lagos' trek, taking us about 6 hours through one of the most spectacular sceneries of the lake district and offering beautiful views on the Villarica.
After a week, we said goodbye to Pucon and took a five hour bus trip to Puerto Montt, the capital of the lake district but otherwise quite unspectacular, although we did enjoy a very nice dinner at the seafood market overlooking the harbor. The reason we stayed here was because this was the departure port for our 4 day boat-trip on the Navimag, a huge cargo boat that nowadays also caters to tourist, taking them from Puerto Montt through narrow channels flanked by snowcapped mountains and the open sea to Puerto Natales, the gateway to Torres del Paine. There is not a lot to do on the boat but to take in the landscape, read a book or two and have fun with the other passengers. Which is exactly what we did. While waiting to board the boat we met Sjoerd and Pär, a Dutch guy and a Swedish guy, and we had a really good time with them, hanging on the deck, drinking a couple of wines and spending the nights playing cards.
The last night on the boat, the crew organized a big party with bingo (!!) and lots of dancing, great fun! Our mechanic repair guy was the star of the evening singing several familiar songs.
The arrival port of Puerto Natales is the main town to organize trips to the world famous Torres del Paine national park. This park offers the essence of Patagonia, rugged snow capped mountains, rivers, forests, lakes, great views and of course glaciers. We decided to do the so- called 'W' trek, taking us from one refugio to the next for 6 days in a row, spending between 4 to 7 hours every day walking with big 10 kilo backpacks. (Mam, pap, wedden dat jullie vroeger nooit gedacht hadden dat ik ooit zoveel zou wandelen!) It was pretty tough, especially after a couple of days carrying a big backpack on your back, but it was lots of fun.
The second night, in refugio Chileno, we met a Dutch couple, Thomas and Merel, and found out that they were walking the same route as we were. So we spend the next four nights chilling in the refugios and sharing our stories of pain and endurance. The third night we met Sjoerd in refugio Cuernos (remember from the Navimag) who was also walking the 'W', but in opposite direction as ourselves. We hooked up and had Dutch evening, the five of us drinking and eating in the refugio.
In general, we were surprised by the sheer amount of Dutch people walking around in this part of the world, you literally see and hear them everywhere!! Particularly, Torres del Paine seems to attract an awful lot of our fellow countrymen. In the last refugio, Grey, we ended up with 5 Dutch couples (!!) and only 5 non-Dutch people, pretty bizar. The very last day we did a walk on Glaciar Grey, which was very very spectacular - beautiful sceneries, great blue and white colors and some thrilling climbs up and down the crevasses (yes, we were wearing crampons, but no ropes....). There are complete rivers floating on top, through and below Grey Glacier, some of them up to 30 meters deep.
All in all, Torres del Paine was definitely one of the highlights of our trip (so we have some understanding what all the Dutchies come to do here...). We are now off to El Calefate in Argentina, to do even more hiking in Patagonia (although Mischa is having second thoughts already...).
Leaves us to wish you all: A HAPPY CHRISMAS AND THE VERY BEST FOR 2009!!!
Hasta Pronto!!
Lots of love, Mischa and Thomas
Reacties
Reacties
Chaps,
Merry X-mas and a happy new year! Waar vieren jullie het?
Hoi lieverds,
Mis jullie en voor 2009 het allerbeste (en vooral dat jullie maar snel terug mogen komen!!!)
xx
Heeee, VW!! We zitten op dit moment aan het einde van de wereld, in Ushuaia, Argentinie, en vieren morgen met z´n tweetjes romantisch kerst. Het is hier net als thuis namelijk GUUR: winderig, bewolkt en regenachtig, heel vertrouwd dus. Bizar is wel dat de dagen weer heel lang zijn van 5 uur sochtends tot 11 uur savonds. Oud en Nieuw vieren we in Punta Arenas, Chili, niet ver hier vandaan en schijnbaar een echte partytown, wat je hier niet echt verwacht dus we zijn benieuwd. Wat zijn jouw plannen...en hoe is de situatie in London??
Groetjes en mooie feestdagen, Thomas en Mischa
Hi you lucky couple. Its so wonderfull to read your lively stories and see the wonderfull pictures. It seems that your having a fantastic time. Cant believe that Thomas sled down that mountain - have you no fear ?Back here we are filled with christmas dinners and ready to enter 2009. It gets back to everyday life so quickly :-( Looking forward to the next telling. Hugs and happy newyear.
Unbelievable dat ik jullie belletje heb gemist. Ik zat in vergadering, aaaaaaaaaaarggggggggghhh.
Had jullie zo graag even "LIVE"willen spreken. Helaas, maar wel heel lief dat jullie aan me gedacht hebben.
Alvast een hele leuke jaarwisseling, mis jullie wel. Ik ga zelf wel met wat poedersuiker door de kamer strooien ;-)
En alvast de beste wensen voor 2009!
Dikke kus
Ola,
Alles goed met jullie? ben nu in El Calafate na 10 dagen ANTARTICA. reisverhaal volgt.
Volgens mij hadden jullie een nieuw zeelands contact van een kerel die in Nieuw zeeland in IT werkt dat jullie konden achterhalen ... willen jullie dat voor mij proberen?
Hele fijne tijd en GELUKKIG NIEUWJAAR!
gompter(at)hotmail.com
Happy 2009! Veel geluk, liefde en veel reisplezier!!
Voor ons zit het er helaas op :-(( We vliegen vandaag naar huis...
Ondertussen staat Zuid-Amerika op de agenda voor ons volgende sabbatical :-)). We genieten enorm van jullie verhalen en opnieuw mooi foto's!
Heel veel plezier de komende maanden en geniet van down under!
X R&D
Ook een heel erg gelukkig 2009 voor jullie twee (en de rest van de meelezers uiteraard ook)!! Jammer he dat het er al op zit... maar wat een avonturen hebben jullie meegemaakt. Gave dingen gedaan Down Under die wij zeker ook gaan doen! We zien jullie weer in het Amsterdamse en dan worden boven een biertje herinneringen opgehaald!! xxx M&T
He Gompie! Ook voor jou de allerbeste wensen voor 2009! We zitten op dit moment op Paaseiland te genieten van het veels te mooie weer.... piscootje, strand, zee en geweldig uitzicht.... wat wil een mens nog meer! Gisteren een duik gemaakt en het zicht was echt helemaal geweldig! Vanaf 35 meter zag je de golven binnenrollen en breken op de rotsen...fenomenaal! We gaan proberen om het email adres en naam van die gast te achterhalen! Geniet van El Calafate en Perito Moreno! We houden contact!! xxx M&T
Liefies !!
Nog een waanzinnig nieuwjaar voor jullie allebei !! Gaat denk ik wel lukken want jullie beginnen weer goed op paaseiland !!
Hier alles zijn gangetje, net voor de 5e keer in 10 maanden verhuisd, het begint te wennen :) Lang leve Adam !!
Verder lekker werkloos aangezien ons mooie blad per direct is opgeheven in verband met die klotecrisis.... Dus dat wordt weer zoeken naar een leuke nieuwe uitdaging :)
Kortom never a dull moment hier in het Adamse...
Veel plezier weer de komende tijd en we gaan alweer aftellen voor jullie thuiskomst !!
Dikke X
Ilse
Hallo ihr beiden
Es ist lange her wo wir uns das letzte mal gesehen haben.
Und es ist schon wieder so weit.........das Burnsupper.
Ich denke oft an euch und Johann erzählt viel.
Habe gehört das ihr euch in Hong Kong treffen werdet.
Bin mal gespannt wann wir uns wiedersehen.
Eure Bilder sind weltklasse.
Bis dann. Gruß Astrid
Tikkie aan de late kant... Nog de best wensen!! Nieuw jaar voor het eerst in London gevierd, prima tijd gehad, heb de rol Chief Fireworks Officer op me genomen, dit tot groot verdriet van de Londonse Fire Deparment. Gekke mensen die Britten, klaarblijkelijk is dat niet helemaal de bedoeling, enfin het waren niet mijn buren zeg maar. Ik heb een baan maar leuk is anders, het is niet best en de bank wereld is heel erg verandert. Als jullie terug zijn kan je al het geen je niet hebt uitgegeven (hmm) op een Goldman Sach savings account zetten...... Net besloten met pasen (mid April) naar Indonesie te gaan, wellicht zijn jullie in de buurt?
Later
Hey werleld reizigers,
Sorry dat ik nu pas een reactie stuur maar ik heb echt wel aan jullie gedacht! Nu ik dit alles zit door te kijken
denk ik toch dat ik een beetje jaloers ben op wat jullie allemaal zien, doen meemaken maar wie weet doe ik t ook nog eens.
Echt hele mooie verslagen en hele grappige en mooie foto,s, ik ga vanaf ni beter m,n best doen om up to date te blijven Groeten Frank
Wat een stilte, alles goed en waar verblijven jullie nu? In Amsterdam worstelen we ons door de eerste maanden van het nieuwe jaar. Kredietcrisis heeft zijn impact, dus rustig op het werk. Wintersport geboekt, 8 maart staan we op de latten. Konden Tignes niet aan zonder jullie, dus is het Avoriaz geworden;-) Zinnnnnnnnnnnn.
Dikke kus
Reageer
Laat een reactie achter!
- {{ error }}