South America 2007

To all of you who regularly check this site with bated breath hoping and praying that we will once again be out of the country for some time, well, wait no-longer (okay, a couple more days). Yes, Dad and I will be crossing the equator and returning for the third year in a row to lovely South America. This post is mostly a heads up that the site is once again active and also a tester to feature some of the new quirks that Chris has set up for us, mostly in the form of easier picture viewing and all that good stuff. So expect to be hearing lots from us over the next seven weeks!

Well, Harry and I have arrived in lovely (snowy) Vancouver, after a great few days spent boarding and driving through the Rocky Mountains. Our first day at Fernie was great but chilly at -23. The snow there is just amazing though, you can see how the mountain resorts are predicting a bumper year for skier volumes. That evening we drove the rest of the way to Kimberley and had a wonderful dinner and visit with the MacDonald-Ferries, with all four members of the family in attendance. Visiting there gave us a chance to drive Hwy3 all the way to Vancouver, a route I have never taken before, but which is just amazingly beautiful. And also very snow-covered, so it was good to have a break partway along in Rossland, where we stopped for two nights and boarded on the fantastic (and pretty much deserted) Red Mountain. It’ll be neat to fly to the Patagonian Andes with views of the Canadian Rockies so fresh in my mind to compare them to.

So now I have a couple of days to spend here in Vancouver and Victoria doing some visiting before the big flight out on Monday morning.

I am at base camp. Likely, I have everything I’ll need. We’re off tomorrow, arriving bright and early Tuesday, who knows what after that. Anyway, you all take care, hopefully follow us along and we’ll talk when I get back.

We´re here, 10:30 Tuesday and checked in at the same hostal in Valparaiso as last year. Somewhere around 30 and sunny.
Couple neat things on the trip. Simon got us up and out, I hope you´re feeling better now. For those of you that know him, Tod Strynatka was right behind me at security in LA so we had a little chat. At LA we met a girl off our plane and were able to give her directions for her connecting flight. When we got to the LAN desk they were shutting down even tho our flight was not due to take off for 45 minutes but they let us in and then got the whole trickle of people off our same flight from Vancouver. All around an enjoyable, easy trip down. Oh and for those of you coming this way, the cabs at Santiago are a pack of hounds to get through.
We plan on settling in here for a couple days then south bound.
moi

Hej,

As you see from Dad´s post below, we have arrived in Chile and are once again in Valpo. Nothing really new to write yet, as we haven´t really done anything yet. All I can say is it´s a nice feeling to be comfortable and relaxed here, not stressing over things cause it´s all so familiar and we’ve been here before and know the drill. Same with all the necessary airport travel, we’ve become fairly accustomed to it and it’s less stressful every time.

So some not so good news is that I looked up the ferry schedules for the ferry from Puerto Montt to Punta Natales and one of their two boats is down for the next month with mechanical difficulties, resulting in the cancellation of half of the sailings, so it only leaves from either end of the route every two weeks. So that makes it tough for timing and also with that many cancellations and reschedulings it’s possible that there won’t even be any available seats. Hmmm. Already having to rethink some things. Oh well, that’s the way we like to do things.

More on this later,
love Mir

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was, walking from the bus station, Morris was saying about whether the hostal owner would be around. I looked up the street and said, isn´t that her walking towards us? Sure enuff. Great friendly welcome as she also recognized us.
Last night there was a issue as a backpack was gone from the building for a NZer who was catching a flight out at 10:00. Needless to say there was some loud words.
Great little cervesa break down at the port, had me an admirerer that I admired myself. Found most of the spots we remember. Playing cards, had a young family paying us alot of attention, Morris visited easlily with the mom and children-
moi

So tomorrow we leave the known world and enter the unknown. Because of the poblems with the ferry that I mentioned earlier, we are not going that way, so instead tomorrow we make the big leap down South by plane. We will arrive in Punta Arenas (54 degrees south) tomorrow afternoon. There’s lots to see around there, and in and around nearby Puerto Natales, and then of course there is Ushuaia on the Argentinian side of things. By the sounds of it, we will be able to spend quite a bit of time on that little skinny bit of land enjoying the wilderness at the end of the world.

OK, we are in Punta Arenas, there is almost no land of the continental americas south of us and we have our boat trip to Peurto Williams booked, maybe the southernmost part of the trip. It´s cool down here, 12-15 C and right on the straits of Magellan. No stories for you all today. People are very friendly and helpful here, neat hospedaje here.

I took some pictures from the plane as we flew into Punta Arenas, they turned out pretty well, I think. And uploading to the new and improved gallery is really quite easy, and doesn’t take too long, so hopefully I’ll be able to do it regularly. We’re enjoying the south, but it’s not quite as warm here. If you check the photo gallery, you’ll see that even Dad is wearing pants!

Crazy!

Well, the next few days are all taken care of. We’re really finding that there are some important connections down here that have to be booked ahead, due to a combination of schedules and complications. So there was the missed sailing from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales due to boat breakdown, then down here on the southern tip, we’re finding that either they don’t have the sailing route we would like or that they go so infrequently that we really have to match our stays and stops to fit it in. So our stay here in Puerto Natales/Torres del Paine is a bit short so that we can make it back to Punta Arenas on Wednesday to catch the boat from there to Puerto Williams (so many Ps to keep track of!) But we are booked for that sailing. Puerto Williams is on la Isle Navarino, which is just South of Tiera del Fuego.

So the next three days will be spent hiking in the national park, which we’re looking forward to. We just met a couple of girls who recently returned from a nice little continent to the south, and they gave us what we hope will be valuable information. I guess we’ll see.

So that’s what we *will* do. As for what we *have* done, we visited the Municipal Cemetary in Punta Arenas, which Grandad told me about before we left. The hostel we stayed at in P.Arenas was run by a really friendly and helpful couple, they pointed us in the direction of a great restaurant where we got to try the Chilean delicacy, Curantos (well, I shouldn’t say delicacy, it was basically a heaping plate of oh so slow-cooked meat and potatos - no knife necessary). We’re trying to put together how to cook it once we get home. Maybe some of you want to be in on that?

Really great experience hiking to Torres del Paine, a much photographed mountain and well worth the tortous hike up. Four hours ending in a 1 hour scaling of moraine (rock field) at a severe slopel. I did make it. I paid for it over the next two days as my legs were sore. We did a couple more hikes but Morris will show the pictures as rain cut me off one day and sore legs the other, I did try though. Basically, our first day was gorgeous, a touch of sunburn, the next was on and off rain and the third was wind, and I mean wind.
Quite a parque, the Torres del Paine (read pain for me). The refugios we stayed at were really nice and there were lots of pleasant people. Great scenery. This was an expensive bit of holiday as the rooms (shared accommodations), meals and drinks were priced at remote resort type prices but we survivied. Anybody who likes to rough it camping would find this a paradise. Lots of travellers from variousw places, switzerland, england, australia, israel, germany, france, some americans, spain, italy.
Now we are off to the tip, we sail this afternoon and will be crossing the staits of Magellan going to Puerto Williams. If anybody can´t find these locations, check with Simon as he has my map of Argentina/Chile.
Next message from the tip, moi

…are all I can share with you. How do I describe being safe harboured, delayed, in a small cove just south of the straits of Magellan to ride out a gale for a whole day. Winds gusting at some unbelievable rate, mingling with the fellow passengers. By the way, this was on a ferry, a very small ocean going ferry. Describe the swells off the pacific coming over the boat as we turned to the Beagle Channel. Yiou should all see the glaciers along this channel. That was really an addition to my life.
We´ve been in Puerto Williams where Morris got snowed out on her hike. Ate more centolla, crab.
Again, people are constantly providing a vast panorama of life. Juwie & her dad Kval were really nice to visit with, the austrians, lots of other tourists from all over, all friendly. The helpful locals everhwhere.
We are now in Ushuaia and have made our first tentative feel for a trip to the south, more later.
Take care all, moi

Well well well…

C&C, we´ll be a full two oceans from you by the 13th, or whenever you leave, or weather permitting.
Jo-Anne, I have you a collectable from the tip for your collection.

Okay, now that the initial Yahoo!! is out of the way, here’s some actual information on the trip. It’s an 11 day cruise on an 80 passenger boat, leaving Usuaia on Feb. 11th and returning on the 22nd. The crossing of the Drake Passage takes two days each way, leaving 5-6 days for visiting the Antarctic Peninsula and surrounding islands. Weather and ice-permitting, we attempt two landings per day, some on the islands and some on the continent. We’re supposed to have great chances of seeing several types of penguins, whales, sea lions and birds. Oh, and icebergs. Oh, and glaciers. So for the next couple of weeks any tanning I do will be from reflected sunlight off ice and snow. Oh yeah, what a holiday!

Cost… not for the faint-walleted.

So, since Dad is a pretty sporadic storyteller, and I’ve been mostly occupied with uploading pictures, here are a few more descriptions of what we’ve been keeping ourselves busy with. Torres del Paine was great. Really neat terrain, in that the whole trail system is a big circle surrounding a group of amazingly photogenic mountains, with all the hard climbs shooting off towards the center for better views of the rocky peaks. For those of you out there who have attempted rock climbing, the Torres sure look like they’d be a challenge. But people have made it to all of the peaks (between 1958 and 1963). After all that hiking, we decided to take it easy by boarding a (not)luxury cruise-liner (read-cargo ferry) for what was supposed to be a 38hour trip through the Straights of Magellan and the Beagle channel. The extra day we spent in a small enclosed bay waiting out a storm sure seemed like a smart idea when we finally got to Puerto Williams and heard stories about boats caught out in the waves, with one big cruise ship down near Antarctica ending up crashed on rocks and having to evacuate all on board. (don’t worry, I’m sure that won’t happen to us) After spending a relaxing day in P. Williams (which WE consider to be the southern-most city, not this uppity Ushuaia bullshit though they do have the marketing behind them) we bought passage on another small familly-run boat to get us across the channel to the North (see? not furthest south!) and into Ushuaia. The captain and crew were really friendly, it was nice and personal, especially since we were the only four passengers. Oh yeah, the other two in our group were another father-daughter pair, Kewal and Juhie. They’re from the States and have three more weeks to go, part of which they will be spending in Rio during Carnaval. Really great people.

So yeah. That’s it for now.

Well folks this is not an exiting week as we are just waiting around Ushuaia for the trip. The weather in Ushuaia, everyday, would be rain, clouds wind & sun, cool temperatures. We pretty much are always wearing coats and rain jackets. We have found good food and met interesting people in abundance. Yesterday at lunch we invited a couple to join us as all the tables were full. The lady was staring at my shirt, they were from Praha and did not expect to see that shirt down here.
As far as emails, expect quite a dead time while we´re sailing as internet is $3 US a minute on the boat. We will try to send some info sometime, otherwise, we´re leaving the site open to not clutter up C&C´s trip.
Enjoy like all, moi

First, there was no rain until 20:00h today so we got to go to the national park where there is a variety of fierce local fauna that one has to be careful around. Nice hike. Those bunnies really do have fangs.
Last night, Morris wanted GGC so we put together a little meal (Dad really doesn’t know how to cook for two - mir) that served a whole whack of the crowd in the common room. Personally, I was very proud when people started having seconds even though I made the single biggest mistake that I´ve ever done cooking. I now have another version of the meal.
Morris really does like to surf the night life portion of Ushuaia. She slept in til ?11:00h. I guess her feet were tired. I WOULDN´T KNOW.
Salud, moi

Well, it’s departure day finally. No more sleeps (it’s almost like waiting for Christmas). Funny, I used to get this feeling when I was first leaving home for a trip, that mixture of anticipation for something new and unknown mixed with the trepidation that something might go wrong and end up cancelling the whole thing. But now that I am a certified world traveller (not certifiable, I don’t think) the departure date has gotten to be more of a relaxed thing, since I’ve travelled to the unknown several times and it’s worked out, one way or another. But this next step really is a big one, and really is into the undiscovered territory, at least by anyone I know (including Nana and Grandad, who have been all over this small world of ours). So I get that feeling again. What will tomorrow bring? Or the day after? Ahh, I can’t wait.

you’ll notice a couple of new pictures, these are from the past couple days here in Ushuaia. We’ve had sunshine now for three days in a row, so we’ve been getting out of town and seeing the countryside. I got to teach a couple Israelis how to build a snowman at the base of a glacier. I don’t think it shows in the picture, but even the snow has a blue tinge to it.

Bye for now!

Another continent awaits, nosotros

Moi: First, the bad news (for Simon). We may be co-authors on a published scientific paper before you, HA HA HA.

Mir: By the way, this is a day earlier than all of you expected because I messed up on our return date, not because of anything going wrong

Moi: Well, we started across the Drake passage for a two day crossing and had a real easy sail. Quite the rock and roll on the swells though, people walk at a slant.
Then there was icebergs, just a couple the second night but we woke up in the middle of a flock of them, wow are they beautiful.

Mir: Who knew there was so many shades of blue.

Moi: Day 1, we stopped on Paulet Island where the Nordsomethingorother expedition over wintered in 1903, personally being greeted by penguins, lots of penguins, skuas, cormorants, fur seals and weddell seals. You should see the small hut that 28 men stayed in. We then went to Base Esperanza and actually set foot on the continent, not just the peninsula.
By the way, did I mention the great food and lots of it on the boat.

Day 2, Hanna point. Again, greeted by gentoo (genpoo-poo) penguins, this gets to be a common theme of this trip. Then came Deception Island where we saw the remains of a whaling base. Oh, and by the way, went swimming in the Antarctic Ocean followed by a dip in a hot (well, tepid at least) pool heated by digging a hole near the tide line so that some ocean water seeps in and is warmed by heat from underground volcanic activity (Deception Island is classified as dormant, not dead). Then, leaving there, WHALES. Orcas chasing penguins, Orcas chasing seals, Orcas chasing humpback whales, fin whales and minke whales. My guess is over 20 Orcas, 3 humpbacks and the others. Most of the action occurred within 30m of the boat. In fact, Morris stood on the bow and was able to watch them swim right underneath her. Our staff said they had never seen so much activity so close before.

Mir: In fact at the beginning of the trip I asked what our likelyhood of whale sightings was and was told that we would most likely see humpback, minke and fin, but it’s not common to see orcas. Go figure. We kept on asking ourselves how it could get better,… and it just did! Read on!

Moi: This was our first delay due to whales, putting us off schedule. As the chef and all the kitchen staff were out taking pictures, supper was delayed by about two hours.

Day 3, Neko Bay, where I got about an hour of good tanning in while Morris and everybody else hiked up the glacier to the viewpoint. Again, penguins. Then Paradise Bay, a zodiac cruise. Morris took on the Armada Argentina in a snowball fight, foolish girl. We finished by cruising the Lemare Channel and overnighted on the boat at our southernmost point, 65 09 south, and no, we cannot really say who was furthest south.

Day 4, Port Lockroy, with first a stop to follow two pods of about 5 Orcas, but never closer than 50m. Amongst the other penguins we saw our only king penguin of the trip. Sailed off through the sea ice to Cuverville Island, a penguin colony and zodiac trip where we played hide and seek with a fur seal.

Day 5, WHALES EXTRODINAIRE. I happened to see the blows so let Morris know in the dining area and emptied the room again. This was the most extraordinary experience. Three humpback whales played under the bow of the boat where we were standing. They were so close you may notice in the pictures that people could not get the whole whale in the pictures, look at the size of the blowholes in the pictures. This was unbelievable. Again all the staff were out as this was new to most of them too. Then to Half Moon Island, guess what, penguins but this time with lots of fur seals. I got in some juggling with Florencia. Lastly, Barrientos Island with the crazy penguins. Get Morris to tell you about having them play around her legs. Saw one being eaten alive. I had three of them following me thinking I had food or something. Back on the boat and start home. At the day end summary meeting, Sebastien said he´s never been on a trip before where someone calls “Whale!” and people stand up and say “Aww that’s too far” and sit back down. We really did see a lot of whales, do not expect me to get very excited to go on a whale watching trip anymore.
Two return days on the Drake with about half of day two on large swells and high wind, fun, except for all the sick people. Finished with a great party last night.

This was a great, stupendous, fantastic voyage.

Mir: Not enough adjectives in the thesaurus to truly say what it felt like.

We leave Ushuaia later today by plane for El Calafate to hike and see glaciars, as if we didn’t see lots down south. Basically, it’s all north from here on. One thing to remember if you ever do a similar trip, Ushuaia can be troublesome to get out of, try arrange your exit ahead of time as we did. Some people get stuck here for days or have to chose a different direction of exit then they planned.
The staff on the boat were fantastic. Our fellow passengers were great to spend time with, lots of friendships were started. We have a destination in Bogata and already Morris has intimated that we might be able to squeek in a trip next year before Russia. They, Diego and Ingrid, might come up and visit us first, you would all enjoy them. Simon, I have someone to visit in Moscow too.
Other than that, I just can’t remember all the details now so updates will be ongoing.

Well, we’re in El Chalten, about to catch the bus to Calafate then fly to Buenos tonight. This town is right on the edge of the Andes with glaciars around and is known for some really good trekking. Sweet place. I can’t believe that so far there has been no rock climbing on the faces behind the town. When we came down from yesterdays hike we spotted a restaurant with ‘Hoy, curantos’ so supper was chosen. We got to see the preparation and all. This looks easy to do. Really enjoyed the meal, they basically kept putting meat on your plate until you said stop.
Well, starting tonight, finally warm weather, I just can’t see it being any better than what we’ve been doing, just additionally interesting.

Got here about 1 in the morning, very warm and humid, what a difference for this trip. Finally got to the hotel and encountered a glitch with the computer booking but Morris, in fine style, got us a bed. Right now I’m waiting for her to wake up and this part will start.

Hola from Buenos Aires!

Well, our first night was short but punctuated by thunder and lightning, as the heavy humidity we encountered upon our arrival at the airport in BA turned into a night-long storm. We woke up to more rain, but by early morning it was dry, if cloudy. We met up with Zoe, Harry’s friend, for lunch (she’s studying spanish here for six weeks). Then Dad and I went about planning our last week here. We booked a boat to Montevideo, Uruguay, where we will spend a couple of days. I plan to swim in the Atlantic ocean, thus beating my record of two oceans in a single trip which I did last year. I expect that this will be a slightly warmer dip than the Antarctic.

Then tonight Dad and I were making our leisurely way back to the hostel trying to find a restaurant on the way, and we stumbled across a great little family-run place. Dad ordered chicken and I ordered a steak “muy jugoso”, meaning “rare”. When the food arrived, I had two pieces of meat, neither of which was rare, but it was obvious they had tried (rare is not something normally done here; despite their great reputation for steak the argentinians like it well done). So as often happens when in a country where you don’t always know what you’re ordering, I didn’t say a word, ate what was given to me. Fine and done. Except that a very strange thing happened… the waiter came to the table, looked at the meat that I hadn’t eaten, and said,’this isn’t juicy, this is dry, I’ll bring you some more’. And sure enough, a few minutes later a brand new steak was brought to me, much thicker cut than the last, very juicy. Without me saying a word! Or even thinking of it! As I said before, in a place where I don’t totally understand the language, sometimes even I don’t know what I’m ordering, but I don’t mind when I get myself into a situation where what I ordered may not be what I *expected*, but who am I to say that the waiter made a mistake? This time, I did know what I *tried* to order, but from previous experience knew that rare steak is a rare thing in Argentina (haha). And the cost for this feast? Two bottles of wine, 1/4 chicken, fries, salad, and what came out to three steaks… including a generous tip, under twenty dollars.

Anyways, it was a rare (again, haha) display of extraordinary customer service in this lovely country that makes this small familly restaurant stand out in this six-week trip. People and places in this wide world of ours will never cease to amaze me. No wonder this bug is catching.

Well, two years in a row of *just* Chile and Argentina was too much to take, so we had to leave these known countries and set out anew (now I know we were on another *continent* already this trip, but it’s not actually another *country*). So here we are in Montevideo, Uruguay. After having achieved the unbeatable feat of swiming in three oceans in a single trip, we are feeling pleasantly worn out from a day in the sun. I was glad that the weather today wasn’t the same as yesterday, though I would have gone into the water anyways, lightning and all (yesterday we sat out a wicked storm at lunch, the lovely old market building that we were sitting in was being buffeted by gales and rain was finding it’s way in every corner and falling on some unfortunates). Uruguay turned out to be even cheaper than other areas in South America, both in accomodation and food. Oh, and they know how to cook steak rare… how rare (okay, enough play on the rare-rare thingy)! With all that we’ve seen here, it’s amazing that it’s almost tourist-free. The city of Montevideo is full of amazing architecture, friendly people, sandy beaches, and punchbuggies (come on! Dad and I should be black and blue by now, but we’ve decided to opt out of the punch part of it, to prevent an escalation into something more…)

Tomorrow we take a bus to the (supposed to be) lovely city of Colonia de Sacramento, spend one night there and then take the boat back to Buenos Aires (or Rio, if you think “outside-the-box” like Dad… wacko). Then we’re on a night bus to Cordoba, begining our trek across the continent back to Santiago.

Watch out, the Wild Roses are turning towards home!

After a nice ride on a coche cama, we are in the University town of Córdoba. Pretty much halfway between Buenos Aires and Mendoza. It’s a cool misty morning, but if the fog lifts we might take an afternoon tour around the countryside and see what’s shakin’.

Colonia de Sacramento in Uruguay did turn out to be a beautiful city. The old part is quite touristy but very quaint, with roughly cobblestoned streets (especially the ones they say are original portugese construction). Lousy gradation and compaction of the base,… Dad says he never would have let it pass inspection. We highly recommend Uruguay. The small part of it we saw was great, and from conversations with locals we hear that the rest of it is quite spectacular as well. I really thought we were paring down the list of things to see here, but noooo.

Tonight we take another night bus to get to our final destination before the departure point. We made a phone call to Mendoza yesterday and were instantly remembered and are warmly expected tomorrow morning. Yay, what a way to cap off a trip.

p.s. I finally put some new pictures up. They may not be in order, but oh well

Well folks, this is our last full day south of that imaginary line of equinox. I must say that this trip just increased my pleasure at visiting down here and I strongly recommend this as a destination.
We often finish a post and then remember much more that we could have said but like Morris says. that’s why people actually hang around with us, we don’t give it all away too early. So, you’ll have to visit with us, in person, to hear the rest of the story.
Other than that, Isabell and Walter warmly greated us to Mendoza as did their hijos. This was special for us and capped off this trip. Last night, at El Buque, we had another fantastic steak meal, perfectly cooked, it is probably our favorite restaurant down here. Tommorrow we do the pass, one of the nicest pieces of highway to drive over. Then plane, then join you all for your gloriously warm spring.
Luv, moi

This is from Simon’s office, we are back north of 49. A fairly uneventful trip other than the fact that it went so smoothly. We’re tired but have to go pick up the pictures before supper and bed.
Mendoza, read, Isabell and Walter and family were again a real nice treat to cap off the trip. Our supper at El Buque reminded us that Argentinian steak is just as good and that restaurant definetely can do what I call blue rare.
WE ARE BACK, moi