One Way United

Hi all! Don’t have much time so this’ll be short. We made our way to Santiago and arrived at hostel run by a cool American guy. The selling point was that he had a washing machine that we could do clothes in for free AND a DVD player with over 700 movies. We didn’t spend all our time there, but it was good times. We did go out and explore Santiago and decided we like it much better than Buenos Aires in terms of big cities. It is really smoggy unfortunately, but the sites and architecture and fountains are just so beautiful. You can check out our Chile pictures to see what it was like.

Now we’re in Mendoza, Argentina. This city is really high up in the mountains and is near Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the western hemosphere topping off at just under 7000 meters high or 22,841 feet. We can’t wait to go see it. Mostly we wandered around the city seeing the sites. They have this gorgeous park that’s almost as big as the city itself where people jog, play soccer, row around a lake, and even walk through a large zoo. We just took the one hour tour since the place was so huge. Then we went and hung out with this cool guy we met named Ray (who just happens to have the same birthday as me and had all you could eat pizza for just 8 pesos (less than $3). Awesome find. We’re not quite sure where we go from here but it will be towards the east. Hope everything is well back home!

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Fabrice had already left Bariloche to meet Rose in Santiago and we went to the bus station to see when we could leave Bariloche and decide what our next destination would be.  We had thought seriously about buying bikes, and for a while I was really sure it was going to happen, but Adam and I decided that the inconvenience, the price, and the fact that we know nothing about bikes outweighed the coolness factor.  Now here we were, at the bus station, with no idea about our next destination.  Of course I brought up the bike idea again, always trying to keep our options and coolness factors open.  We sat there for a couple hours and I was blabbing about well…nothing.  We finally decided to go to Valdivia, Chile.  This was a decision we had pretty much made an hour and a half ago until I proceeded to complicate things by mentioning, once again, the bikes and the coolness.  It was Monday and we found out we could not leave to Valdivia until Wednesday.  Oh darn…2 more days in Bariloche…what to do?

We rented bikes.  There was this very scenic 60 km bike circuit nearby called Circuito Chico.  What a great opportunity to see what we are missing and doubt our decision once again!  The only day we could do it was Tuesday.  What a nice, beautiful, cold, rainy, windy, day that was!  We started our bike ride and immediately my chain came off.  Not a bad start.  We had a nice little headwind as well.  Even biking down hill this wind would stop us in our tracks and going up hill…well..pain, lots of pain.  We were halfway through the circuit and we were completely drenched.  My feet were completely submerged in water that had got in my shoes.  I was ahead of Adam and I saw a small ranger station.  Of course I went in to get warm.  Adam passed by the ranger station without seeing me.  I met a couple of firefighters there that were going to Bariloche right then.  The manly instinct in me wanted to refuse the ride…30 more km in this weather is nothing…bring it on!  After attempting to converse in Spanish for a while, Adam had already covered some distance and was probably pedaling as fast as he could trying to catch up to me.  I told them to at least drive me to where Adam was.  When we caught him, it was pretty obvious to us, although I hate to admit it, that we should accept the ride back into town.  So these guys drove us back to Bariloche which means we missed the 30 km where the wind would actually be at our backs…dang it!  Although it may not sound like it, I actually thought this bike ride was a lot of fun.  There is something satisfying about pedaling up a big long hill, into a strong headwind, in the rain, with every part of your body telling you to stop pedaling and walk, then telling your body with each painful pedal “screw you, I´m getting up this hill on this stupid bike,” and then doing it.  Maybe I am just sick. 

Anyways, on Wednesday we left for Valdivia.  We had one seat in the front of this big double decker bus.  The view from the front is amazing as there is the big window with an unobstructed view.  Adam rode there the first half of the bus ride and I rode there the second half.  We did the customs thing which is becoming old hat.  We got into Valdivia in the dark and this persistent women finally got us to say yes to stay at her house.  Valdivia is a college town on the shore of this giant river near the Pacific.  There is a fish market on the river shore where sea lions come to sun themselves and if they´re lucky, receive handouts.  We took a 6 hour cruise yesterday to a couple of 17th century military forts on these two islands.  We were also fed 2 first class meals and the whole thing only costed about $16 each…not bad.  The forts were amazing…both forts were right on the water and walls were still kind of intact despite the decay of time and the 9.5 earthquake that hit this area 40 years ago.  These forts reminded me of Scottish castles the way they were set.  Although I have never been to Scottland, that is how I imagine they would look like.  Anyway, today we are taking a bus to Pucon which is supposed to be beautiful.  It is set right along side a lake and a volcano.  I hope everybody is doing dandy!  Love ya´ll!    

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So we’ve been in Bariloche for a couple days now. This place just screams tourism and is so close to America it’s uncanny. It reminds me a lot of Lake Tahoe actually, so if you’ve been there you can picture it…without the hoards of casinos. The first day we didn’t do much, just wandered around town taking pictures. That evening we went to the local theater to see Munich, a rather disturbing movie that is up for an Oscar, which we found out yesterday are on tonight so we may try watching them.

After spending a lot of time just traveling around to towns and not doing anything particularly noteworthy we thought it would be good to try something new. So Jordan, Fabrice, and I signed up to do canyoning, which we found out is where you hike down a canyon in a river. We were picked up at our hotel by this very nice man named Hector. He took us out of town to this small house near the mountains. There we put on these big bulky wet suits and then proceeded to hike up a steep hill in the hot summer sun. If that’s not a good workout I don’t know what is.

We finally went down to the river and proceeded to hike in it in the direction the water was flowing. Then we came to a small waterfall and were instructed to jump into the pool below. One by one we did, not having a clue what we were doing but trusting our guide. The first time Jordan got a large bruise on his butt and I had one on my elbow from hitting the rocks at the bottom of the pool. It’s quite the adrenaline rush though: jumping more or less blindly into the water and submerging in the cold. We proceeded on and were able to go down a natural waterslide and jump into a few more pools. The real excitement was yet to come.

We get to the edge of this one waterfall and we discover we are going to repel down right next to it to where the water gathers below. Hector started preparing these ropes and we moved to stay out of his way. Then he gave us instructions on how to repel down since none of us really had any experience in this sort of thing. Then one by one we started to climb down. I ended up being the last one and as I got hooked in I became very excited. I couldn’t wait to see what was over the edge as from where we were sitting on the top you couldn’t see anything. As I began to back down the side the first chance I got I looked behind me. I had underestimated just how high this waterfall was.

Picture you’re hanging off the edge of a four story office building. Now picture a large cascade of water roaring just a couple feet to your right, and instead of a building you’re on a large granite wall, covered in slippery plants and moss, that shoots straight down. There really is no way to describe it. I slowly made my way down the side of the wall, taking the view all in and losing myself in the purity of the moment with the thunderous sound of the water around me. With the light of the sun hitting the falls it actually looked like I was climbing down THROUGH a rainbow. I didn’t want it to end.

I finally got all the way down and joined the others and we waited for Hector to join us. I dearly wish I could have taken some pictures of it all, but the situation didn’t really allow for best means of keeping a camera safe. Then Hector made his desent and proceeded to show us all up in a way that is an experienced man’s right. He made the entire repel that took all of us an average of three or four minutes in only twenty seconds.

We made our way back to the house where the woman had baked us these delicious rolls. They were these fried breadlike pastries that reminded me a lot like hush puppies and we pigged out on them. All in all it was definitely worth the money we spent on this excursion, which was only less than $60.

We aren’t sure what we’ll be doing today or in the next couple of days. Tomorrow Fabrice will be leaving to go to Santiago to meet up with his friend Rose Mary again who he hasn’t seen in about two weeks. We probably will meet up with them at some point as that seems to happen a lot down here. Either way we will definitely see Fabrice again as he wants to do Machu Picchu with us in May.

We’ve also added two new albums to our picture gallery, one in Argentina and one in Chile so check’em out. Until next time!

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