Puenting (bridge jumping)

Our Ecuadorian friend Jose has a bridge jumping business as part of Afuera (an outdoor film company), so of course we went with Vivian to take in this interesting local sport.


Janice was scared so Jose devised a system where Janice and Jason could rappell down from the bridge so that the fall was shorter. Stay tuned for Janice´s video.

After watching Janice and Jason jump, Vivian decided to also took part in the adventures that day. Our friend Jose was so excited that she broke the record for oldest person to jump! He made a video as a tribute to her bravery.

Vilcabamba

Stay tuned

Cuenca

Designated a Unesco World Heritage Site, we weren´t sure what all the fuss was about. The old architecture is beautiful and we loved the potable tap water, but perhaps we missed something.

To give Vivian the full backpackers experience, Jason and Vivian picked a $6 a night hostel in downtown Cuenca (Janice was not involved in the selection process). Although the views were nice and the people were really friendly, it was obvious why it was only $6 a night. However, Vivian enjoyed the novelty of the whole experience and could handle it for the few days that we were there.

While in Cuenca we took a day trip to Incapirica, one of the largest Inca ruins in Ecuador. Although much smaller than the ruins in Peru, we thought Vivian might like to see remmants of the ancient civilization. Although the Incas were only in Ecuador for less than 100 years before the Spanish arrived, the still managed to make their mark on the people here.

Yarina Eco Lodge, Ecuador

   

We booked a four day tour at Yarina Ecolodge in the jungles of Ecuador with Jason´s mother. Expecting budget accommodation and hordes of mosquitoes we were pleasantly surprised to have hot water, comfy beds, gorgeous bungalows and only a handful of bites. 

Day 1

Can you find the frog?

After doing a lot on our own, it was nice to be picked up from the airport by the tour company. We then took a scenic boat ride to our jungle lodge and were treated to the sight of 50 of more monkeys eating and jumping from tree to tree. They were the first of many amazon animals that we would see. It was very hot and humid, but not as bad as we thought it might be. When we arrived there was no one else there, amazingly we had the whole place to ourselves as they are not very busy during the rainy season. After lunch we went on our first jungle walk and saw many different amazing things: carpenter/leaf cutting ants, a tarantala, frogs, toads, insects, the list goes on. 

Our guide also asked us if we wanted to try lemon ants; ants that live in a tree that is acidic and thus drops acidic leaves on the ground around it so that other plants will not grow underneath of it. We were shocked to see Jason´s mom lick the ants into her mouth without hesitation! After witnessing this, we had to try some as well! Days later, we found out that she did that because she could not see the ants without her glasses on!

After sunset we took an evening boat ride to look for caiman (alligators). Unfortunately all we saw was a pair of eyes glowing orange-red in our flashlights. Although we didn´t see one swimming next to our boat, we were ok with that. We did end up seeing fireflies and luminescent larve in the lake; floating like stars on an inky black sky around the boat. 

Day 2
We awoke early to the load raucous noise of howler monkeys proclaiming the territory and a multitude of birds that arose with the morning sun. After trying to sleep through loud cicadas, frogs and toads, and other creatures of the night, we were a little groggy to say the least. However, we were glad we didn´t sleep with ear plugs so we could listen and experience the night and morning sounds of the jungle. 

That morning we headed out for another jungle walk. This time, we tried some tasty sweet fruit that had the consistency of phlegm with bitter seeds; perhaps that is how it propagates as most of us spit out the seeds as we walked. At the end of our walk we arrived at a bird watching tower on the edge of the lake. Climbing up 15 meters we saw grazing capybaras, swimming and basking turtles and of course lots of birds. See our photo album for pictures! We started to understand why people birdwatch, especially in a place like the amazon with so many interesting and beautifully colored birds. It was fascinating to be able to match and identify the birds with the guidebook. Of course we had help, but it was still a lot of fun. On the way home we spotted more wildlife, a huge caiman iguana sleeping in a tree.

For our afternoon activity we went piranah fishing, although we ended up donating as much meat as we got back in fish. We caught five different types of fish including piranah, catfish, little blowfish, and more. We realized that advanced fishing equipment makes a big difference as we just used a single prong hook, no weights and no reel. However, maybe they didn´t want us to catch to many fish so quickly..... It was a lot of fun, but we were glad we didn´t have to fish for our supper, although the catfish was very tasty.


That evening we went for a walk in the amazon after dark as many species are nocturnal. We saw crickets as big as Jason´s thumb in a myriad of different colors and shapes, various tarantulas, lots of spiders, colorful butterflies and moths, as well as two tiny snakes (we were happy just seeing baby snakes). Our pictures are ok, but now we understand just how difficult it is to take night shots of insects without a tripod and constantly being careful not to touch any dangerous insects/plants/snakes/etc! We all really enjoyed the night walk and all the interesting and colorful insects. The amazon is filled with a lot more insect activity at night!


Day 3
Overnight we awoke many times to what sounded like someone pouring buckets of water on the roof. Luckily, the rain tapered off for our morning activity, but we were amazed at how much the river had risen, before there had been eight steps from the dock to the river, now there was only two!


In the morning we went to visit an indigenous family. They grew many types of plants: coca beans, papaya, bananas, platanos, and a myriad of medicinal plants. As per usual we had snacks with our morning activity: roasted ripe platanos, white coca beans, fish baked in leaves and a squirming insect larva roasted live on the fire. Vivian eagerly munched her portion while, as per usual Jason and Janice timidly nibbled on theirs. It wasn´t too bad though, it kind of tasted like roasted pork skin ..... interesting!

In the afternoon we went to look at the old bird watching tower that fell down. It´s too bad it fell as the view would have been incredible! We ran into a pack of red howler monkeys, which was very lucky as they don´t move often and thus are rarely seen in the wild. We were also lucky that the red howlers did not sense any aggresion from us as they are famous for throwing their feces and urine at anyone who gets too close! 


Our guide demonstrated hot to make a trap for catching live birds and animals. Then Jason gave it a try and he caught a stick! Alive!


When we returned we were amazed to see that the river had gotten even higher! When we first arrived there were 8 steps up to the dock but at that moment none of the stairs were visible! The river had risen about 1.5 meters in less than twenty-four hours! Now that is a rainy season!

That night we just talked in the dining hall for our evening activity. However, we enjoyed looking at the nocturnal insects so much we asked our guide to help us find ones around our cabanas. What a mistake for Vivian, we found tarantula nests under every cabana! Although these ones have a fairly harmless bite and don´t bite unless provoked, it still made Vivian nervous to sleep alone that night. At this point, Jason and Janice were pretty used to seeing tarantulas and slept peacefully through the loud jungle night.
Day 4 
We were all sad our amazon adventure was coming to an end. Our last activity was a combo boat and walking tour. With water levels even higher than yesterday, piles of fallen tress and debris, and fast currents, navigation involved a lot of ducking and tight maneuvers. Although we all got thoroughly soaked and waded through muddy water just and inch below the tops of our boots we had a lot of fun splashing through the warm amazon rain.

Want to find out info about the lodge? Click here

Travelling with Jason´s Mom

We went to pick up Jason´s mother Vivian from the airport on March 31st. The plan is to travel through Ecuador with her for the next two and half weeks. Stay tuned for adventures with Vivian!

Quito, Ecuador

After stumbling our way through Spanish for the last four months, we decided it was time for more lessons. We moved in with our friend Jose and his mother, which was a welcome change from hostel life. 


Our two weeks of lessons at Vida Verde were really good and for us things are not only in the present, now we can talk about things in the past and future! Maybe one day we will be able to read the paper .........

Lake Titicaca, Peru

We left La Paz and said goodbye to Bolivia. Arriving in Puno Peru at 9pm was not the brightest thing we have ever done, but we managed to arrive safely to a hostel run by a very welcoming family.

Sillustani

The next day we decided to take it easy and do a tour to the Incan ruins of Sillustani, which were large tombs up to 12m tall. It was interesting to see the superior craftsmanship of the Incans compared to some other smaller Pre-Incan tombs nearby. Those ones looked like Jason could have even built them they were so shabby looking…. Well, that´s what Dow would have said. After the quick tour we were back in Puno prepping for our trip to the islands in Lake Titicaca.

Islas Flotas (Floating Reed Islands)

We left for the islands the next morning and made a quick stop at some other islands that are probably not on the official map…. the floating reed islands. In the 1500´s, when the Spanish conquistadores were coming looking for slaves to work in the mines, the people got the idea to flee to the safety of Lake Titicaca. So they made boats out of reeds and sailed out into the lake and started building floating platforms out of reeds in order to live on. It appeared to be quite a hard life, but likely better than the alternative in the 1500´s. We were happy to hear that the people are starting to be able to leave the islands if they wish, as they are using money from tourism and their textile work to educate their children so they can choose to stay on the islands or leave and have other opportunities.

Isla Amantani

After the floating islands, we took a couple of hours to arrive at Isla Amantani, where we were greeted by local families at the dock. We noticed that the islanders were rather friendly towards our guide, which was nice to see. A short walk up the hillside brought us to our family´s modest home, where we would chat with them about their lives and ours, and see how they lived. They had 4 children, all of whom left the island for work. It was a bit sad, but then again, Jason left his birthplace and family for work, so it isn´t like this sort of thing doesn´t happen every day. After an afternoon with the family and some fresh local food, we went for a walk to the top of the island for the sunset. After dinner, we were told that it was time to dress up for the dance…. We wanted to make sure that the dance wasn´t something that the locals hated to do, so we asked them a few questions…

We asked them if they liked the tour guide and the tour company, and they said yes. It seemed that they acknowledged that even though they probably preferred their privacy, they knew that without the tourists coming, it would be very difficult to obtain any money. Then we asked them if they liked going to the dances… We never saw their faces light up all day until we asked them about the dances! It was clear that they got a lot of pleasure out of dressing up the tourists in their clothes and watching them awkwardly dance around. So off we went to the dance, and we have to admit that even though it was a bit ridiculous, it was a lot of fun.

Isla Taquile

The next day we headed for the other island, Isla Taquile. On Taquile, we were told that the people don´t need to talk a lot about relationships, as everything can be discerned from the clothing…. Although Janice figures that the people probably still talk about these sorts of things, Jason figures why talk about it if it´s basically written on your forehead?

Anyway, for example, (disclaimer; we may have the details here a bit off but this will give you an idea of the system) the men wear certain colors of hats to show relationship status. A white hat means you are single and young. A white hat with a red top means that you are single but you are ready to start dating. Then there are certain ways to wear the red and white hat which may or may not attract the females… If you wear the top of the hat to one side, it means you are looking for a long term girl to make your wife, if you wear it to the other side, you are just looking for a casual fling. Then there is another way to fold the top to show that you are kind of involved with a lady. Once a man ties the knot, he trades in his white and red hat for a red hat.

Looking at the female side of things, they can accept a man who is wearing his hat to one side or the other, by shaking a pompom on the right side of her dress. If she doesn´t like him, she shakes the pompom on the other side, which tells him to buzz off. A young woman wears a coloured skirt to show that she is single, whereas a married woman wears a black skirt… possibly to show that life is much more dull and less colorful after marriage?? We weren´t sure why they change to a red skirt, as the red, orange and yellow skirts seemed so much more jovial.

We then headed back to Puno to rest for a night before heading to Cusco on our way to Machu Picchu.   

La Paz, Bolivia

Despite all the bad things we heard about La Paz, we really enjoyed it. The food was good (except for the food poisoning), the people were friendly, and the views of the city were really breathtaking, literally! (La Paz is at 3600 m). We spent our time joined at the hip with a very lovely and friendly Australian named Megan, it was lots of fun to explore La Paz together. Especially since we didn't have to worry about her running off with our camera, we could have more pictures of the two of us.



Unfortunately while we were there carnival was cancelled due to thousands of people losing their homes in a landslide. However, the water bombs, super soakers and drive by foam shots directed at tourists still continued unabated. It wasn't as bad as Uyuni, but still very annoying especially when it is only 15oC outside.

Locals were really friendly and seemed really interested in us. Some of them were making a film and even asked us to join in. They really enjoyed watching us "dance". Others struck up a conversation with us at the bus station and asked us if we had any kids, then looked very sad when we did not.

The alpaca sweaters are a dime a dozen, the llama fetuses smell funny, and maybe one day we will come back.

San Pedro de Atacama, Chile to Uyuni Bolivia

We left Santiago on another LOOOOOOOOOOOONG bus journey, heading north to San Pedro de Atacama. San Pedro is a tourist town with great views but a very strong sun. We rented bikes and headed out touring for the day, but had to call it quits at about 2pm as the sun was having it's way with us.
After our short stint in San Pedro, we headed for Bolivia via one of the most amazing drives we have ever done... 6 of us piled into a Toyota Land Cruiser with our driver/guide Nilfe. The tour company was called Estrella del Sur. We went up to nearly 5000m, over high passes and watched thousands of flamingos graze in the brilliantly coloured but shallow lagunas. Apparently the colours are only one of the interesting things about the lakes. They are filled with borax, sulfur and one even has arsenic!! Nilfe was shocked to see flamingos in that one, as it is usually void of life. We wondered if the flamingos liked their phytoplankton with a side of arsenic.....?

The best thermal hot springs we ever saw were located at 4300m elevation on this circuit. Shortly after the hot springs we arrived at camp, where we were treated to a hot meal and a warm bed, though we had our sleeping bags with us so we just used them.... it seemed pointless to dirty the bed when the nearest washing machine was about 200km away and water was not easy to obtain. The food was much better than we were expecting, given the reviews we read and what information we managed to obtain from other travellers.

We arrived in Uyuni after 2 long days, and had a quick stop in the train cemetery before trying to avoid being sprayed with water and foam as part of the Bolivian carnival festivities. The music was loud but our things for no listening (earplugs - we didn't know the Spanish word for earplugs, so we went to the hardware store and asked for "things for no to listen" and pointed to our ears and managed to get what we wanted) worked wonders and we were well rested for the Salar de Uyuni the next day.

The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world, and sits at an elevation of about 3800m. At this time of year there is water on the flats, and it creates a perfect mirror of the sky and surrounding mountains. When looking at objects far away from you, it looks like they are floating in the sky. An incredibly surreal landscape. We tried our hand at creative photography, using depth perception to play tricks on the camera. Some turned out great, others.... not so much, but hours of endless entertainment nonetheless. Check out the photo album for a few minutes of entertainment....

Normally we hate tours, but undoubtedly, this was the best tour we have ever been on and we enjoyed every moment of it; even when it was snowing at 5000 m, we're from Canada. The intimate group made it feel less like a tour bus and our guide was fantastic about explaining any question we had, no matter how simple, in a very in-depth and informative answer. We were amazed at how well we were able to interact with him as he did not speak English and our Spanish is far from fluent. He spoke slowly, explained words we didn't understand, and repeated things 3-4 times if necessary!

Santiago

Santiago.... a city of smog. Apparently there are mountains around Santiago.... well, we didn't really see any. At one point we thought we saw a faint outline of mountains on the horizon, but it was difficult to tell.

We walked around town a lot, going to eat sushi, ice cream, and of course the fancy dining at the fish market... where you could dine beside the locals and eat a big bowl of fish and seafood surprise for about $3-4, if you went to the beautiful places where the locals ate. The tourist traps were much more expensive.... maybe $15 for the same thing. Even though the food was good, the waiters were hassling us way too much to eat at their restaurant, and when the bill came they added on a little tourist fat or missed 4th grade addition, depending on where you ate. FYI - mariscal is raw seafood surprise and ceviche is raw fish surprise... we kind of thought mariscal was cooked by what we saw in the picture.... ;-)

We stayed in a hostel that looked like a boutique hotel on a budget. All the girls loved the place and wished that their places looked like this.... and hence, this drew the single guys to the place as well. So even though the hostel was aiming their marketing at women, it seemed to pull the men in even more so, as the single men figured there would be lots of women there.... ;-)

But all in all, one of the cleanest, brightest, and most beautiful places we have stayed at so far. It's called the Princess Insolente hostel in case you're heading to Santiago.

Pucon, Chile

We headed to Chile after 2-1/2 months in Argentina. Pucon sounded like a nice place to go with an active volcano to climb and lots of good trekking opportunities. We arrived to a torrential rain storm and a small earthquake (which we slept through!!).... seemed like a welcoming town though. All in all, kind of reminded us of Banff though. The main streets are busy as heck but the places off the beaten track are almost deserted by comparison.
We headed for Volcan Villarrica on a blue-sky Monday morning, after being in town for the rainy weekend. Apparently there is an organization named CONAF that regulates who goes up the mountain and who goes into the park for that matter, and after many people in town told us that CONAF would not let people go up the volcano without a guide, but they were not open on the weekend for us to go talk to them and show them our ACC membership, so we just decided that going early might get us in before the CONAF dudes got out of bed. Well, needless to say, it worked. We left town just after 6am (not exactly an alpine start) and rolled right into the park without seeing a CONAF person at all. We summitted just after 10am, a few minutes after a guided party that left town at 4am. The sulfur and phosphorus (I think - all I know is that it smelled like a mix of rotten eggs and lit matches) at the top were unbearable unless you stood on the windward side. Needless to say, most guided parties didn't necessarily stand on the windward side...perhaps this was the guide's way of limiting the amount of time he had to stand at the top. We got a few pics, looked down into the crater and watched as the guided groups stood on snow bridges on the leeward side of the crater and looked down in.... hmmmmm...
On the way down we saw about 300 more people coming up. What a ridiculous sight! And we never did see a CONAF person, so I don't know what that's all about.

Back to Pucon to figure out what else to do.... we headed to a beautiful waterfall, which we had to ourselves for about half the time we were there. Then the weather forecast turned perfect and there is a 6-day trek that is called the Villarrica traverse that sounded interesting, so we geared up with a bunch food and set out. The traverse was extremely beautiful, with volcanic scenery to start, followed by monkey-puzzle tree forests, followed by more volcanic plateaus, and more forest. Finally we got into the lakes and more jagged-looking peaks to finish off the trek. We ended up doing it in 4.5 days, which was a bit fast, but I don't know why you'd stretch it out to 6 days.

Then it was off to Santiago.....

Puerto Madryn and Rio Gallegos

Puerto Madryn and Rio Gallegos

We left El Chalten to start heading north again, but we had to go to Rio Gallegos first as that's the central bus hub of the south. Rio Gallegos is kind of a rough town, not very touristy. We read about a large penguin colony 150km south of RG, but after asking around town where it was and how to get there, it was clear that nobody went there and if we wanted to do it then the best way would be to rent a car. So after asking a few fellow travellers if they wanted to join us, we also learned that nobody else gave themselves a day to spend in RG, they all just got off a bus, and spent only the time until the next bus, no more.

So we went and rented a car and got our first taste of S American driving. Although it was pretty tame, as we had to drive through only about 20 blocks of the town before hitting the highway (15km of pavement, followed by 135km of dirt) and cruising down to the penguin reserve. Upon arriving, the info center looked deserted and we were worried that maybe there wouldn’t be any penguins. But then we looked down the road towards the coast and saw some just chillin’ like villains on the side of the road. So we drove slowly down the road and hung with them for a bit, only to head into the main area and see NO other people for 2 hours, only a good portion of the estimated 120,000 penguins that live there.... Unfortunately we missed the hatching season, which is in Dec I think, and hence we were treated to the adolescent crowd... was I that ugly when I was a teenager? They were definitely hanging in their respective posies, some with all the cool kids, some that looked kind of nerdy and some that looked like their mom just pulled them away from their Nintendo.

We hung out with the penguins for a couple of hours, watching them waddle down their pathways, hang out under bushes to escape the wind, followed by watching them sunbathe like a bunch of tourists on a beach, and we could also see them swimming in the rough waves just offshore. I think they swim faster than the rental car drove down the dirt road! We really enjoyed this portion of the trip, one of the highlights for sure, as it was nice to get off the beaten track and do our own thing. We would definitely recommend this trip to anyone!

Then it was off to Puerto Madryn, where we were treated to many tourists hanging out on the beach. The first day we took it easy, but day number 2 we went to an elephant seal viewing area. We took a guided tour, with only the guide and us, to a small gravel beach surrounded by 100m cliffs. The guide showed us how approach the seals safely without getting them too worried about how close we were getting.... so we kind of shimmied across the gravel on our backs, in a way imitating their movements, and got to about 2-3m away from these awesome animals. It was kind of nerve-wracking, but at the same time, we didn’t really feel like we were in any danger. However, once again, we were looking at the adolescent crowd and not the HUGE adult males, which can grow to 5m in length and something ridiculous in weight.... like 2 tonnes or something. Can’t remember. We learned about the hunting practices of the elephant seal, and about how males typically hold their breath for 90 minutes and can dive to 1500m!!! Down that far, they catch their main source of food, squid. I’m not sure how they manage to see the squid down that far, as there would be very little light, but perhaps that explains their golf-ball-sized eyes.... kind of like a large aperature camera lens I suppose....

The next day we rented bikes and headed for a sea lion colony 15km from town. The woman at the hostel told us that it was a gravel path and people bike there often... so in my head I’m thinking crushed rock pathway, fairly smooth, no cars... maybe some nice shrubs or small trees on either side (even though we were a stones throw from the ocean, we were in a desert, so I was not expecting large trees). So off we go, with our crappy rental bikes.... only to find that the road is a sand road, shared by many cars, trucks, buses, you name it, all throwing dust in the air. The road was very rough and impossible to bike fast without being shaken to pieces... but at least it was also too rough for the vehicles to drive very quickly, so that was good in a way... trying to look at the bright side.

The sea lion colony was kind of anti-climatic, because we viewed them from about 100m away, and because we were only 2-3m from the elephant seals the day before, it seemed more like we were in a zoo than watching wild animals. The heat was getting to us, so we headed back for the rest of the bum-shaking bike ride. At least we had a tail wind pushing us home.

The final day in Puerto Madryn was spent going to the Peninsula Valdes. One of the largest ecological reserves of this type (as it turns out, of-this-type means “ocean”) in Argentina. We were delighted to watch all the sheep, cows and horses grazing 100m away from the coast, especially considering that the guide 2 days prior told us that it takes about 20 years for the vegetation to recover after the ranchers let the sheep graze the land, because the sheep dig at the plants with their hoofs and actually pull most of the roots out. You can probably guess that this isn’t exactly good for a plant living in the desert. It made us feel guilty about eating lamb and supporting this type of activity.....

Anyway, we got to see more penguins and sea lions, and thankfully, we got to see some orcas (killer whales) hunting just off the coast, patrolling for sea lions. Some orcas in this region feed by intentionally beaching themselves, so they can catch a sea lion pup on shore. It was too bad that we weren’t able to witness this incredible phenomenon.

Then it was back to reality, and preparing for another long bus journey.... this time onto Chile. 

Chile!!

A beautiful waterfall we went to today in Pucon, Chile. This is one of the less-visited places in Pucon because you actually have to walk a long way if you don't have a car. We had the place to ourselves for a short time! More on Pucon later....

Hay Penguinos! (there are penguins)

We broke up our 30 hour busride with a stop over in Rio Gallegos and visited a penguin breeding colony, the second largest for Magellanic penguins in Argentina. Amazingly we had the place to ourselves!! More to come later, enjoy this clip for now.

A+ for effort El Chalten

El Chalten is known for being a very environmentally friendly city by Argentinian standards. However, despite their best efforts we gave them an “F” for execution.
1. No plastic bags for your groceries – good idea, but it would be even better if they didn’t plastic bag all your produce.
2. Encourage people to use less electricity – hostels ask us to turn off lights and reduce water consumption, but turn on the heater and open the window above it. The laws of thermodynamics lead one to believe that all the hot air will then blow out the window. Also, very few buildings have insulation, vapour barriers, weather stripping or double paned windows. With a climate similar to Calgary they must think gas can easily be found next to nearby penguin breeding colonies.

















3. Sort garbage from organics and recyclables – we were so excited to see this, but El Chalten forgot to separate the compartments inside ......
















4. Collecting garbage – signs everywhere ask you to put your garbage in the bins. However, since the dump is next to the river and the wind is always gale force strong, you can guess what happens; don’t even think about all the stuff leaching into the ground and then the river. Frequently, El Chalten’s famously strong winds allow tourists to see garbage soaring in the sky more often than condors. The most environmentally friendly thing to do in this situation is to throw the garbage in the river yourself and reduce pollution created from collecting it. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to do this though, yes, we are bad people.

El Calafate and El Chalten

We were told that ideally one would only spend a day in El Calafate to look at the glacier shown above (Perito Moreno) and then continue on to El Chalten; can’t say that we disagree with the masses. Unless of course, you want to spend more time eating Calafate ice cream, chocolate, and cordero (lamb). If you did, we wouldn’t blame you.

Hundreds of pesos later (worth of ice cream, chocolate and lamb) we headed off to El Chalten; the city of very strong winds, frequent power outages (no light, no internet, no water - which run on pumps), and lots of rain. The climbing was good, our accommodation was basic and cheap, but the wind eventually drove us to beer and pizza for salvation. We had a brush with fame when we saw Colin Haley, a famous young alpine climber from the US.

We ran into quite a few people we had met in South America. Luckily some Ecuadorian friends saved us from pitching our tent in the bushes. Before we arrived, the weather forecasted clear skies and sunny weather for a week, ergo, we rushed over. When we arrived, the weather quickly went downhill for about a week and we hunkered down to wait it out. After the rain and winds abated, somewhat, we headed off for a 6 day hike to look at Cerro Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre, and a huge glacier we spied on the map. The climbing was fun, the hiking was good, and the scenery was beautiful, but after spending a week in the wind and rain we don’t feel the need to go back there again, de verdad (it’s true).

Cerro Torre at sunrise

El Bolson

Everyone that we met told us how beautiful and wonderful El Bolson was. Lonely planet even went so far as to say that it had some of the most beautiful hikes in the world! Where they were, we don’t know. We did a couple of the more common/famous hikes, but their beauty could not even come close to rivalling home or even Bariloche. So, perhaps we didn’t “find” the most beautiful place on earth. Let us know if you find it. El Bosque Tallado (the carved forest) shown above was nice but not worth a long bus journey.

El Bolson was also supposed to be filled with organic food, hippies, etc. etc. The only place where we found these things were in our hostel El Pueblito (20 minute bus ride outside of the “city”), a little slice of organic, co-operative paradise. However, the city had less organic food that Superstore in Canada and we spent more money per day here than anywhere else, even Buenos Aires. Other than our hostel, we didn’t like El Bolson.

I Miss Chicken Wings

Janice warned me that I'd experience culture shock travelling through South America.... and yeah.... I mean, I'm shocked at how much I miss wing night! The sweet chili has got to be the best, but there's always salt 'n pepper, honey-garlic, and honey-hot to enjoy as well... and let's not forget the teriyaki or the good old staple hot flavour....

The beer here in Argentina isn't bad, but it's also never served quite as ice cold, nor is it served in nice big thick-glass mugs... it's generally served in 1L bottles that get you all excited but then they put a little 6 or 8 oz glass next to it and you feel like you need to sip the beer like a European might sip a latte... otherwise you need to fill the glass over and over again.... yup, our lives are SOOO tough.... Even the Duff beer was kind of a disappointment. I figured that if it was good enough from Homer it would be good enough for me but man was I wrong. Homer needs to spend more time in a pub sampling different brews. But I'm getting farther away from the chicken wing theme here.....

Janice claims that she hasn't eaten any chicken wings since we got here, because every time we get a half chicken for dinner the first thing I go for is the wing.... haha... I think she's right! Every time it's good, because the chickens down here are bigger and meatier than they are in Canada, so you end up getting a pretty good-sized wing, but then there's only one and you get this empty feeling in your stomach that you wish you could fill with more wings.... then you go to the butcher shop and all they seem to have are chicken thighs, breasts and the innards.... where do the wings go? Did some other wing-lover beat me to the punch and cleaned him out? Is there some underground wing-night fetish around here that they hide from the foreigners so they don't need to share their limited wing supply? When we were in Buenos Aires we found some random chicken parts in a butcher shop and thankfully it had some chicken wings in it!! But unfortunately that was only about 2 weeks into our trip and I hadn't quite developed my case of wing shock to the degree that I have now. 

Below is the record of the last chance I had to feast on chicken wings........ but it also included necks, livers, hearts, and a few other random parts.

I definitely miss being able to go climbing at the gym, and follow it up with a couple of pints and a big helping of wings. I guess all I can do in the meantime is hope that somehow cows or sheep will develop wings of some sort... heck I think buffaloes have wings no? I'm pretty sure they sell them in some pubs anyway... ;-)

If anybody from Argentina is reading this, I have pesos to spend and an appetite to consume many chicken wings. Please help!

Bariloche

We arrived in Bariloche on New Years Eve with what we thought was a reservation at a hostel named Patanuk. When we showed up at their door they told us that they were full and that they didn’t know anything about our reservation...... so we went online to try and find another place to stay. We found online that The Bariloche Backpackers Hostel had space for that night, so we promptly made a reservation there and headed over..... only to find the same thing.... they were also full and were really shocked that we had been able to book a place in their hostel online. The staff member on duty was very helpful (thanks Juan P!) and after some deliberation, let us sleep on the floor for free! So we just rolled out our sleeping pads and sleeping bags and it was actually pretty comfy.

Now that we had a place to sleep, we decided to partake in their New Years dinner.... roasted lamb, salads and, or course, wine.
On New Years day, we met up with a local guy named Maty and our new Canadian friend Monty and Maty took us to an amazing crag named White Wall. Since we hadn’t climbed at all in the last 6 weeks (Jason) and many months (Janice), we had some troubles getting our bodies to cooperate on the easier climbs in the area... 6a - 6b (5.10a-10c) grade range. But we did get up them after some grunting and some rests.

We ended up climbing for 3 days before heading out trekking for 4 days to the refugios Frey and Jakob.









The trek to Frey starts from the ski area Catedral and goes for about 5 hours with big packs, including rests, picture stops, etc. We got to Frey around 5pm, to find the same theme holding true for us.... no vacancy in the camping area! After some searching around, we managed to find a nice spot to pitch our tent, but it was way up the hill and we needed to build our own rock wall for wind protection.... Oh well, it was nice to be away from the crowds that were lower down but it meant about a 50m elevation gain and loss every time we needed to get water.... however, this was the result:

Next day we headed towards Refugio Jakob and found a nice little lake above Frey that looked inviting for a swim after the short hill below warmed us up.