Home for the holidays

We flew home Thursday December 19th from Santiago, Chile. Just in time for Christmas with the family;) ...And the big ice storm!

We are looking forward to catching up with with our family and friends over the next 5 weeks before we fly out to New Zealand for our 4 month adventure. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Santiago, Chile

A few highlights from our time spend in Santiago.

Best ICE CREAM EVER! 

Santiago's Emporio La Rosa is listed on the top 25 ice cream parlours in the world. 

Flavours we tried? Raspberry/Mint, Orange/Ginger, Dulce de Leche/Chocolate, Lemon/Mint, Peanut/Swiss Chocolate, Coconut, and most impressive Rose ice cream!

Chilean wines-my favourite!

Need TP? Everyone has something to sell on the streets. Anything and everything.

Best empanadas at Famosa with our friends from Ireland and England. 

The guys had to try the local soda-pap.

Valparaiso, Chile

Spending three days in the port city of Valpo-UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Valparaiso was once the largest, most important port city in the South America...

until the Panama Canal was built. 

Also on the most active plate in the world! In 2010, Chile was hit with one of the worse earthquakes in history; an 8.8 magnitude.

(Bottom right) Valpo's cerro's (hill neighbourhoods) are "easily" accessible by their many stairs, 

but also these (see pic below) 

Funicular ride to the cerro's 

City tour with our guide Wally (stripped shirt) and the "pack." (top right) 

Historically, South America's wealthiest street. (top left)

Typical brightly painted houses in Valpo. (bottom)

Boarder Crossing - Argentina to Chile

Catching the bus from Mendoza, Argentina to Santiago, Chile was "supposed" to be the least challenging part of our trip. Turns out, not printing your tickets before you get to the bus station presents a problem-even though they have your name printed on the sheet with your passport number, seat number, etc. I spent a stressful hour before the departure, right down to the last 2 minutes of boarding, running from agency to agency trying to print tickets! Finally, I gave up and tried to explain to the bus driver in my now broken spanish (stress), that I didn't have a ticket printed. Needless to say, he ended up eventually helping us and we departed for Chile 20 minutes late-oops!
Turns out that was the most difficult part of our boarding crossing-go figure!

At the Chilean boarder high in the Andes. 

Everyone on the bus was placed in a small room with all our bags while the dog checked our bags. (right)

On the way down from the Argentinean/Chilean boarder. So many curves that they had to place a sign on them! (bottom left). 

Beautiful and terrifying view of our road trip downhill. 

Mendoza Mi Amor

We won't get into all the details, mainly cause some of it is a blur;) However, here are some photos that will do some of the explaining...

Not 1, not 2 but 3 times on bikes in the Maipu region-plus one in Lujan to make that 4 days total.

 The third time in Maipu was for the olives;)

Bike parking at the bodegas (wineries). 

Vineyards, there were a few:)

Carmelo Patti-most interesting and fun tour in Mendoza...so we bought his wine. 

Wine & friends are the best mix!

These are our dutch friends that stayed in our dorm room in Mendoza at the Emperado Hostel.

 It's a toss up which was more fun-drinking wine with them or riding bikes!

We toured a few cellars-haha.

By far our favourite was the organic winery that that we tasted the wine straight from the barrel! We tried really hard to get him to bottle it for us...

Olive tours. 

See we DID visit more than just the wineries. This was our first visit on the third day of touring Maipu region. So good I bought the olives and oil:)

How to celebrate touring the wine regions in Mendoza? Steak dinner with more wine!

Bikes & Wine

Mendoza- where it's a crime not to visit the wineries. A crime!
Day 1 we decided to do just that.
After yet another looooong bus ride from Bariloche (18 hours) we dropped our bags at the hostel and meet up with our new friends from the bus (Tom the Aussie & Robyn the Welshman) and headed out to Maipu (1 hour bus from Mendoza) for wine tasting. The temperatures reached 35+C and the route we rode was over 30k. Should have know when I realized that the guys we were with were the same guys that passed us in an uphill battle on the bikes in Bariloche (see Biking Bariloche). Or maybe we should have realized when we saw the size of their calves that we were up for a challenging ride. I think I spent much of the ride with a "tomato face."

Trapiche winery. 

One of the oldest and definitely one of the biggest in Mendoza

Robyn's bike broke down and lucky the police were right there to lend a hand, literally.

There we are!

Biking Bariloche

After sitting our butts in the car for one week with over 2500km travelled, we decided to rent bikes and tour the surrounding country sides with 2 wheels. After a few instructions on the route and tips for a few stops along the way, we hit the pavement-a 25km route with many up and downs, lakes and mountain views. Oh, and one cerveceria artisanal pit stop:)

The 25km loop

Gilbert brewery- great IPA & Pale Ale. Also great view!

Homemade empanadas. Sooooo delicious!

Mirador (lookout) after a slightly struggling 10min uphill ride. Obviously worth it.

Big skies & Desert storms-Road trip across Patagonia

Our road trip across Patagonia began in San Carlos de Bariloche. We arrived in Bariloche after yet another long distance bus ride from Buenos Aires, nearly 22 hours later. Two days and nights we spend in what we coined the Banff-of-the-south before deciding on a route for our road trip. Travelling south to El Calafate was the intended destination but once we realized it was 6000 some odd km return and at least 5-6 days driving, we opted out for a different route. That is when we decided to drive across the country from coast-to-coast to see the penguins! We'll not just the penguins, we made Valdez Peninsula our point of interest and anything else along the way that might intrigue us.
El Bolson (I kept calling El Boston which quite annoyed Shawn-lol) was our first stop day one of our 7 days car rental and camping excursion. El Bolson was a relaxing hippy village in the south of the Lake District surrounded by beautiful snow capped mountains. We toured through the artisan market which is held every Tues/Thurs/Sat and tasted some locally grow and made delicacies and of them, many cerveceria artisanals (microbrews!) - and they were plentiful! Remind me again why we don't do this in Canada?

Picnic in the park

After picking up some goodies in the market and having a picnic lunch in the park, we headed out to our first designated stop, Parque Nacional Los Alerces.

Parque Nacional Los Alerces

We enjoyed the camping and surroundings so much we stayed an extra day just to chill-and that we did! (Just ask Shawn about his best day ever hanging out at the campsite;))

Views from our campsite and nearby lake. 

Argentinian BBQ campstyle.

Day 3 were back in the car for 800km across the Patagonian desert.

Biggest skies we've ever seen!

We spent the night at the municipal campsite, arriving in the National Park Peninsula Valdez just after dark (10pm here), and wow, not what we were expecting. This blog entry we decided Shawn would write about- stay tuned! I guess you can't really complain about free camping, can you?

Breakfast at our free campsite. Yup, that's our table...

Touring Valdez on the dirt roads for over 200km was an amazing experience. Here's some of what we saw.

Lion Seals & Penguins on the Peninsula

After a long day of driving, and our car and hair full of dust, we headed into the nearest pueblo 150km south called Puerto Madryn. After an amazing hot shower, camp set up, and the vino poured into our camping mugs, I convinced Shawn to walk across the road to the bay for Whale watching. He was probably thinking, yah right what are the chances, when not even 2 minutes later a Whale, not 1 but 3 or 4,  magically appeared out of the water. Full bodies, tails, fins and all- it was truly amazing!
The next day we woke to a wicked wind storm that nearly toke our tent like a sail, with me in it, into the bay! So much our non sandy tent!
We set off for the long ride back across the Patagonian desert, this time a very different experience and a lot more gas usage.

Sand storm in the desert on the drive back. 500km+

After 700km, we returned to El Bolson for 2 nights of camping and of course, more delicious treats at the market! This is also the first night of 3 that we froze in our tent! Temperatures dipped down to 3&4 at night while the daytime highs reached 23-26. How deceiving!!
We tried our luck for a warmer night one last time closer to Bariloche in the beautiful Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi, claimed one of the best National Parks in all of Argentina. It was truly stunning!

Views from our hike to the mirador (lookout)

Our last night of camping in Patagonia was was cold, but nothing all clothing layers on and a few bottles of vino couldn't fix;)

Road Trip

Tomorrow we are heading out of Bariloche on a road trip across the country in Patagonia. We have rented a car for 1 week and will be camping in National parks along the way. If we don't post for a week or so you'll know why. We'll put away technology for short time and enjoy natures calling. We'll report back and have lots of photos to share when we return.
Our planned route is;
Bariloche to Parque National Los Alceres
Head east to Punta Tombo to see the Penguins
Head north to Puerto Madryn to see sea lions, seals, penguins and if we're lucky, whales!
Head back west towards Bariloche to camp in nearby National parks.
Hasta Luego chicos!

The road to Patagonia

The start of our 22 hour bus to Bariloche, Argentina in the Lake District of Patagonia.

Breakfast of champions! Bread, cookies, crackers, and of course, dulce de leche (creamed milk spread) that is served with every meal and desert in South America. Our nightly dinner included a bread roll with dulce de leche (think cinnamon bun) oh but wait, it gets better! In the middle of the roll, cheese and ham. Right, did I mention that every meal also comes with ham? They find a way to put it into to everything whether it works or not. 

BTW-I saved this fruit cup from Shawn's dinner the night before to add some nutrition;)

At least we still received the Whiskey, cerveza and champagne before bed!

A far cry from the hustle and bustle of BA. The 237 road to Bariloche, Patagonia. Pretty amazing.

Buenos Aires...and all that jazz

We arrived into Buenos Aires some 17 hours later from our departure from Puerto Iguazu in Brazil. After we grabbed our bags and stretched out our legs, we headed to the tourist info booth in the station to grab a map of the city in order to find our way to the hostel. All I could think of was food&shower! The girl at the tourist desk also handed us a booklet and explained that it was the International Jazz Festival for the next 5 days. What luck! We found the subway, got off at the right station, walked the wrong way, decided to grab lunch, than walked back the RIGHT way and found our hostel for the night. After one night, we thought the grass would be greener elsewhere and decided to change hostels to one closer to the centre. That night, after arriving back to the hostel from a great dinner and free jazz concert (La Jam) in the old part of town, we noticed a large crowd of young people lined up next door to our hostel entrance. Turns out it was an all night club that started at 1am Im guessing?-and went till 7am-again I'm guessing? Our room was conveniently located facing the street where hundreds of club going teens partied till the early hours of the morning-as many young Buenos Airians do! Needless to say, that was our last night there and we moved far from the centre!

 La Tractienda Club where 700 or so jazz fans (us included) packed in to see Gillispi and friends jam for a few hours. Start time: 11:30pm. Did I mention that everything starts late here?

Heather happy after finding the 3rd and best hostel in Buenos Aires. 

We've arrived at appropriately named Chill House. 

We like the location of the Chill House Hostel and the vibe so much better and ended up staying 3 more nights! Everyday we walked somewhere between 5-8 hours steady. Our feet and legs need a break so we are actually looking forward to another 20+ hours bus ride-lol. Although one thing we are really diggin' in this place is the $5 bottles wine! Helps with all the walking;)

Heather makes decisions on vino while Shawn tours the cerveza aisle. We also purchased some fresh bread, cheeses and olives to compliment our selections;)

Here are some photos of some of the places we visited while in Buenos Aires.

 Subways in Buenos Aires

Sunday antiques market at San Telmo-an old section of BA.  

The vendors continued down Rua Defensia for over a mile!

A must needed stop at a great little pizza shop in the heart of the San Telmo market. Walking over 2km+30C deserves a pint or two!

Heeeello Argentina!

We crossed the boarder Tuesday with a tour guide and a van full of other tourist. The crossing between Brazil and Argentina was by far the easiest boarder crossing we have every encountered.
We booked a guided tour to see the Argentina side of Iguazu falls, mainly because it would have cost us the same price to do it ourselves. Except, the tour guide took care of all the documentation at the boarder and dropped us off at the end of the day at the bus station in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina to catch our bus to Buenos Aires. Pretty sweet deal we thought.
The guide took in all 13 of our passports on both sides of the boarder while we sat in the van and waited. Kinda weird that the boarder officials wouldn't want to see us in person and verify our passports but hey, South America for ya?!
The Argentinian side of Iguazu falls was a completely different experience than the Brazil side. The Brazilian side gives you a spectacular overview of the 275 waterfalls, while the Argentinian side throws you right in, quite literally. Check out our photos and video to see what I mean;)

Our adventures in a boat!

Over Devils Throat

At the end of the day we were dropped off at the bus station for our 17 hour bus to Buenos Aires.
Seats that turned into beds, blankets and pillows, meals, and oh, did I mention Whisky, beer and champagne all before bed! Now that's a bus!