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Rain, rain go away!

November 4, 2009 By Jillian

We woke up to rain at 5:30am the day we were going to summit the volcano. At 6:30am we´d finished our breakfast and it was still raining, no actually pouring. We decided not to even bother walking into town to see if we were on and we went back to sleep. Several hours later, it was still raining. Did I mention the air temperature is just above freezing? We eat lunch, and then dinner, and it is still raining. Tomorrow we´re going to be leaving town. To say we were disappointed us an understatement, but bad weather had to affect us sometime right?

With the constant downpour we were needless to say depressed. No volcano, and no possibility to do much else. Fortunately, a guy at our hostel had a rental car, and it didn’t take much to convince him to go to the hot springs with us and a young British guy that night.

Two Americans, an Australian and a Brit set off down the dark road, in the rain, in Chile. Did I mention that our driver thought he was a Formula One driver? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this is going. Zipping through the dark country side at almost double the speed limit, all three passengers braced ourselves for whatever was to come. We flew over a blind hill to see a disabled car in the road.

Within seconds we hit a huge pot hole forcing our driver to slow down. It was clear we had a flat, but it took Danny stating to obvious several times before we pulled over. Rolling to a stop 20 feet in front of the first disabled car Danny jumped out to inspect the damage as our driver said nothing. It was flat all right, and there was no hiding the dented wheel rim. Popping open the truck we searched for the spare and the jack as a wet figure came running towards us in the dark.

Turns out he was Argentinian and let’s just say we learned a few new words in Spanish that night. Like jack, wrench, wheel rim, tire lever. They just don’t teach that vocabulary in class. Turns out his wrench was too short to get any torque on his tire nuts and our rental lacked a jack. Great combination.

Not changing a tire in the dark, but here’s the rain!

Lacking a jack and a flash light, Danny (without the help of either the driver or our other passenger) changed our tire using “spanglish” by the light of a lighter. What couldn’t be communicated in Spanish or English was communicated through charades in what must have looked like the most bizarre game to anyone driving by. Our wrench didn’t fit their tires, so after assuring us that they had called for help, we continued on our way to the hot springs.

Unfortunately our driver didn’t learn his lesson even after the paved road ended. Flying down the gravel path, he seemed not to notice the rocks hitting the side of the car or the pot holes. We were sure we had missed the turn off, and said so, several times. As the road grew narrower and narrower, you’d think that even a Formula One driver would slow down, especially on the only spare, but our driver did not. We hit every bump and hole in the road for about 5 or 6 kilometers before it appeared that the road might actually end. Finally the driver agreed to turn around. Not 1000 feet after we rejoined the paved road did we see the sign for the hot springs. Nice.

The night’s torturous ride had ended, and while we couldn’t relax too much at the hot springs knowing we’d have to go back into town with Formula One, we did enjoy soaking in the water.

With rain in the forecast for the next few days, we headed to Argentina the next morning. Sometimes we get lucky and do incredible things. Sometimes we don´t.

And Noah had his flood….

November 3, 2009 By Danny

Moving South from Santiago, we arrived in the Chilean lake district and made ourselves comfortable in the small town of Pucon. Coming here because we´d heard of a day trek up a snow covered volcano, we figured this was a good place to start our journey into Patagonia.

Unfortunately, the volcano was not meant to be. For what wasn’t the first and surely won’t be the last, the weather wasn’t going to cooperate with us. When we arrived in town we were told that it would be at least 3 days until we could go and do the volcano on account of the weather. And by weather they meant “rain”, heavy, continuous rain.

With our chances of hiking the volcano slipping away with every subsequent rain drop, we made the best of the town and headed out to do some mountain biking. A day of mountain biking on some rather nice, well tuned bikes…the first time we´ve had that combination on this trip, and we were back to our usual selves. Despite getting caught in the rain, biking through the hills on the gravel roads was a real treat after so long on a bus. We did a 35km loop around the surrounding country, including a set of waterfalls called Ojos de Aguas. Usually small waterfalls, the turbulent and swift moving water was anything but reassuring for our next activity, some whitewater kayaking.

I know what you’re thinking. Usually when we write a whitewater kayaking post it details a story that makes our mothers cringe. Have no fear mom, this story has a very happy ending.
Not since my terrible time in Ecuador several months ago have I been back in a boat. Those memories were still quite ummm.. prominent as were Jill´s of her rough times in Mexico. The warning from the outfitter…”we´ve had a lot of rain so the river is quite high” had us nervous, but she assured us the river was still Class III which was important to us as we were looking to regain some lost confidence. We regained some confidence alright, but the river was not at Class III.

The recent rains had put the river into flood stage. We spent the first half of the two hour trip floating down fast moving, flat water…just taking the time to adjust to the boats and get comfortable. As we approached the first of the rapids though, it was clear that this was not going to be the easy day we were expecting.

Relating our trip rapid by rapid would be impossible. Literally. The water was moving so fast that there were no breaks between the rapids so really it was all just one giant 7k rapid. We had expected the whitewater portion to take 45 minutes to an hour. I think in the end it took less than half that but it felt like even less still. At one point Jill spun her kayak around upstream (or was that by accident) and her wide-eyed “oh my god” face told it all. Crashing through the ice cold waves (this is glacier melt people!), we didn’t have a second of relief until we were on dry land. Scared the entire time we made it through without so much as a tip over. Neither of us needed to use our roll and this was by far the biggest water we´d ever been in. As we pulled the boats out of the water, our guide asked us if we had fun. “Yes,” Jill replied. “But I don’t want to do it again!”

I’m not actually sure if it was a stroke of luck or actual improvement of our skills, but we took it for what it was…a successful day on the river.

Couchsurf Santiago

November 2, 2009 By Danny

Leaving Argentina was not easy. We took a bus direct from San Juan to Santiago, a ride that should be about 8 hours, but the Chileans like to ensure their country is very safe from all manner of agricultural products. For us, this translated to a 4 hour wait at the border, which was at 10,000 feet, with the a/c running on the bus.

Nevertheless we did manage to arrive in Santiago, albeit a good bit tardy. Waiting for us at the station were our Santiago CS hosts, Dario and his wife Mariela. I´d met Dario briefly back in Washington about a year ago and as we’ve traveled through South America we´d kept in contact. Despite only having met for 15 minutes he´d made it very clear…we´d have a place to stay in Santiago.

Santiago itself seems in many ways a cross between Buenos Aires and Rio. Surely I´m saying this because I´ve just been to each of those cities but Santiago itself is quite manageable from a walking perspective and still has several large pockets of green hilly space making the city itself absolutely beautiful. A working city for sure it still has plenty of small culture neighborhoods filled with the usual bars and clubs as well as the artisan markets we’ve come to know and love.

The truth of the matter is we didn’t do much while we were in Santiago other than take it easy and spend time with our friends. We skipped on making the obligatory visit to Valpariso, opted out of the wine tour of Concha y Toro (if you’ve ever had Chilean wine in the US, it probably came from them) and didn’t bother with the ride up to the highest hill to see the city. We´d already done all those things in other places and it was nice to sit it a big city and NOT do anything touristy at all. The four of us stayed up late, slept in, shared meals, drinks, stories and jokes and just generally passed the time. It was really was quite lovely.

Foodie Friday- The Enjoyment of Mate

October 30, 2009 By Danny

I first heard of Mate traveling in Guatemala on my semester abroad from college. I didn’t try it but I did remember it and when I saw it again, and had the opportunity again, chose not to try it again. I figured that since I was going to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile I should wait to try it in one of those countries.

Mate itself is basically a type of herbal tea (sort of looks like oregano or crushed tea leaves) that is very popular down here. Rather than filling a coffee mug with water and dropping in a small filter bag with tea leaves inside, with Mate the cup itself is special. No ordinary mug will do. The mate cup (actually just called a Mate) is actually a hollowed out gourd. Since the inside is an organic material (the outside is often decorated) that soaks up the flavors of your Mate overtime so the gourd collects more flavor. Sort of like a caste iron skillet.

To drink mate you also need a special metal straw enclosed on the bottom with a strainer. The entire mate (gourd) is filled up with the yerba mate, what we in the north would call the tea leaf. Since there is no filter bag, the straw has to do the filtering.

To drink, you fill the gourd with hot water (often kept in a thermos), a little bit of sugar and sip it down, adding more water only when you want to drink it. This however does take some practice as drinking hot water through a straw is not exactly the best of ideas…and that’s forgetting the fact that this is a metal straw. Whatever you do, don’t jiggle the straw…metal doesn’t exactly make the best filter and that can make it so some leaves come on down your throat.

Mate is a social beverage and often the mate gourd is shared among friends. One person finished the “tea”, fills it with more water and passes the gourd to another person. Like an herbal tea, mate has a bitter taste and often people add a little bit of sugar to the mixture to soften the flavor. Mate is often referred to as a stimulant, and its use is similar to that of coca leaves in northern andean countries. If you can find it in the US I highly recommend trying it!

Rain, rain go away!

And Noah had his flood….

Couchsurf Santiago

Foodie Friday- The Enjoyment of Mate

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