The Lakes District Continued

Hello-

So we´ve been through the lakes districts of both Argentina and Chile and they´ve been gorgeous. We rented a car in San Martin de los Andes and headed off with our friends Kitty and Trevor on a 4 day tour of this and the Bariloche area. This time of year is pretty good to be here, it is cold but there are only just starting to be loads of tourists around (it is spring here right now).

Our road trip began with attempting to pick up our reserved car from the local Hertz, but they informed us that they had extended the car for the people who had the car before us. I was speaking my best Spanish to the guy working there, but Trevor came over and swore at the guy in English, and I decided not to translate. Trevor is working diligently to learn Spanish, and has written down all the words he´s learned in a small notebook. He even has a page of swear words, but I guess he was too worked up at the moment to remember his Spanish swears. We even considered breaking out the Seinfeld reference ("You see, you know how to *take* the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.") but I think it would have been lost in the translation. Fortunately it all worked out in the end as we ended up with a company with better prices and an english speaking guy working there.

The first day of our road trip we visited a a large lake with lots of hotels around it, but only one was open because it is still the off season. After driving all day on a bumpy dirt road the car began to make some strange rattling noises and we were a bit concerned, but it turned out to be just a rock stuck in the underside of the car. The rental guy fixed the car on the way back through San Martin, but later in the trip we got another rock stuck up there.

Over the next couple of days we saw many gorgeous views and went on a few short hikes. Once in Bariloche we did the Circuit Chico, a driving loop that includes some great views and we took a look at one of Argentina´s nicest hotels. There were quite a few tour buses traveling the route the same day but we still managed to find a couple nice walks and a nice spot to have lunch.

We spent the next couple days around Bariloche, a nice ski town. I have been working on graduate school applications while traveling and am hoping to get them finished up soon. We are now in Puerto Montt, a town that is nothing special but we are waiting to get on our 4 day ferry this afternoon to go to Puerto Natales in the south of Chile. Looking forward to some good hiking soon!

Jess

PS New pictures are up under Pictures 2.

Santiago was good but Trekking is better

San Martin, Argentina

I hope everyone is doing well. We successfully crossed into Chile and back again into Argentina. Santiago is ultra modern and is like stepping into any US city except they speak spanish. We stayed a couple of days in the city and took an excursion out to Valparaiso, which is Santiagos hour away get away city. Its kinda ironic but in the coffee growing continent its hard to find a cup of brewed coffee, its usually instant coffee which is not the same. So at Valparaiso I got to indulge on a coffee ice cream drink that was absolutley amazing.

After that we took an overnight bus down to Pucon, which is a great place because it has a small ski town feel (like Vail or Tahoe). It also has a volcano in the back drop and i thought for sure Dante´s Peak was filmed there. We went on a 2 day snow shoeing trek which was a great time because we hiked up a day and stayed at a refugio. And the 2nd day we broke out the snow shoes to make it to the peak of local mountain. Its turned out to be really cloudy and a little rainy the second day so we made it to the ridge but decided not to summit.

Now were back in Argentina in San Martin and we are going to be renting a car with Kitty and Trevor and heading south through the lake district. The trip is going to take a us a few days and we´ll be car camping for most of it. Its also starting to get cold so you probably wont see anymore pictures in shorts for a while. Anyways all has been well and we´re really excited to start this part of our trip because we´ll be backpacking a lot.

Hope everyone is doing well

Best

Justin

(PS some picts are up under my site... i think im 2)

Wine Country is great

Mendoza, Argentina

So Argentina has been great so far, a little bit more pricey than we thought but great. First of all the food is amazing, any steak loving, wine drinking individual should make it to this country because they know how to satisfy you. In Salta we went to this great steak restuarant called Viejo Jack´s. My steak was 750gs (about a 1.5lb) of amazing goodness, which is the perfect size to make anyone happy. Anyways Salta was quite a shock too because it feels more like Europe than South America, in fact all of Argentina seems that way and it´s great. Its nice to walk down the street and not stick out and draw as much attention. Also Argentines have a thick accent so our conversation skills have taken a few steps back but im sure we´ll get that figured out soon. We also got to see the first 2 games of the World Series so that was a big plus. The game was announced by a spanish announcer and since they dont pronounce the letter J it made for an interesting game pitched by Yosh Beckett.

We also decided to rent a car with our travel friends Roland and Katalin. We ended up getting a 3 door VW Gol. The Gol is the smaller cousin to the VW Golf but since Americans dont like small cars they dont send it here (i dont even think the "f" could have fit on the back of it to confuse it with the Golf). Anyways our 3 day road trip was more of an off roading trip in which we got to get off the beaten path which was great. We camped every night and the first night was at a secluded lake which hardly anyone goes to. We also got to visit a couple of bodegas (wineries) and go on a few walks. Our friend Roland has a thing for cake so we even got to test out one of the camp grounds adobe ovens which as a first for all of us, and it turned out great.

After returning to Salta we decided to hop on the 19 hour bus to Mendoza. The bus was actually very comfortable because the seats are very similiar to 1st class seat on international planes vs grey hound bus (there´s a picture of the bus in the photos and our favorite seats are the ones right over the driver.)

Mendoza has been a great town. Yesterday we rented bikes and toured the country side stopping at every winery and oliveara we could. I even tried to send some home but it would have been cheaper to buy a case of wine its on seat on a plane than ship it home... Oh well.

So i think our next move is into Chile and down into the lake district. We´re excited about this part of the trip because the best backpacking and scenery will be down that way. Anyways hope all is well and check out the pictures. Hope everyone had a good Halloween, we missed it :(

Best

Justin