from Iguazu to Patagonia, Patagonia to Peru (check a map, we covered an enormous distance in a short time)

Has it really been a month since I wrote in the blog? The time has been flying by, but at the same time, it feels like we have been travelling for a year. We had our first touch of home sickness a few days ago in Santiago, but we are glad that we still have roughly a month left to see Peru, Ecuador and Columbia. We have been and will continue to move fast, trying to maximize our time here and see and do as much as possible; some friends and family have argued that this method of travel is exhausting and that it would be better to slow down and rest in one place for a week or more. I agree, but who knows when, if ever, we will be in South America again with the ability to see all these places. So onward we go, rarely staying in one place for more than 3 days and constantly planning the next move. It's been fun, exciting, unpredictable and frustrating. We are currently in Iquique, Northern Chile and tomorrow we leave for Peru. Here's a quick recap of the last month, and hang in there, this is going to be a long one.

Iguazu

We took a 19 hr. bus to Iguazu, our first of many such journeys. It was a "cama" bus, so the seats reclined completely; meals were served with champagne or whiskey, movies in English rather than being dubbed (now a thing of the past). It was cheaper than flying but more expensive than the basic bus service. If your going to be on a bus for more than 10 hours, I recommend paying a little more for the first class treatment.

The town of Puerto Iguazu itself was nothing special, just a place were travellers slept and took buses to Parque Iguazu, about 30 minutes away. We had our first shared dorm experience here, and it wasn't half bad; there were 16 beds in our room and it was pretty full. What we discovered is that in cities people go out and party a lot so private rooms are essesntial, but in places where hiking and park visits are the only reason to be there, dorms are fine because everyone goes to bed around 9 or 10 and gets up around dawn. It's also way cheaper and a good way to meet other travellers.

Iguazu itself was amazing but expensive. This was my first experience with Argentina's "two tier" system, in which foriegners pay a different amount than locals. In this case, if you are from Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay or Brazil (Arg neighboring countries), you pay 60% less than eceryone else. This really pissed me off. I am used to the USA where most parks are free, and if not, at least we all pay the same amount! I kept thinking "could they be more obvious about this discrimination?" So we paid the $25 per person admission fee to get in, which i's only good for ONE DAY! Parque Iguazu is enourmous, the falls themselves stretching over 5Km, so it is really a 2 day visit. We also decided to skip the brazilian side of the falls, which offers more of a panoramic view, because I would have had to pay for a brazilian tourist visas (which only Americans pay, see "The two-tier system and tourist visas" below) of $150 to enter Brazil. No thanks. Brazil is huge and by far the most expensive country in Latin America to travel in so we have decided that Brazil is another trip unto itself. Anyway, we spent 2 days in Iguazu, walking along the catwalks and looking at the various waterfalls, which vary wildly in size and volume of water. The highlight was "La Garganta del Diablo" (The Devil's Throat), which is by far the largest of the falls. We also took a boat tour, which takes you up to the face of the Devil's Throat, and goes under the falls, drenching you and giving you an idea of just how powerful they really are. This was expensive but well worth it... when are we ever going to be in Iguazu again?

El Calafate

So after Iguazu we flew to El Calafate (southern Patagonia) since the bus ride would have been around 40 hours, much more than I am willing to put myself, or Heidi through. It's a tourist trap town that one visits to see the national parks that are around it, namely the Parque Nacional los Glacieres. As the name suggests, this main attraction has glaciers! It's also very expensive, and once again we paid twice what the locals paid (after paying for transportation to and from the park). The glacier, however, was incredible (see our pics on facebook).

A funny story from our time in El Calafate took place on our trip to the local "reserva ecologica" on our first day there. This ecological reserve was very inexpensive to visit and had more bird life than I have ever seen in one place: falcons, eagles, ducks, flamingos and more. We took a lot of pictures, enjoyed the 2 hour loop hike, and got really close to some of the birds; we were also adopted by what might be the cutest stray dog in all of Patagonia, who accompanied us on the trail. The only thing that was odd about the "reserve" was the smell... I thought it was bird poop, Heidi thought it was dog poop from the strays that roam freely there, but wait! About a week later in Chile, another traveller from Buenos Aires told us that this "reserve" is actually the place were all the sewage from the town of El Calafate is dumped after being processed... the fact that they charged us to see a fecal holding ground is offensive to me, how is that an ok thing to do??! The glacier was incredible, and watching it calve peices of ice the size of apartment buildings was unbelievable but overall Calafate was dissapointing.

El Chalten

Chalten, 3 hours north of Calafate and still part of the Glacier National Park, was like heaven on earth by comparison. The park entrance was free here, the town small and inviting, and the day hikes beautiful. We did 2 hikes and stayed 3 days. The first hike took 10 hours round trip but took us to the base of Mt. Fitz Roy on an incredible sunny day, which is very rare there. This was a truly unforgettable hike, and I have since promised myself that I will return to Chalten at some point in the future, to explore the backcountry there for a week or more. If you are ever in Patagonia, don't miss El Chalten!

Puerto Natales and The "W" hike in Torres del Paine

After Chalten, we decided to head east into Chile instead of South to Ushuaia, the self-proclamed "end of the world" that other travellers warned us was little more than an overpriced tourist trap (and after all, wouldn't Antartica really be the end of the world?). Puerto Natales, Chile was a nice enough town but once again, a place that people visit almost exclusively for the hiking. Boasting 5 local microbreweries and only an hour bus ride to Torres del Paine national park, Puerto Natales had me feeling right at home. One thing that worried us, however was the weather; since we arrived in Patagonia we quickly discovered that the Fall in Patagonia is COLD, about 40 degrees F during the day, and very windy. But hey, we came this far, and we wanted a piece of the famous "W" hike in Torres del Paine.

The hike itself is about 50K, and takes 5 days to literally walk in the shape of a W (hence the name). You can see the pics on facebook, but let's just say that the views were beautiful and the weather terrible. Our rental tent did not keep water out, our sleeping bags were not warm enough and our sleeping pads very thin. The hikes between camps took 7-10 hours a day and camping is only allowed in the designated camps. It was so cold that taking more than 10 minutes to rest along the way was uncomfortable and one day the wind was so strong that it literally knocked Heidi over, forcing us to just hike faster because there was nowhere to go. Apparently the giant glacier and hole in the ozone layer directly above Patagonia makes the weather here especially unpredictable. It was a true test of endurance and willpower but we did it. Unfortunately the last day, in which the famous Torres del Paine (towers of pain) are visible, it started snowing while I was making breakfast at dawn. So we rolled up our cold wet little tent and retreated to the base camp for Irish Coffee and sandwiches, a move that neither of us regret. We took the first available bus back to Puerto Natales and had dinner at one of the breweries. If you are ever in this area, I recommed taking your own gear and going in Summer (December to February).

El Bolson

The day after the W we did nothing other than take our clothes to a laundromat and watch tv in the hostel (The Singing Lamb, to date the best hostel we have stayed in). The next day we took the 7am bus to El Calafate (Arg), arriving at noon. Not wanting to stay there, we hopped on a 22 hour bus to El Bolson. Needless to say we arrived in El Bolson dirty, tired and with no hostel reservation. But the town is small enough that after walking around to 5 different places we found a suitable hostel- we learned the hard way that many, if not most hostels are somewhat shitty, so it's always worth looking around for a good one.

El Bolson, oficially out of Patagonia at the center of Argentina´s "Lake District", was cute, full of locally brewed beer, free hiking, and a fantastic Saturday afternoon market with crafts, food, and more; we bought local cheese, honey, beer, soap and some crafts. The coolest thing we did though, had to be the taxi ride up the mountain to the "Bosque Tallado" (carved forest, once the site of a wildfire, local artists have since carved the dead tree stumps into various sculptures). The taxi charged us 25 bucks for the 30 minute ride up a mountain road that can best be described as Hearst meets Lost Coast (two of the worst roads in Mendocino County)... and we did it in a 2002 Honda. I have no doubt that the damage to the brakes alone was more than what we paid the guy to take us up. We had a great view of El Bolson and the sculptures were cool too. Later that afternoon we took a flight in a 1958 4 seater airplane that a local guy rents our for tours; we saw lakes, farms, mountains and more. On a side note, farming hops is the main business in El Bolson (next to tourism, I imagine). The ride was very shaky but exciting as hell, we came off it grinning and ready for our trip north.

Pucon

Pucon is about 5 hours east of El Bolson in Chile's Lake District. This was our favorite place on the trip so far. Pucon is small and inviting, everyone is friendly (Argentina often seems to suffer from a lack of friendly people, particularly people working in the service and tourism industries). And to make it even better, it's perched just between a giant lake and the still-active and smoldering "Volcan Villarica". To answer your obvious questions: no, we did not swim in the lake because it was freezing and yes, of course we hiked to the summit of the volcano! The best part of the 8 hour hike was probably being at the top and peering into the smoking crater at the top (no lava visible though), but sliding down the face of the glacier on our backs was a close second. We had a 5 minute lesson from our guide on how to use our ice picks as a brake, but it was almost impossible to stop yourself and at one point I abandoned my pick to avoid impailing myself- I know that sounds awful, but it was super fun.

We stayed 5 days in Pucon, and mostly did nothing but walk around and hang out in cafes; that's the kind of place it is, it just makes you want to stick around. We left reluctantly for Santiago, another epic bus journey that took 24 hours.

Santiago and Lollapalooza 2011

Santiago was an appealing city, nice people and cleaner than Buenos Aires by a long shot (people clean the streets daily, I assume they are paid by the government), this makes a big difference. The first day we arrived on our all night bus and went right from the hostel to a 6 hour walking tour of the city; it was free and totally worth it. The highlight was seeing Pablo Neruda's house and learning about the 1973 Military coup of the Chealean governemtn, in which thousands of chileans were killed or simply "dissapeared". The regime had power for about 20 years and was notorious for torture and oppressing the people. I am fascinated by this kind of thing and enjoyed seeing how the young people born since the regime ended, much like in Spain, have blossomed. The generation gap is huge, I'm guesing mostly due to how much the country has changed in the last 2 decades.

We originally intended to skip Santiago and continue to Mendoza and Salta in the north of Argentina, but then we realized that we were passing by on the exact dates of the Lollapalooza 2011 music festival (http://www.lollapalooza.cl/en/) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSQEr0PPG_8&feature=related), held for the first time outside of the US. How could we pass that up? The festival was 2 full days and the lineup consisted of many bands we hadn't heard of; two that I really wanted to see though were the Flaming Lips and The National. It was also my first "dry" festival, apparently public drinking in any event is prohibited in Chile and Heidi and I enjoyed this because people were more relaxed and there were fewer assholes to deal with (almost none, really). Also, without any planning on our part, our hostel (which was awesome) was a 5 minute metro ride to the festival. It was 12pm to 11pm both days, and they even had a 2 acre area with hammocks that you could chill out in for a break. There were 5 stages and we used the time to get to know a lot of new bands as well as enjoy some already familiar ones; the following is a list of which bands we liked and why:

- Best Performance- Flaming Lips (the lead singer crowd surfed in a giant bubble, they shot out confetti and giant balloons for the crowd to bat around... and the music was great... also 2 drunk canadian guys right in front of us who snuck zip lock bags of rum in and would not stop screaming "yoshimi" (the name of a song) gave me a shot when I also screamed "yoshimiiii", pumping my fist in the air. I don't think they realized I was making fun of them)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RCHdJ8Ku0Y&feature=related) This video is poor quality but I am sick of looking for a better one... besides, this is how it was from the crowd.

- Adam's Pick for best music- The national (shout out to my friend Chris for introducing me to this band!)

- Heidi's pick for best music- two way tie between the Flaming Lips and the National

- Band that my mom would liked the most- Jane's Addiction

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L-1KF_2toE&playnext=1&list=PL8A429E545683428B) Low quality video but it gives you the general idea.

- Best electronica performer Adam & Heidi- Armin Van Buuren, voted number 1 DJ in the world 3 years in a row. Wow.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTeNGh3rS6g)

- Band that we were the least prepared for and decided to go into the middle of the crowd for- Jane's Addiction

- Best new reggae band- Quique Neira

- Best chilean band- Los Bunkers and Quique Neira

- Worst singer award- Mala Rodriguez (why did we wait 45 minutes to hear this?)

- Worst performer- Empire of the Sun- If you like this, there might be something seriously wrong with you.

- Band that I loved in High School and never thought I would see in concert- Sublime! I still remember most of the words to their songs too.

San Pedro de Atacama

This was a cool town about 20 hrs by bus to the north of Santiago, we spent 2 1/2 days there and did several cool excursions. It's located in the heart of the Atacama desert, which is the driest in the world and also home of the worlds second largest salt flat. We visited some awesome places here, later I will put pics on facebook. Other than the cool excusrions, this place is a tourist trap and I calculated about 5 tourists per 1 local. Also our hostel was terrible (though cheap) and we barely slept for 2 nights.

Iquique

I hereby declare Iquique the armpit of Northern Chile. Do not go there unless you have to. Cockroaches, rotten fish smell, dirty beaches and not so polite people. Heidi had an especailly hard time here, it was just gross. We planned to stay 2 or 3 days but obviously decided upon arrival that 1 was plenty, we hopped on the first bus outta there... viva Peru!