BARILOCHE ARGENTINA, PUERTO MONTT & ISLA DE CHILOE CHILE - DEC 4 - 14

I'm up early to catch a 7:30AM bus to Osorno which is about 1.5 hours drive south of Valdivia. I have a couple minutes of panic as I leave the hostel that I'm going to miss my bus. All day yesterday, workmen were installing a new locked gate and steel fence outside of the building I was staying in. This building is a new addition to the hostel a couple of doors down from the main hostel and I'm the only one staying there. They had finished the fence and the gate just before sunset and now the gate is locked. A key is required to exit and I don't have this key. The steel fence is about 2m tall and looks like it would be difficult to climb, especially with my big pack. Luckily there is some scrap steel lying around on the ground and I find a thin length of it and I'm able to wedge it into the lock latch and force it to retract so the gate will open. The bus station is only a block away and I make it to my bus with minutes to spare.

I have about an hour to wait at Osorno before the bus to Bariloche leaves at 10:00AM. It does not take the bus long to start up the pass that we take to cross the Andes. Although it is now summer, the tops of the mountains are covered in snow but there are a few very steep jagged peaks without any snow. Just before reaching the summit, we clear Chilean immigration and after driving another minutes, we come to Argentinian immigration. We are soon on our way and the last 2 hours of the drive is along a huge lake. It's a little after 3:00PM when we reach Bariloche.

I thought Briloche was quite a small skiing village so I decide to walk from the bus station to the city centre but I soon find that Bariloche is much larger than I thought. After about an hour of walking, I finally am near the main square and stop at a couple of hostels and I'm shocked by the $50US cost for a room. By now my bags are getting pretty heavy and I walk a few more blocks to another hostel called Periko's and I'm able to negotiate a price for 3 nights stay at just under $30US per night.



Llao Llao Resort & Golf Club

 Argentina has an interesting situation regarding exchanging money. The government has fixed the exchange on the US dollar at about 4.85 Pesos to the dollar which has been the rate for more than a year. In order to fight inflation which has been rampant, the government has restricted the local population from travelling abroad and in purchasing foreign currency. If an Argentinian wants foreign currency or to travel outside of the country, they have to apply for permission from the government and include why they require this currency or why they want to travel. In many instances, the government will not approve the request. As an example, Caro who I travelled with on the sailboat trip through the San Blas Island was living and working in New York as a lawyer, she is from Buenos Aries. Her mother, who is a doctor and wealthy, applied for some US currency and permission to travel to the US in order to visit Caro


Llao Llao

 but was not able to go because the government rejected her application. As a result of this government control, there is a grey market for US dollars and in a lesser way other foreign currencies. I say grey market because you are able to exchange US dollars at an accredited currency exchange shop or often in a hotel or restaurant for far higher rate than the government rate, sometimes as high as 6.7 to 1. But, if you go to a bank or use an ATM, the exchange is around 4.8 to 1. This is a huge difference and is a huge topic of discussion amongst travellers. What most traveller are doing, including me, is to get US dollars before entering Argentina to take advantage of this higher exchange. In Bariloche, after spending an hour trying to find a good rate to exchange money, I finally settle for 6:1 which is really not that good but still much better than the banks or ATMs. I've heard that the larger cities tend to have the best exchange rate. The one thing I don't like about this is travelling with lots of US cash.

That evening, I'm keen to try some Argentinian beef for dinner. I've heard so much about it from other travellers and other than Chile, the beef has not been very good in any of the countries I've been to. I'm disappointed to find that a the cheapest steak I can find is over $30US, in fact everything in the restaurants are expensive here. I'm starting to realize that I am in the Argentinian equivalent to Whistler and everything is very expensive. My budget cannot handle $40.00US meals which is what it would cost once I have a drink and include the tip so I end of having a $10US Big Mac Meal.

Bariloche has some good trails for day hikes, so the next morning I decide to hike up some ski trails to a peak which is supposed to have great views of Bariloche and the lake. It's raining in the morning and does not stop until almost 11:00AM. By the time I start up the trail, it is after 12:30PM. I get about 30 minutes up the trail and it starts to rain and the wind really comes up. It had been sunny out when I started but now it's a solid mass of dark clouds and it looks like its going to rain for the rest of the day so I bail on the hike. I run down the trail and I'm just minutes form the hostel before the worst of the rain hits. It was a wise decision as it pours until late evening. That night I go to a pizza restaurant for dinner. This restaurant is supposed to be one of the cheaper options around but a pizza, soft drink with tip is still about $25US.

The next day the weather has cleared and it is sunny out. I want to head to Llao Llao which is about 25kms farther up the lake and where the famous hotel and resort of the same name is located. There is also several parks and a 20km hike around a lake with beautiful views of lakes and mountain peaks. But before I go on the hike, I walk to the bus station and buy a ticket back to Chile and the city of Puerto Montt. Near Puerto Montt I can catch a ferry to the Isla de Chiloe where I will spend a few days before heading to Futaleufu for the river rafting trip. I catch a city bus to the Llao Llao Resort. The hotel is absolutely massive. It was built more than 60 years ago right on a lake and is surrounded by a golf course. Guide books often compare Llao Llao to the Banff Springs Hotel in Canada. Another golf course has gone in right across the street and I have a great view of a couple of par 4s that stretch right along the lake front. I would consider playing if the wind wasn't blowing about 35km/hour.

I start hiking around the lake, the first 7 to 8 kilometers is through a park and the trail wind along the lake. The park is heavily forested with giant deciduous trees and lots of large bamboo bushes. After about about 90 minutes, I exit the other end of the park and come to a narrow paved road. The road winds its way between numerous small lakes and rivers and there are nice views of beautiful mountain peaks. I come to a mountain park which has numerous trails that lead to the peaks above but it's too late in the day to start hiking any of these trails.

After about 6 hours or walking, I finally get around to the other side of the lake near where I started. Within minutes a bus comes by and I'm soon back at the hostel. I have not hiked much since leaving Bolivia and I'm sore after walking almost 25kms. For dinner I head to a nearby pub for a burger, fries and a brew and it still costs me almost $25US.

The next morning, I'm on a 9:30AM bus to Puerto Montt. This time I take a cab to the bus station instead of walking the 4 to 5 kms. The bus first goes to Osorno, so the ride is just the opposite direction from the bus ride the other day. The weather is sunny without a cloud anywhere and the

last hour drive to Puerto Montt is beautiful. There is one perfect cone snow topped volcano which dominates the view to the east of the bus. The bus arrives in Puerto Montt around 2:30PM and there is a nice older lady waiting for the bus trying to get people to come to her hostel called Hospedaje Familiar. She says a private room is $18US so I decide to check it out and it's pretty nice so I decide to stay.

After getting settled in my room, I decide to go for a walk in the city. It's not a beautiful town although it does have a nice paved walkway around the waterfront that stretches a couple of kilometers

Volcano Near Puerto Montt

from the bus station to a modern new ocean front mall. The main retail area of the city stretches about 6 or 7 blocks by 3 blocks and is very busy with street vendors and many pedestrians. Before heading back to the hostel, I stop at a local restaurant for a chicken dinner and then stop at the bus station and buy a ticket to Chiloe and the town of Ancud for the next morning.

My bus leaves for Ancud at 9:30AM. We drive about and hour to the southwest to Pargua where we catch a small ferry to Chacao on the Isla de Chiloe. The ferry crossing takes about 40 minutes and I see a bunch of Sea Lions lounging on some large moorage buoys and a lone dark coloured


Seawalk at Puerto Montt

 dolphin. It takes about 20 minutes to drive from where the ferry docked to Ancud. Ancud is a town of about 30,000 people. It is early afternoon on a Sunday and almost the entire town is closed which is typical of many small towns on a Sunday. Ancud is located on the coast about 25 kilometers from the northwest tip of Chiloe where an old lighthouse is located at Faro Corona. There is supposed to be a nice beach to walk there and a nearby colony of penguins.

I'm pleasantly surprised to find a room in a decent hostel for $12US, maybe the southern part of Chile is cheaper than the north. I say southern part as I'm over 2000kms south of


Sea Lions Near Chacao

 Santiago and more than 4500km south of the Peruvian boarder but I still have around 2500kms to travels to get to Punta Arenas at the southern tip of Chile where there is a ferry to take me to Tierra de Fuego. Chile is not wide but it sure is long. I spend much of the afternoon trying to find out about transportation to Faro Corona for tomorrow but everything is closed and the few people I ask give me such a lengthy answer in Spanish that I don't understand. I ask the lady who runs the hostel and I'm not quite sure of her response but it did not sound good. I'm hoping this will not be another case of having no transportation even though my guide book says there are 3 buses there and back a day.



Ancud

 That evening, my next challenge is finding an open restaurant. There are a bunch of seafood restaurants near the harbour but they are all closed. After 30 minutes of walking, all I've seen that is open is one small corner store market. I'm just about to give up when I wonder past a small cafe and it's open. It is full of locals watching a Chilean soccer game on TV but I'm just glad I found it. I decide to order a steak because the Chilean beef is supposed to be pretty good and it is only about $13US. I'm very happy when I get a nice thick 1/2 a kilogram steak and it's awesome. It is definitely the best beef that I've had since leaving Vancouver.

The next morning I head to the tourist office in the bus station and I'm pleased to find it open with an English speaking women working there. But, I'm frustrated to find out that there are no buses running to Faro Corona, this is becoming a recurring theme. There are special taxis that go there, it's $30US one way for up to 5 people but there does not seem to be any other tourists around so this would cost me $60US. There's another fishing village not far from here on the west coast of the island called Chepu that is also supposed to be nice so I enquire about buses going there. I'm in luck, one leaves in about 30 minutes but there is only 1 returning bus and it leaves about an hour after I would get there


Fuerte San Antonio

 so I decide not to bother as I would get there and then need to come back almost right away. It seems to be a Catch 22 thing here in Chile, there are no buses to go to any of the smaller more remote locations for tourist because there are not that many tourist but there are not that many tourist because there is no way to get to some of these interesting remote locations. When I went to Bariloche, there were many Gringo type travellers but I've seen very few in Chile. I'm also figuring out that the tourist season in Chile runs January through March here in the south and is mostly Chilean travelling down from the Santiago area.

So, I spend the day going for a 10km walk down the coast and exploring an old Spanish fort called the Fuerte San Antonio. At this fort in 1826 the last Spanish royalist troops in all of South America surrendered to Chilean troops. That evening I have a nice Salmon dinner at one of the ocean front seafood restaurants and buy a bus ticket to Quellon at the south end of Chiloe for tomorrow morning.

It pours rain all night and the next morning. Even though the bus station is only about 5 blocks away, I catch a taxi so I won't get soaked. My bus leaves at 9:00AM and it takes almost 5 hours to get to Quellon and it's pouring rain most of the way there.


Quellon Harbour

 I arrive just before 2:00PM and find a hostel down along the waterfront for around $30US. I'm hungry so I go find a nearby restaurant for lunch. Later I decide to go for walk to a park called Punta de Lapa along the coast about 10kms away but just as I leave the restaurant the skies open up and it starts pouring again and does not stop the rest of the day.

I had planned to stay another day in Quellon but I need to be in Futaleufu on the 16th and the bus schedule is supposed to be a bit sketchy south of Puerto Montt so I decide that I should start there tomorrow as it will take 3 days to get there which gives me 2 days just in case. So the next morning I buy an afternoon bus ticket back to Puerto Montt, I had tried to buy a ferry ticket direct to Chaiten but of course the ferry is not running yet.

Monument at Punta de Lapa

It not raining but the weather looks very unsettled but I decide to chance a walk to Punta de Lapa. It takes about 1.5 hours to walk there and it rains a few times along the way. On the way back, it rains hard a couple of times and I take shelter in a couple of bus shelters but it soon stop. I get back to town just in time to have a nice lunch before catching the 3:30PM bus to Puerto Montt.

By the time the bus leaves it is pouring out again. The bus is delayed for a long time because of road construction and we are over an hour late arriving into Puerto Montt at 9:30PM. I was going to buy a bus ticket to Chaiten for tomorrow morning but all the bus companies ticket counters in the bus station closed at 9:00PM, but I do find out that there is a bus that leaves at 7:30AM. I had planned to stay at the same hostel as before but it is quite a walk up the hill and I'm not sure if there is a room available so when I meet another woman at the bus station who has a closer hostel at the same price, I decide to stay there. I soon regret my decision as the neighbours dog sits barking right outside my room's window for the next 4 hours. I don't think it stops for even 10 seconds during that time. A dog barking like this is not unusual in South America and no one ever seems to complain or even notice but it drives me crazy. This particular dog was so close to my window he may as well have been in the room with me and I must admit I was plotting his demise.

Ripley´s Mall in Puerto Montt

The next morning, I'm up at 6:30AM and at the bus station shortly after 7:00AM but I'm dismayed to find that the bus is sold out and there are no other buses today. Good thing I have a couple of spare days. So, I buy a ticket for tomorrow's bus. There is no way that I'm going back to the same hostel with the barking dog but it is too early to go to this other hostel. So, I grab a couple empanadas to eat and sit in the bus station reading a book until 8:30AM and walk up to the other hostel. The lady seems happy to see me and I am the only one staying here, I should have come here last night.

I spend much of the day watching videos, reading my book and working on my next blog post. I then head into town for a late lunch/dinner and I notice that The Hobbit is playing at a local theatre. So after dinner, I go and see it. I'm surprised to find out this is the first of 3 movie; I read the book and it wasn't very long. The movie is not bad but I find it kind of drags a bit. When I get out of the movie theatre, it is pouring rain again so I catch a cab back to the hostel. It has rained a lot lately but it is supposed to get drier the farther south I go.

More on travelling south to Futaleufu and river rafting in my next post. Happy New Year's.

SAN PEDRO, CHANARAL, VALPARAISO, TALCA & VALDIVIA CHILE - NOV 27 - DEC 4

The bus from the Bolivia boarder arrives in San Pedro de Atacama at about 11:30AM and we have to clear Chilean customs in town. The drive to San Pedro was down hill all the way but we are still almost 2500m altitude. San Pedro lies within the desert that stretches all the way from the Peruvian boarder over 2000 kms to within a couple hundred kilometers of Santiago. This is the driest place in the world and there is almost no vegetation at all except along dry river beds. Seeds lie dormant for years waiting for an elusive rainfall when desert flowers spring to life in an explosion of life and colour. As I look for a hostel to stay in, I'm immediately struck by the cost difference between Bolivia and Chile. I get a room in the Res Chiloe Hostal for over $30US which is the most I have paid for a room in months, most other hostels were even more expensive.

San Pedro is famous for nearby salt flats, geysers and the Valle de la Luna, all of which I have seen in Bolivia on a bigger scale so I decide just to stay the afternoon and will catch a bus south in the morning. San Pedro is a small town dominated by tourism but if it is at all typical for Chile, it is clear that Chile is a much more prosperous country than anywhere else that I have been in South America so far. There are no houses made of mud bricks and almost everything looks completely finished and not partly under construction. The roads are very nice with proper sidewalks and the town is very clean.

Double Decker Bus

I spend the afternoon exploring the town, finding a bank machine that I can get Chilean Pesos from with my Mastercard and exchanging the Bolivian money I have to Chilean Pasos. I forgot to mention in my previous blog about losing my bank card. I'm pretty sure I left it in a bank machine in La Paz but when I went back and called the number on the machine for lost cards, they said they did not have it. So I called my bank, which is HSBC, cancelled my card and requested them to send a new card to my mailing address which is my sister's house. They told me that they would send out a temporary card valid for 4 to 6 weeks and it should be there in about a week, then about 3 weeks later a permanent card will arrive. I explained that I was on an extended trip travelling South America and how difficult it was to get

Plaza Armis in Chanaral

things sent to me and I wanted to know if there was any way to avoid getting a temp card and just get the permanent card faster than 3 to 4 weeks. The guy I was dealing with just did not understand how difficult it is to get things couriered down here and said there was nothing he could do. So, I spoke to his supervisor, I ended up having to tell the whole story about getting my cancelled Mastercard replaced and how long a 2 day delivery service from a major courier company actually takes to a South America destination. She finally understood my problem and said, with the approval of my personal banking representative at my branch, she could arrange to get a permanent card couriered to my sister within about a week. This timing should work quite well because I could get my sister to send it via Fedex to their depot in Santiago where I will be in a couple of weeks. I then sent an email to my personal banking representative telling her what had happened and that she will be contacted by the HSBC call center about couriering a card to my sister. She sent me a email back saying no problem and she understood why I was doing this and that she would make sure this happened in a timely fashion. So with this in mind, I send my sister an email because it had been about 2 weeks since I reported my card lost so she should have my replacement card.

Lighthouse Above Town

The next morning, I catch a 8:30AM bus to the coastal town of Chanaral. The first hour or two of the drive we just steadily descend. The view from the bus is nothing but desert sand with no vegetation. The highway we are on is the most modern looking I have seen anywhere during this entire trip, it was like being on a highway somewhere in Canada or the US. It ends up being a long boring 9 hour bus trip, I'm glad I had some movies that I had downloaded to my tablet to pass the time. The desert view as we head south never changes as the road did not actually come close to the coast until we arrived in Chanaral at about 5:30PM.

The main reason I decided to go to Chanaral was to visit the Parque Nacional Pan de Azucar which is about 25km north of town. This park lies right on the coast and is home to a colony of penguins and sea lions. I get a room at the Hostal Playa Mar for about $20US and then I decide to go inquire about transportation to the park. I'm disappointed to find out that the bus that used to run daily to the park no longer runs. So the only way there is a taxi at a cost of $30US each way. I know I will be seeing penguins and sea lions in Patagonia so I decide not to go to the park because of the cost of the taxis. I have dinner at a nice nearby Chinese Restaurant and then check emails. I have a message from my

sister, the HSBC replacement card has not arrived. I'm 5 hours ahead of Vancouver time and it's only 8:00PM so I send an email to my personal representative at my branch and I get a quick reply that she will check into it.

I spend the rest of the evening checking into river rafting options in southern Chile on the internet. I want to raft the Rio Futaleufu; according to what I've read, "The Fu" is supposed to be one of the top rivers on the planet for Class 4 & 5 rapids. I want to do about a 3 day trip and I come across an interesting website for a company called Futaleufu Explore so I send them an email to ask about any trips in mid December with room for an additional person. Hopefully they will respond back within a day or 2.

The next morning, I buy a bus ticket to Valparaiso which is right on the coast about 50kms west of Santiago. It is also more than 1100kms away and should take just over 12 hours to get there, my bus leaves at 6:30PM. I spend most of the day exploring the town. I walk along the coast which has an expansive walk way with a pier, swimming pool, outdoor performance area and kid's play area. When they built this, I don't think they took in account the wind and all of the desert sand. Many parts of the walkway was buried in sand and it was blowing hard the whole time I was there which I think it does most days. I spent almost 3 hours walking the waterfront and I only saw 2 or 3 other people the entire walk. I then hike up to a viewpoint above the city near a light house which is also located high above the city. Apparently they located it so high to keep it above any tsunami which may occur after an earthquake which are common in Chile.

I get back to the hostel at about 4:00PM and decide to see if there is any news on my bank card, there is nothing. So, I send another email to my branch and a get a response about 30 minutes later from the assistant of my personal representative. There was some kind of mistake and nothing was sent to my sister, she has now arranged to get a temporary card sent and it should be there in a couple of days. I can't believe what I'm reading, I'm now going to be in Santiago in about a week and there is no way I can have a card there in time. So, I send a scathing email to the assistant saying that I can't believe how nothing got sent to my sister and that a temp card is useless and now I've missed the window of Santiago in terms of a Fedex depot as it is the only one in all of Chile. I request that she cancel

the temp card and arrange to get a permanent card. I tell her she has 4 to 6 weeks to get it there since I now will have my sister send it to the Fedex depot in Buenos Aries in mid January. She emails a reply saying the temp card will work for the rest of my vacation, I send another email reminding her that I will be travelling for another 6 or 7 months. She then emails me that the temp card "should work" for that long. Now I'm really get pissed off, the temp card versus permanent card is what started the whole thing and if the temp card works for an extended period, why do they send out a permanent card. After sending another email questioning this and asking for a guarantee that the temp card will work, she does an about face and says that maybe the temp card is only valid for a short time like I was originally told. So, I send one more email saying that's what I thought so please just send the permanent card and I do not understand why this is so complicated.

There was a reply from Futaleufu Explore and they have a space available for a 3-day trip starting on December 17th. The guy who sent me the email is Josh Lowry and his email states that the regular price all inclusive is $1250US but he offers me a reduced price of $1050 for a last minute booking. He also send me an itinerary and it included pickup at a nearby city where an airport is located which I don't require. So, I send him an email back saying I do not require any transportation other than to and from the river while rafting and can he do anything more on the price. I have to leave for the bus station shortly so I do not get a reply before leaving.

By 6:30PM, I'm on the bus heading south, once again the highway leaves the coast and we are driving through the desert. I can tell we are getting a lot farther south as it is light out until almost 9:30PM. I watch a couple of movies and finally fall asleep around 1:00AM. The bus is a couple of hours late in arriving and we get to Valparaiso around 10:30AM. I spend the next hour walking around Valparaiso looking for a hostel, the first couple I go to seem to be closed as no one answers the door but I finally find one right next to the bus station called Hostal Patricia where I get a room for $20US.



Valparaiso Harbour

 I went to Valparaiso because it was one of the 6 "Don't Miss" locations listed in my Footprint guide but the guide book does not have much listed in terms of things to do. So, I decide to just go for a walk. Valparaiso has a population of over 300,000. The main part of the city is on a narrow piece of land between the ocean and some hills. On the south end of the city, this strip of land is only 2 blocks wide. Right above where the city narrows is a section of town called Cerro Conception. It is this part of town that makes Valparaiso a destination for tourists. It is full of small boutique hotels, B&Bs, restaraunts, coffee shops and art galleries. All the building are painted bright colours and many have huge murals painted on the sides of them. It's nice and I have lunch there but there is not much that I like to do here.

I wonder around the city for a few more hours then I head back to the hostel after dinner. I need to decide where to go next and I want to try and get caught up on my blog as I'm almost a month behind. The next morning I'm regretting my decision to stay 2 nights as I still can't find anything interesting to do here. I still am not sure where to go. I finally decide on Talca, it's a small city about 500kms south of here just off the Panamerican Highway. There are a couple of nearby national called Radal Siete Tazas and Vilches which both have good day hikes.

So the next day, I head to the bus station and buy a ticket for the next morning and go explore some more of the city. I want to buy a sleeping bag as there are many lodges in the various parks in Patagonia where you can stay while trekking but you need your own sleeping bag. I visit many different stores and ask many people but I don't find any suitable sleeping bags rated to at least 4 degrees Celcius.

I'm back early to the hostel and continue to work on my blog and there is an email from Josh about rafting and now he offers me the 3-day trip for $950US. This is expensive, in fact it would be the most expensive 3 days on this trip so far but it was one of the first things I had on my wish list when I left Vancouver. So, I send Josh an email stating, "I'm in for $950 on the 17th!"

The next morning my bus leaves around 9:00AM. It does not take long before we reach the outskirts of Santiago which is huge with a population of over 6 million and it seems to go on forever. I decided not to stop at Santiago because I've seen so many big cities already and they all seem kind of the same. I also want to continue south to get to Patagonia where most of the things are in Chile that I really want to do. The terrain around Santiago is no longer desert but it is still dry. The area just south of here is the main grape growing region of Chile and is famous for its wine.

It takes almost 8 hours to get to Talca and I'm kind of surprised when my bus just drops me off on the highway next to an off ramp to town. It's raining so I'm happy to see a couple taxis waiting for the bus and I grab a cab to Hostal del Puente where I get a room for about $25US. By the time I get settled it is almost 6:00PM. I'm getting a little low on Chilean Pesos so I head to the main part of town to find a bank machine. I probably go to 8 or 9 different banks and when I try and withdraw money they all display a message saying that the machine is unable to dispense money at this time. I've never seen a message like this and I'm not sure if there is an issue with my Mastercard or if there is some kind of problem with the machines themselves.



Talca Plaza Armis

 One thing I did determine is that there are no buses to either of the parks I was interested in going to and a taxi would cost me a fortune because it would need to wait for me as there would be no way to call a taxi when I want to leave. It's annoying to know what I want to do but there is no reasonable cost way of getting there. After grabbing some chicken at a local restaraunt I head to the bus station and buy a ticket to Valdivia for 11:30AM tomorrow morning. Valdivia is about 800kms south on a river near the coast. I then go back to my hostel and call HSBC Mastercard and confirm there are no issues with my card. Hopefully the bank machine will work in the morning.

The next morning after breakfast, I head to a bank machine and my card works with no problem. I talk to a local man and he tells me that by Sunday evening, most bank machines are out of money and that was probably why I could not get money last night. Well walking around the city I have noticed a lot of damaged buildings, some are being repaired and some are abandoned. Apparently Talca was almost completely destroyed in an 8.9 earthquake in 2009. Much of the city has been rebuilt but there is still a lot under construction. Some of the sidewalks have not been repaired yet and are like waves because of the earthquake. Many coastal towns near here and to the south were completely wiped out by Tsunamis. Chile has a written history going back more than 400 years and most of the towns have been wiped out by an earthquake, a tsunami or both at least once during this period. It makes you wonder about the west coast of North America from California to BC, we only have about a 120 year history there and will we suffer a similar fate one day?



River Walkway in Valdivia

 After getting some more cash, I spend a couple hours looking for an outdoor equipment store to buy a sleeping bag. I find a store but they don't have one that is suitable for the cold Patagonia nights. I catch a cab from the hostel to the bus station and I'm soon on my way to Valdivia. Most of the drive is through the Lake District of Chile where there are about a 12 large lakes and hundreds of small ones. It sounds like a great area to do some camping and fishing but it does not have much in the way of organized tours and I just don't have the right equipment to camp. I tried finding a guide somewhere here to go fishing but without any success. It's too bad as the area looks beautiful with rolling hills with the Andes Mountains and some volcanos looming to the east. Chile is so narrow, either you are near the Pacific or the Andes and you can drive across the country west to east in a couple of hours.

I get to Valdivia just before 10:00PM and it's still quite light out. I find a hostel called Hostal Ana Maria just a block away from the bus station and I get a room for $25US. I'm starving as I have not eaten since breakfast. I head to a street 5 or 6 blocks away that was shown in my guide book and I find a nice looking Sushi restaraunt. I have not had Sushi since leaving Vancouver but since I'm on the coast and Chile is known for Coho and Chinook Salmon, I can't resist. It's expensive (around $30US) but the Sushi is awesome.

When I get back to my room, I have another email message waiting from Josh. He wants a 50% deposit which I expected. He has send me the name of his Chilean bank and info required to deposit money in his account. I saw this type of bank when I went to dinner, so I send him a reply that I will deposit some money into his account tomorrow.

The next morning I find a mountaineering store and finally buy a good sleeping bag for around $90US. I hope it comes in handy because now I've got to lug it around with me. I had planned on catching a bus to a small town on the coast which is supposed to be beautiful and is known for their cheap seafood restaurants but once I arrive there, I would have to catch the return bus in just over an hour which just did not give me enough time. So, once again the lack of transportation is causing some problems for me.

After dropping the bag off at my room, I chat to the hostel owner's son. He tells me that there are not as many small buses to the smaller communities compared to the northern SA countries because most people in Chile have cars and although the main tourist season starts in less then a month, there is no shoulder season so no extra buses are running yet. 

So, I decide to check out the river walkway that I can see for my hostel. The river is beautiful and it is a nice sunny day. There are some interesting birds in most of the surrounding trees, they look, sound and fly like geese but they are not geese but they are one of the noisiest birds I have ever seen and they seem to squawk continuously. After walking a couple of kilometers, I'm getting close to the main section of town and I see a couple of huge, fat sea lions resting on shore and they got to be at least 250kgs and are very furry.

They all seem to be male and their furry appearance makes their face look very bear like. I soon come to a large outdoor fish market right along the river. No wonder there were sea lions and there are dozens of them here. It's kind of funny to see a fish monger stare down a 250kg sea lion with only a small fillet knife in his hand. There are all kinds of interesting fish for sale but it's the Coho and Chinook Salmon that catch my attention. I've inquired about salt water sports fishing in town but no one seems to do it. Apparently it is very uncommon to do salt water fishing recreationally in Chile, how disappointing.

I then head to Josh's bank to make the deposit for the rafting trip. Bank's down here always have the biggest lineups for the tellers. So, I'm happy to see a line specially marked Foreign Customers with only a couple people waiting. Within 20 minutes I've made the deposit so I'm going rafting. Although Chile is extremely beautiful and it's a pleasure to be in a country with so many beautiful women everywhere I go, I've been frustrated in trying to get to out of the way tourist places so it's nice to have something I've been looking forward to reserved and confirmed.

I also have been thinking about my next destination. There is a town in Argentina called Bariloche, it is just a bit south of here very near the Chilian boarder. It is a famous ski town and it has a very well known resort called Llao Llao. I want to visit this town and looking at a map, I will save a day or more of travel if I visit it while travelling south through Chile instead of while heading north up Argentina. I can take a bus from Valdivia and be there in about 6 hours and then return back to Chile in 3 or 4 days. So, I go buy a bus ticket to Bariloche for tomorrow morning. I end up buying a couple of empinadas (meet filled pastries) for dinner and spend a quite evening watching a couple of movies that I have downloaded to my tablet.

The next morning I'm up early as my bus leaves at 8:00AM. I'm always a bit excited to go to a new country; including my layover in Dallas, Argentina is the 15th country I will visit on this trip and I will only have 3 or 4 more left to go. And I can't believe it has almost been 9 months since I have left, it does not seem that long ago. I want to be in Patagonia somewhere for Christmas and New Year's but I will be about 2000kms north of Punta Arenas on December 20th when I leave Futaleufu, so I'm not sure where I'll be then. Maybe I can make it as far south as Glacier National Park in Argentina in the town of El Chalten or El Calafate. I wish I had another week or 2 before my flight from Buenos Aries to Rio on February 5th but I really want to be in Rio for Carnival. Well, if you need a little stress in your life, this is the type of stress I want.

Feliz Navidad mes amigos!

SALAR DE UYUNI, BOLIVIA - NOVEMBER 24 - 27

Buying a 1st class ticket seemed like a good way to get some sleep on the bus from Las Paz but unfortunately it did not work out. I think the bus had some sort of wheel alignment problem and when we hit about 80km an hour, there was a bad vibration that would turn into an low bass audible hum. Between the vibration and the low bass hum, it was just about impossible to sleep at all. I arrive in Uyuni at about 7:30AM and get a room at the Hotel Julia for $6US. I'm so tired I decide to get a couple hours sleep before doing anything.

Uyuni is in the southwest corner of Bolivia in the desert close to both the Chilean and the Argentinian boarder. It is a popular destination because of the world's largest and highest salt lake called the Salar de Uyuni located near town. One of the unusual things about the Salar de Uyuni is that combination of the high salt content and the dry desert. The result is that the surface of the lake is almost solid salt and the water is about 1\2 a metre or more below the surface. There is a large desert that surrounds the lake and extends into Chile, Peru and Argentina. This is also an area full of volcanos, even some that are active. I'm going to Uyuni to do a Jeep tour of the salt lake and surrounding desert.

I awake from my nap around 10:15AM and head to the nearby main plaza to check out tour options. I quickly find out that the standard tour is 3 days and 2 nights. On this tour, 4 to 6 passengers ride in a Jeep for 3 days stopping at various points of interest but there is a lot of time spent in the Jeep each day and costs just over $100US. There are also custom 4 day tours where the party booking the tour chooses what they want to do on the extra day and this tour costs $130US. Most of the tours are the 3 day tour but I would like to do the 4 day tour. I go to 2 or 3 tour companies, they all have 3 day tour options but none have a 4 day tour with a spot for a solo traveller available. Then I go to Ripley's Tours, they have 5 people leaving on a 4 day tour at 11:00AM that morning. It's 10:45AM and I'm wondering if I will find another 4 day tour leaving preferably tomorrow. So, I negotiate a deal on the tour including a bus ticket to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile and decide to book it.

I zip back to my hotel and grab my stuff, make quick stop at a store to buy water and snacks and get back to the tour company just in time to meet the others in my tour. They are a group of 5 Israeli travellers, there is Amir, Anir, Ben, Natalie and Dor. They are all in the early twenties and have recently completed their mandatory military service. It is common for Israelis to travel right after doing their military service but before they start university and I have met quite a few Israelis on this trip that are doing this. I also meet our guide and driver named Eduardo who only speaks Spanish which I had not confirmed when I booked, I guess I did not ask enough questions before making the snap decision to go.

Our vehicle is a Toyota SUV 4x4 with an extra set of seats in the back to fit everyone. I am the only one with big baggage because everyone else will end their tour in Uyuni instead of San Pedro in Chile. There is only room for my bags on top of the truck but it's a desert so rain is pretty unlikely. After 4 or 5 stops to pick up supplies, we finally are driving out of Uyuni but we don't make it far before our first tour stop. We stop at a graveyard for railway equipment and there are lots of remains of old steam powered locomotives and old rail cars. We stay for about 30 minutes taking pictures and are off again. Within 10 minutes, we are driving through the salt lake although salt flats would be a better description. Visually, it looks like we are driving on a frozen lake but when we stop and you get out in the hot sun, you know it is not ice.

We stop again in an area where they harvest the salt and there are thousands of piles of salt that have been raked together awaiting pickup. The salt lake is huge and it seems to go one forever in each direction right to the mountains that are in the distance. So far, I seem to be the odd man out with the Israelis. I'm old enough to be the father of any of them and it is easier for them to speak Hebrew than English. So, I've been sitting up front with Eduardo and they have all been in the back. When we make this first stop in the salt flats, they spend almost 2 hours taking photos. For some reason, it is very popular for travellers visiting the salt flats to bring props like a small plastic dinosaur and then take pictures with the dinosaur close to the camera with everyone posed behind it. They spend the whole 2 hours taking pictures with their dinosaur and other props.

We then drive for about and hour to an island with a towering volcano. There is a small village here called Coqueza where we will be staying the night. The town has a population of a couple of hundred people and the local people raise llamas on the island. We stay at 1 of about 6 hostels specifically built to support the Solar de Uyuni tours and we also have dinner here. The rooms each have 3 beds but I am able to get a room to my self. Tomorrow we will be up at 7:00AM and will climb the Volcan Tunupa before leaving for our next destination after lunch.

We leave the hotel around 8:00AM and drive to an mirador (viewpoint) a couple kilometres up the volcano. Our guide is not joining us but will be here to pick us up around noon. A local tour guide is waiting to take us into a small local tomb to see a couple of mummies. The tomb is a short walk away and we enter a small cave in the hillside. There are numerous tombs that have mummies but there are a couple of mummies that have been left unburied. The mummification is more to do with the extremely dry salt air than any special procedure done to the bodies after death. One of the mummies in particular is kind of creepy, it looks like he or she died in agony and you would swear they died screaming but the guide only spoke Spanish and I'm not sure what he had to say.

We then leave the tomb and get started on the climb. We are at about 4000m and the top of the crater is at about 5200m. Luckily, the slope of the volcano is not that severe as the trail simply goes straight up for the first hour before the slope finally flattens a bit. Although we are at altitude, it is a desert and the temperature is steadily climbing, it is extremely dry and quite windy. I'm starting to wonder if the 1.5 litres of water I brought is going to be enough.

The crater of the volcano on the side we are climbing was partially blown out during an eruption thousands of years ago but the views as we

Emir, Dor, Natalie, Enir, Ben & Andrew

approach are fantastic. Much of the volcanic rock is a rich red colour and as we near the crater we come to one last climb up this red rock which is a loose slag and extremely tough to climb, it's often 2 steps up with 1 sliding step back. The views of the salt lake below are amazing, it looks like we are on a volcano surrounded by clouds with just a few other distant peaks sticking out above the clouds. I think my young Israeli friends are surprised how easily I am keeping up with them considering how tough the climb is.

I don't realize until sometime tomorrow, but half way up the climb I take some photos of some

desert flowers and select the "Miniature" setting on my camera. With the bright sunshine, I can barely make out the camera setting icon on the camera's LCD display and I end up leaving the camera on this setting for the rest of the photos I take this day and many that I take the next day which is a real shame. The volcano and everything else within the Salar are incredibly beautiful but the "Miniature" setting is the worst possible setting to leave my camera in as is severely effects the cameras ability to focus particularly on landscape type photos. So, many of the photos I take are quite badly out of focus.

It takes more than an hour to get up this last loose rock climb and it is exhausting because of the loose rocks and the altitude. The last couple of hundred metres of altitude, I walk for 2 minutes and rest for 30 seconds and keep on repeating this until I'm at the top; it's the only way I can keep by respiration and heart rate at a reasonable level. The 3 Israeli guys reach the crater first but I'm the 4th up so at least I'm not slowing everyone down. It's about 11:15AM when we get to the top and we enjoy the views at the top of the crater for about half an hour before we start back.

I know we hiked up at a good pace but we are going to be a lot longer than the 4 hours that our guide said it would take. I'm also not looking forward to a big descent because I'm sure it will really cause my left knee some pain and going down all this loose rock should be interesting. The loose rock ends up big quite fun to walk down, it's kind of like walking down a sand dune when the whole area you step on slides down with you for a ways before you take your next step. It takes almost 2 hours to hike back down to the truck and I run out of water about 20 minutes before getting there and I'm surprised that my knee has not is not hurting at all.

We head back to the hotel for lunch and to grab our luggage and then we are on our way. We drive about an hour to the Isla Incahuasi where there are some Inca ruins and some amazing cactii. It will cost about $8US to visit the ruins and what we can see of them is not that impressive so we decide not to go into the ruins and get going to our next hotel as it is getting quite late. It takes us a little over an hour to get to Puerto Chuvica where our next hotel is located and just before we get there, we come to the end of the Salar.

I think the hike really broke the ice with the Israelis.

They comment how fit I seemed on the hike and speak a lot more English in the afternoon. After dinner, they invite me to play cards and teach me a good new card game. They also ask me a lot of question about where I've travelled and why I am travelling. I seem to get this "Why" question a lot. There is a lot of twenty something travellers, quite a few thirty something travellers and you will even see quite a few late fifty to over sixty tour groups but there are very few travellers in their forties and the few that I have met are usually on a 1 month or less vacation. So, I usually answer this question by saying that as you get older you realize how short life is

especially when you go through family illness like I've done with both of my parents. And I also say that I'm at an age where I'm still physically able to do anything I want to do on this trip like climb a volcano or learn to scuba dive but if I were to wait until after retirement, even if my health was good, the type of activities I would likely be able to physically do will probably be a lot different than now. So, I love travelling and I decided now was the time for an adventure and it made no sense to me to wait.

The next morning we are on way just after 8:00AM. We are now driving south through the desert and it is

so dry here that there are are very few plants anywhere. The terrain is getting more mountainous instead of nothing but flat plains like the Salar. Today, the main thing we will be seeing are a series of lakes. There are 5 lakes in total that we see and they are the Lago Canapa, Lago Hedionda, Lago Chiarkota, Lago Honda and Lago Colorada. It takes 3 hours to get to the first lake and on the way we make a couple of stops to get photos of an active volcano and more photos of some very interesting rock formations. When we get to the first lake (Canapa), it is quite small and very shallow with what looks like salt around the edges but Eduardo

tells us it is Balsite deposits. There are a few flamingos in the lake and they are almost all white with just a hint of pink. The next 3 lakes are just a few minutes down the road. They are all similar but a bit larger than Canapa and there are many more Flamingos. Some are almost all white but many have a dark pink streak on their wings.

At about 1:00PM, we stop for lunch at Lago Honda which is the 4th lake we see. We then continue south for a couple more hours before finally getting to Lago Colorada. It is the largest lake we have seen so far and has a type of plankton in the water that

gives the water a red tinge. There are thousand of Flamingos in this lake and we spend about 90 minutes here exploring and taking photos. By now it is after 5:00PM, it's been a long day in the truck but we only have a short 30 minute drive to our next hotel which is just past the south end of the lake.

After dinner we play more cards for a couple of hours before heading to bed at a decent time since we will be up at 5:30AM tomorrow. We're on the road by 6:30AM and it takes about an hour to get to our first stop which is a small valley with numerous geysers. There is steam every where and it is

beautiful in the early morning sun. We are able to walk right up to the pools of water that are boiling and bubbling away. Some geysers shoot steam straight up into the air 50 metres or more.

We are soon back in the truck and on our way to our next stop which are some natural hot springs beside a lake. This will be my last stop before heading to the boarder where I will catch a bus to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Everyone else will have an 8 hour drive back to Uyuni and I'm so glad I don't have to do this drive as we have been in the truck enough the last 3 days. Eduardo tells me that

he is going to see if any of the other tour vehicles are going to the boarder but if not, he will drive me. I decide not to go into the hot spring pool until I find out what is happening which is a good decision because Eduardo is soon back saying he found me a ride that is leaving now. I quickly say good-bye to the 5 Israelis, grab my stuff and jump in this other truck.

It takes about 40 minutes to get to the boarder. I quickly clear Chilean immigration and then catch a 10:30AM bus that is heading to San Pedro which is just over an hour away. One strange thing about entering Chile, it is west of Bolivia but it is actually

one time zone ahead of Bolivia. It is the first time I have ever travelled west but moved my watch forward an hour. If I had travelled directly from Peru to Bolivia, it is a 2 hours time difference ahead. The reason they do this is that Chile is a really long narrow country and as you head south it curves a bit to the east. The government decided that it did not make sense to have more than 1 time zone so this little anomaly of moving the clock forward when travelling west occurs in the north part of the country.

I really enjoyed my time in Bolivia but I feel like there was so much more that I wanted to see and do. I should have got the Brazilian Visa when I first got to La Paz and I would have had more time to travel other places. And the early date of Carnival really surprised me and meant that I did not have as much time as I thought before I need to be in Rio de Janerio and it is Bolivia where I decided to cut my time short as a result. Well even if you are travelling for as long as me, there is still not enough time to see and do everything you want.

More on Chile and travelling south to Patagonia on my next post. Adios amigos.