An Uncertain Odyssey

Back Home! (Fri 4/9)

2010-04-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Stats:

- 2 taxi rides
- 2 flights
- 22 hours door to door
- 2 bags arrived intact (the duct tape held!)

We are back home and it is gooood! We walked into our building and kept saying, "Isn't this clean? Doesn't everything look so clean?"

At the writing of the post, we have completely unpacked, gone through two huge bins of mail, Arn has prepared our taxes, Arn has removed the power supply and ordered a new one for our server that died while we were gone, I have run 6 loads of laundry and put everything away, Arn has drained and refilled the hot-tub, I have washed all the camping supplies and unpacked all the bike gear (all has been stored away), we have picked up our new ottoman for the living room, and we went grocery shopping. Not bad for less than 48 hours! Arn has headed out to go kayaking. My plans for a bike ride in the tulip fields have been crushed. While I survived all the harrowing moments with the traffic while cycling, I did not survive a greasy spot on the floor at Fred Meyers (while grocery shopping). With a glass jar in hand, I had a massive wipe out. To avoid landing on the jar of jam as it smashed, I landed on the back on my hand and smashed the knuckles. So, I am currently without a "breaking hand" to cycle. Figures.

We'd love to hear from you. You now know where to find us!

Homeward Bound (Thurs 4/8)

2010-04-11T09:36:00.000-07:00

Last night after dinner, I sat in the window and enjoyed the lights of Santiago from the 35th floor. It was a pretty sight. Knowing that we head home today, I grew a bit pensive. Our travels to the southern hemisphere have always been in search of a "second summer". Or, given the order of the year, perhaps it is a "first summer" before the one at home. Our first trip to New Zealand was in 1992, just 7 months after we started dating. While we have returned many times, we haven't been there in over five years. Still, much has changed between our first visit and our last. Last night, I started to reflect on our trips to Chile. Our first visit was in 2003. We were headed to Antarctica and tagged on two weeks in Chile. We booked an organized bike trip with Backroads for our time in Chile. The trip was canceled two weeks ahead of time. With no Spanish language skills, we threw a few ideas together and bought a phrase book. Since then, we have returned 3 more times to Chile, I have mastered restaurant Spanish, and Arn is fluent in what he calls travel Spanish. Also during this time, we have seen a lot of change in Chile. More colleges and universities have been built. Education is stressed more as a means to greater opportunities. This is evidenced by advertising and marketing campaigns highlighting the value of a college degree. We have seen dramatic changes in the skyline of Santiago. Construction cranes and beautiful, new modern skyscrappers are abundant.

We are leaving having had a great trip. The Carretera Austral and our cycle tour will be remembered as a magical time where we feasted on the remote and wild scenery. We both suspect it will be a long time before we return to Chile or Argentina. As I have said before, we have satisfied our curiousities about so many places. So, I sat in the window last night and wondered --- if we come back in 5 or 10 years, how will it have changed? What will be different? I have my own secret wishes for them. Only time will tell what happens.

So, for today's blog, we decided to finish with a sort of "Best" and "Worst" list. It is a random collection of topics, but subjects that were important to our overall experience. Some you will probably already know. Others, well, we didn't include those moments until now. Here goes...


Best breakfast ---
1st Place: Diplomatic Suites Hotel in Mendoza (Arn had grapefruit juice)
2nd Place: Hotel in Puerto Chacabuco (first time we had something other than bread in three weeks)
3rd Place: Xelena in El Calafate (eggs, Dulce de leche bombs, jam in every flavor -- not just peach)

Worst toliet ---
1st Place: Trevelin. Arn dropped a job. It would not flush. Finally, Arn had to cut it in half to flush it. One half of it flushed. The second half still didn't go. So, I dropped a new dump and then the whole thing went. It proved that sometimes in Argentina a turd needs company to leave the bowl.
2nd Place: Villa la Angostora. Arn dropped a job. It flushed, but everything backed up. We had to get maintenance and a toilet plunger. Bet you don't know the word for plunger in Spanish?
3rd Place: Trevelin. Really, it was so bad it must be mentioned again!

Best toilet --
1st Place: Hotel Diplomatic in Mendoza
2nd Place: Hotel Diplomatic in Mendoza
3rd Place: Hotel Diplomatic in Mendoza

Best Sandwich ---
1st Place: This could a tie between the sandwich we ate in a woman's dining room the day we left Futaleufu and the peanut butter sandwiches we made in Puerto Chacabuco. One was the size of our head with lettuce, awesome tomatoes, a hamburger, and roasted chicken. The other was crunchy peanut butter, thick strawberry jam with whole chunks of fruit and a perfect kaiser type bread roll.

Best Dinner ---
1st Place: No question here. This was Butterfly in Bariloche. All seven courses were awesome from the smoked trout to the risotto to the steak to the raspberry mouse.
2nd: La Cabrara in Buenes Aires. This was the shock and awe dinner with 14 side dishes and 19 different fruits and vegtables on the table at the same time.

Best city for food ---
1st Place: Buenes Aires
2nd Place: tie between Santiago and Mendoza
3rd Place: Valporaiso

Best bed ---
1st Place: Los Antiguos (awesome sheets that were clean!)
2nd Place: Buenes Aires (biggest bed we've ever seen)

Worst moment ---
Arn: When a rock nearly killed Deborah
Deborah: When a truck nearly hit Arn

Worst meal ---
For Arn: mystery meat in Amanguel. Five cyclists ate it and not one could identify it.
For Deborah: trout in El Bolson. It had too many bones that were too small to work around, yet too big to eat. The waitress said they eat the bones that size!

Best moment --
Deborah: When I saw Cerro Castillo. It was sceney on steriods that just kept getting bigger and better. It was a beautiful stretch of road. It was cycling perfection.
Arn: 1st -- When the rock thrown up by the crazy driver didn't kill Deborah. 2nd -- Base of Fitz Roy with no wind. 3rd -- Seeing the road downhill coming into Cerro Castillo and our out running of the horseflies.

Best lessons learned:
For Both of Us: For two anal planners, it was great to do a trip with no set plans. There were very few things we missed out on and many more things we were able to take advantage of.

For Arn:
1 -- Less planning and letting it unfold rather than micro managing the plan worked out better. This year's approach was a direct reaction to last year's trip. We missed on a few things but it worked out better.
2 -- Like the scenery better in Chile and the food better in Argentina.

For Deborah:
1 -- My bad Spanish is still good enough to retrieve my lost nightgown.
2 -- It is good to hold onto a wild ass dream as it might just pan out.

Worst statement made by a local ---
1st place: The doctor in Argentina that said while he felt bad for the Chileans in the earthquake, Argentina is now 20cm wider.

Best wine --
Errazuriz 2007 Carmenere Max Reserva from Aconcagua Valley (all 2007 carmenere from this valley are supposed to be silky and delicious)

Best winery ---
Benegas (Mendoza)

Best ice cream ---
El Chalten.

Best hike ---
Without a doubt, this was the hike El Chalten...from hostel, thru the white valley to the base of Fitz Roy and back to town

Best day of riding ---
Too hard to know...perhaps Valle de Los Explorodores or the day into Cerro Castillo. Everyday with good weather was a good day.

Best View from Hotel Room
1st Place: Radison Concoón, Chile
2nd Place: Sol Arrayan, Villa La Angostura, Argentina
3rd Place: Boulevard Suites, Santiago
4th Place: Xelena Hotel, El Calafate, Argentina

Best Place to See Kitties ---
1st Place: Botantical Garden in Buenes Aires
2nd Place: Cabana along road between Pucon and Argentina border (13 kittens)
3rd Place: Streets of Valpo

Biggest surprises ---
- The extent of earthquake damage so far from the epicenter
- How quickly I bonded with "Naranjita" and how hard it was to part with her once she was sold
- How good the food was in Buenes Aires
- How disgusting and dirty the streets were in Valpo
- How stunning Fitz Roy was
- How unbelievably lucky we were with weather on the Carretera Austral after such an auspicious beginning.

Lost items:
- 2 socks (Arn)
- 1 t-shirt (Arn)
- 1pair of silver earrings (Deborah)

Damaged items:
- Holes in Deborah's favorite tatoo arm warmers (with matching scars)
- Purchased new cheap duffle --- end pocket torn off during first flight, holes rubbed into other end on second flight

Packed items never used:
- Folding Bucket
- Water filter
- Most of repair kit for the bikes
- Cook kit used 1 time
- Stove used 1 time
- Bug repellent
- PreparationH (good thing)
- Platypus extra bag for water filtering
- Chemical hand and foot warmers
- GPS (only used 2 or 3 times to see elevation)

Wish we with us:
- More advil (it is $1 U.S. per 400mg pill)
- SD card reader
- 2nd pair of pants
- Long sleeve wool shirt (DC)

Things we most miss about home:
Arn:
- Friends
- Kayaking
- Computer
- Our bed
- Pasta shop
- Ethnic food
- Good pizza
- Pretzels
- Hot tub

Deborah:
- Friends
- Ability to use the phone whenever
- Our bed
- Hot tub
- Road bike
- My chocolate chip cookies
- Listerine
- soft Kleenex
- Jeans
- A real American burger
-Fitted sheets
- Decaf Lattes (the way Arn makes them)

Santiago (Wed 4/7)

2010-04-08T11:45:00.000-07:00

Well, today's breakfast was a new experience --- room service! That is how they do it here. It is actually a nice change to sit in our own mini-apartment and enjoy breakfast and the view from our window. It has been a slow day. Arn says we should try and soak up the heat as it is not going to be this warm at home for a while.

Here was the rundown for the day....

- Breakfast & internet
- Packing (I am ready to GO HOME)
- Two workouts (his and hers) on the exercise bikes in the gym
- Showers
- More internet
- Lunch (another great salad and pizza)
- Movie: The latest Mel Gibson thrill....skip it, unless you are killing time
- Watched episodes of 24 from our DVR at home
- More internet
- Dinner...we returned to the same Italian restaurant.

Now, there is a danger in revealing this itinerary because some people ask us, "what is your typical day like?" Let me tell you, this is not our typical day. In fact, the last 3 weeks have been extremely different than our typical life experiences. At first, I think Arn went a bit crazier than me. Then, I turned into the caged animal. We have enjoyed some awesome food and great wines. However, we are lacking in physical activity. And since leaving El Chalten, we have missed the company of fellow cyclists. We are just ready to get on a plane and suffer the journey. If only one could click one's heels and be transported!

Return to Santiago (Tues 4/6)

2010-04-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

We woke up again to foggy skies. Arn's upper back is still very wrenched and he moves a bit like the tin man. After breakfast, we packed up our stuff and hung out reading. We had time to kill before getting the bus. "Packing up" is such an overstatement. Most of what we are carrying has not been opened or touched since we finished cycling. I would say that everything the two of are actually using would fit in one brown paper grocery bag. The rest of it is just heavy gear.

As an aside, I have to admit --- I have had some time in front of the television. I have to tell you about South American infomercials. While I think the ones in the U.S. can be crazy, the ones here are totally over the top. Last year, we watched this "thing" that was the super push up bra. Women were supposed to wear it in addition to their regular bra. This thing hoisted everything so high that a woman could rest her chin on her boobs. The before and after photos were comical. This year, I have watched adds for this super chopper thing. It beats the ginzu knife commerial and it total crazy. My two favorite ads have been for the shoes you wear 10 minutes a day, 3 days a week. The result? Buns of steel! Abs of steel! And legs of iron! Give me a break. Then, there is the "hand massager" that you use to increase your muscle tone. I was not really sure about this..."hand massager" or "sex aid tool". I will leave that one to the customer to decide. It can be ordered everywhere from Panama to Argentina.

Today was our last bus ride and our return to Santiago. It was uneventful. Our hotel is more of a small apartment. It is in a complex next to the Marriot and a block from the super-high-end mall with tons of restaurants and a movie theatre. Our room is nice and on the 35th floor over looking the city. Now, how do we feel about being on the 35th floor after the earthquake? Well, the building is still standing. In fact, we have not seen damage as visible as along the coast. Once we checked out the hotel a little more closely, we noticed the main entrance into the Marriot is closed. The glass atrium has several panels of glass that have shattered. It looks like one giant shattered windshield about two stories over head. Good thing the area is taped off.

We checked out the nearby mall. It is a very nice mall. Clearly, there are some people in Santiago and Chile that are doing extremely well to support such high end retail. On the top floor of the mall, there is the design center. It is full of super modern furniture and accessories. I would love to have this Seattle! For lunch, we had a great salad and pizza. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped in the biggest grocery store we have ever seen in South America. It was huge even for the U.S.

As luck would have it, Arn met a fellow American on the elevator. And then as luck would have it again, I ran into them as they were getting off the elevator (I was headed up). The three of us stood and talked for a while. This guy is living and working in Santiago for 2-3 years. He has been here a little over a year. He and his wife were in Santiago for the quake. For those of you have have been in a quake, you'll appreciate this. He said the shaking was so violent that it would have been impossible to walk out of their condo without falling. They decided to stay in bed. He said many people were injured in the process of trying to leave their beds. He also said their offices in Santiago were completely destroyed --- roof collapsed into the building. He felt sure people would have been killed if it occured during the work day. They have rented suites in our hotel and set up their offices. He said they checked out the fire escape and wondered if the building is really safe. There are cracks 8 to 12 inches wide in the concrete inside the stairwells. They talked with the hotel manager and he assured them a structural engineer had signed off of the safety of the building. They were still concerned and hired their own structural engineer. This guy explained that the cracks are how the building absorbs the shock. Okay. I still have not checked out the stairwell -- maybe tomorrow or maybe the day we leave so I don't have to think about too long. I did tell you we are on the 35th floor?!

After the earthquake discussion, we moved onto restaurants. This guy gave us a great tip and we took it. We enjoyed the best Italian dinner of the entire trip. Arn had a stuffed pasta with seafood and cheese. Mine was pasta stuffed with pumpkin and ricotta and a black truffle sauce. It was sinful. I hope I can get outside for some cycling when we get home...I am going to have a lot of meals to pedal off! Tonight was probably the first night ever that it was too cool to sit outside for dinner in Santiago. This and the fact it is getting dark by 7pm are two clues that fall is here. In the mall, I noticed that all the stores are showing sweaters and boots. So, we are looking forward to a return to spring. While Seattle will be much colder, the days are growing warmer and longer. Well, at least longer. The snow levels are forecasted at 500 feet for Friday. Can you imagine if we fly home into snow in the hills?!?!

Concón (Mon 4/5)

2010-04-06T06:48:00.000-07:00

We woke up to coastal fog, a still wrenched back and shoulder for Arn, and no internet. So, Arn will not be going for a run today. I am continuing to nurse my foot. We both agree --- I have become the herion addict that has not had a "fix" in quite a while. In other words, I am experiencing a serious withdrawl effect from the lack of endorphins. Given my foot issues, going for a run is not an option. Walking is not aerobic enough to produce the same "high". I am really missing a bike. I can't remember the last time I was off a bike this long. It certainly wasn't went I had a hysterectomy --- I was cycling on a trainer exactly two weeks after surgery. Arn can't remember the last time he didn't paddle a kayak for this long (probably before we started paddling). While I have been out of a kayak for longer than Arn, I don't miss it like he does. And, he isn't craving a bike ride like I am. He had been running.

After breakfast, the Internet returned. This is a very good thing as there is not much to do. Our Plan B is proving not to be such a good Plan B. We are thinking we should paid the fee and come home early. Or, we should have gone to Uraguay to check out the beaches. In a perfect world, the earthquake would not have happened and we would be at my favorite inn --mountain biking, running, swimming, eating and drinking. Oh well.

Our thoughts have defintely turned toward home and all that we are missing...time with friends, our bed, the hot tub, bikes, kayaks, etc. We are both feeling that we want to park ourselves in Seattle and never leave. Arn calculated that out of the last 9 months, we have only been home for 3. "Traveled out" is definitely the feeling.

We enjoyed a walk along the coastline. It felt a lot like a foggy day in Monterey or Carmel, CA. We found a place for lunch and both enjoyed great salmon. My salmon was described as coming with various vegtables including something called "dientes de dragón". This literally means dragon's teeth. While I asked, the waiter could not offer a different translation. They turned out to be bean sprouts. My Spanish food vocabulary continues to grow.

Our afternoon was spent reading, slinging some television from our DVR at home, and watching bad television locally. For dinner, we enjoyed a great dry-aged steak. It looked like something out of the Flintstones. We ordered grilled eggplant, tomatoes, and onions. For dessert, we tried something called "Toblerone". Yes, it was made from Toberlone chocolate, but is was something like a semifreddo, ganache, mousse, fudge thing. Tomorrow, we take out last bus ride --- back to Santiago. We are both hoping for a gym in the hotel. This girl needs an endorphin fix.

This afternoon, I started mapping out my bike rides for the weekend. I am thinking about riding the tulip fields north of Seattle. This month is the Tulip Festival. This, of course, assumes that 1) I can get my car battery reconnected, or 2) AAA can get it reconnected and 3) once connected, it actually starts. I created so much 'drama' in the disconnecting process that I had to call AAA and place two 'phone-a-friend' calls to our friend, Bret, for technical support. Luckily for both of us, Arn was in Ecuador and missed this whole evening of "fun". So, this is on my todo list for Friday afternoon.

Concón (Sun 4/4)

2010-04-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

Well, the Chileans partied last night and we heard it all out the window. It was a long and fitfull night with car alarms, people laughing, and kids crying. Last night was also daylight savings time, so I guess people figured they had an extra hour to party. The Chilean government changed the date for the time change --- they delayed it several weeks because of the earthquake. I am not sure if or how that helped.

Arn went for a run. I decided to wait for the fitness center in our next hotel. This would turn out to be a bad decision for both of us.

Arn encountered a dog on his run. This dog followed him. Then, this dog met up with another dog. Arn turned to make sure he was not about to become dog meat. This was the moment his upper back and shoulder got wrenched. It was and is wrenched badly. He returned from his run in agony. I tried to massage it, but he had a knot over six inches long and one inch wide. That baby smacks of a keeper. He took a shower while I watched more bad television. I would have gone for a walk, but my left foot (yes, the one that required a cortisone injection) is giving me problems. While denial would be better, I am fearful of where this is headed. So, I held out for a fitness center with a bike.

We took a taxi about 13 miles north to Concon. Our next hotel is brand new and on the water. We arrived around noon, check in is not until three, and today is Easter. So, our room was not ready. We checked out the hotel. I am screwed on my desire for a nice fitness center. They are building a new fitness center. There are two bikes facing the wall in a dark corner in the bowls of the hotel. I might get that desperate tomorrow.

We walked into town looking for lunch and to check things out. We have been duped. While on-line we read good things about Concón, the reality is pretty disappointing. There is not a lot here other than a beautiful stretch of coastline, surfers, and an oil refinery. We did manage to find the one good restaurant in town. We both enjoyed fantastic pasta for lunch --- something stuffed with cheese and artichokes. Arn had a putanesca sauce that I could smell the anchovies in from across the table. I went with the tomato sauce (no surprise there). The restaurant is better known for their dry-aged beef. The waiter explained that they are the only restaurant in Chile to offer dry-aged beef. They have a few locations --- one in Concón and the others in Santiago. So, we booked a dinner reservation for tomorrow night.

After lunch, we were able to check into our room. It is a stunning view and perhaps the best of the trip. We are overlooking the ocean. It is a rocky coastline with crashing waves. It reminds both of us of Carmel. Our windows are close enough to the water that we could literally spit into the sea. With the windows open, it is quite spectacular in sight, sound and smell. Perched on the rocks, we can see several types of birds including black cormorants and pelicans the size of a tricycle. I am not pulling your leg --- their bills are at least a foot long and they stand as tall as my mid-thigh. While we saw lots of seals along the drive, I am glad we are not listening to them bark or smelling them. So far, I have not spotted them on the rocks in front of us. We had all the barking and putrid smells in Valpo that one needs for any trip.

The internet was out all day. So, I have watched a total of three movies --- 2 were Hugh Grant films. Clearly, it was not a highlight. Now, Mark Walberg or Christian Bale movies would be a different thing all together.

Given the Easter holiday and restaurant closures, we ate in the hotel. It was much better than expected and actually quite good. Arn had Mahi Mahi and I had a smoke salmon salad. Given that Arn had no relief from wrenched back and shoulder, we were ready for bed with the hope of recovery through sleep.

Viña Del Mar (Sat 4/3)

2010-04-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

Well, we survived night 1 in our less than desirable hotel room. I have a bunch of bug bites to go with the experience. They must have itched a lot in the middle of the night because they were pretty raw and red this morning.

We had toast for breakfast and headed out for some exercise. Arn went for a run while I went for a walk. The morning temps were cool and very pleasant for running and walking. There were quite a few runners and walkers along the ocean this morning. There were also all the guys with their horse drawn carriages preparing for a day of tourist rides. It was like something out of Central Park in New York City times ten! Yesterday, we noticed that quite a few people actually seem to take a carriage ride. It is not for us. But then, we are the people who say, "a horse killed Superman". After our respective run/walk, we stopped at Starbucks. We both ogled the pastries in the case. It looked like home...chocolate chip muffins, raspberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and lemon cake. We left with a coffee for Arn and iced tea for me.

We found a place to drop off our laundry. It must be express service because of Easter. This is the fastest turn around time of the whole trip --- 2.5 hours. Yes, the place was more expensive, but it also probably the only place that is open near our hotel. We spent a couple of hours in the internet cafe waiting for our laundry. For lunch, I proposed Pizza Hut. We did a bit of the "El Camino" crawl and decided on Mexican food. The place was packed with Chileans. In the same way people in Argentina seemed obsessed with sushi, the people in Viña del Mar seem obsessed with Mexican food. It was actually pretty good and definitely better than Pizza Hut.

After lunch, we figured we would try another movie. On the way to the theatre, we walked a different street. We were stunned by the earthquake damage. Two high-rises were completely evacuated. In both cases, the buildings were between 10 and 12 stories. Windows were shattered throughout the buildings. In one case, rebar punched through the plaster. Both buildings had large cracks and slumps in the structures. Through the windows, it was clear that people had completely moved out. Signs were posted indicating that the buildings are inhabitable. They both appeared to have been built in the 1970s or early 80s. It is frightening to consider --- the distance from Vina del Mar to the epicenter is about the same as San Jose, CA to San Luis Obispo, CA. Luckily, the buildings are still standing and people made it out.

On a lighter note, we have noticed a big difference between Viña and Valpo. We think there is someone in Viña rounding up all the dogs and dropping them off in Valpo. The streets are clean here and we have seen way fewer stray dogs. Don´t get me wrong, we still see them, but in much fewer numbers. We have also noticed "fake dog poop" for sale along the beach. There are all kinds of stalls selling everything you can imagine --- hats, t-shirts, jewelry, and fake dog poop. We think there is some enterprising guy that drives to Valpo, carefully scoops the poop and sprays it with a special sealant. It is like the people in New Zealand that use the fur from dead possums to make houseslippers. They have a great marketing name --- "New Zealand Mink".

For dinner, we returned to the same place we ate last night. We had another good meal and another awesome wine from the Aconcagua Valley. We ordered tiramisu. We just need to wait until we are home and I make it.

P.S. Today's movie? Daybreakers. A story about vampires. Not bad and a very different twist on an old story.

P.S.S. I finished Jon Krakauer's book about the Pat Tillman story. If I had it to do over again, I think I might have read the book that Pat's mom wrote. Krakauer can't tell the story without lacing in his politically views. So, now I am reading, "Body Signs"....another medical book.

Viña Del Mar (Fri 4/2)

2010-04-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 2 people duped on a hotel...
- 2 non-beach people "beaching it"
- Too many to count ice cream extravaganzas
- 1 great dinner

Four nights in Valpo was enough to 1) see everything we were interested in seeing, and 2) get sick of the filth and dogs. So, we took a taxi about 7 miles north to Viña Del Mar. Viña is where the Chileans go when they want to go to the beach. We are not heat or beach people, but we wanted to check it out. Given that our plan A fell apart with the earthquake, we are making up a plan B. And, we had a first choice hotel in Viña, but we could only get a "smoking" room. So, we had to book into a different hotel. Let me tell you, photos can lie. Reviews on Trip Advisor can also lie. We checked into the worst hotel we have seen since we left the Carretera Austral. There is one significant difference. This is the first time we have had the "privilege" of paying $157 per night for both pink and black mold in the bathroom. Arn said something we the front desk about the contrast between the internet photos and the room. They said all the rooms look the same. Maybe they took photos of a different hotel? Anyway, they knocked $27 off the rate. It is still crazy for where we are staying.

We left our stuff and took to the streets to walk around. We walked along the beach with the thousands of people that have left Santiago and come to the beach for Easter. The temperatures are actually nice --- 70s and sunny. We left the beach and headed to the mall. There was a movie theatre in the mall. We decided to have lunch in the food court and catch a movie. It was McDonalds for lunch and "Lovely Bones" in the theatre. Did you know you cannot get a hamburger without cheese in these parts? Arn asked for a cheeseburger (for me) without the cheese. She looked puzzled. I had a kids cheeseburger --- with the cheese. The movie was very well done and we both recommend it. I had read the book, but Peter Jackson did a better job with the movie than the author did with the book. I rarely say that, but this time I think it applies.

After the movie, we walked around looking for a laundry place for tomorrow. Given the holiday, most things are closed today and will be closed for the weekend. During our stroll, we decided to get ice cream. We found the same ice cream chain that exists in Santiago. It was packed. It was toe to toe and nose to nose. They have a good system. You pay for your ice cream first. You are given a number. When they call your number, you order what you want. So, we had time to watch a lot of ice cream go by. They also have a cafe where people sit and order ice cream. I saw something I had never ever seen before. A woman built an ice cream sundae in a bowl large enough to hold a ten pound sleeping cat! I kid you not --- she scooped in at least 12 scoops of ice cream and the ice cream did not even reach the top edge of the clear glass bowl. It was an insane amount of ice cream! As we walked through the cafe, we laughed --- we only hope some of the ice cream consumed was a meal replacement strategy because huge sundaes abounded on the tables everywhere. Arn had a cone with two flavors --- raspberry and dulce de leche with chocolate chips. I had a single flavor cone with mousse chocolate. The cones were SO huge they served them upside in a plastic bowl.

We enjoyed the ice cream and the walk to our moldy room. We watched most of the movie "Titanic" before heading out for dinner. We had a great meal --- smoked salmon and a steak to share. The restaurant reviews in Viña are not great. So, we made a reservation for the same place tomorrow night. Tonight, we tried a wine from the Aconcagua Valley. It was a fantastic Camenere.

Casablanca Wine Valley (Thurs 4/1)

2010-04-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

Today we did a tour through the Casablanca wine valley. It is about 40 minutes from Valpo and probably 45 minutes from Santiago. It sits in between the two places. It is a relatively new grape growing region as they got started in 1985. They grow mainly Savignon Blanc, Chardonay, and Pinot Noir. Our tour guide is a Brit that fell for a Chilean girl while here on a study abroad program. Now married with two kids, he is giving wine tours in the summer and ski tours in the winter. We were joined by another couple of England for the tour.

Here is the tour in a nutshell --- great tours as everything was in full swing with the harvest, crushing, bottling and packaging. We visited three wineries and one included a fantastic lunch (this chef knew how to cook the meat perfectly). The wines? Not interesting, so I won't bother with names. We love the great value Veramonte Chardonnay that comes from this region. For us, the best Chilean wine still come from Colchagua Valley.

We enjoyed a good seafood dinner overlooking the lights of Valpo. Arn had seared tuna. I had congrio (eel) wrapped in phyllo. Both were excellent.

Tomorrow, we change hotels and move about six miles north to Vina del Mar. It is where the Chileans go when they want to go to the beach. Given the holiday weekend, it is going to be crazy. We couldn't extend our stay in Valpo as our hotel is full. This is okay as three days was enough in Valpo. Our first choice place in Vina was full. So, we had go with something further down on the list. It was well reviewed on Trip Advisor, but we passed it in the van today --- it didn't look that interesting. Oh well. We move again on Sunday. We now have all of our hotels booked until we return home. Two nights in Vina, two nights a few miles further north on the beach, and then two nights in Santiago in a area we have not stayed before. I think our A Plan in the Colchagua Valley would have been a better finish to the trip, but the earthquake literally knocked out that plan. I must tell you, we are both ready to be home. We are missing our own bed, not having to ration socks and underwear, our hot tub, and a place to just hang out. I am seriously in bike withdrawl.

Another Day in Valpo (Wed 3/31)

2010-04-02T05:50:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 2 funicular rides
- 1 lost sock
- miles of walking tours
- 1 scary lunch
- best pizza for dinner
- tomatoes for dessert!

Today was another day of walking tours. We started by taking the funicular downhill to the center of downtown. This particular funicular was built over 100 years ago. They tested it after the big earthquake last month --- they loaded people in it and gave it a spin to make sure no one important was hurt. Okay, I am joking, but I am probably right. There was a funicular taken out of use after the 1985 earthquake in Valpo. I guess if it gets knocked off the foundation and they can't fix it, then it goes out of operation. These funiculars are both helpful and terrifying. They are steep and rickety. Once downtown, we dropped off our laundry. Arn had a great packing strategy. He brought all the same type of socks plus one spare sock, figuring one would get lost along the way and then he would still have matched pairs. Well, two socks have now been lost, so he is down a pair. And, he has been missing his cotton t-shirt for weeks. Enough about clothes or I am going to start talking about how I tired I am of my one pair of pants and how sick of clothes rationing we both are.

Back to the walking tours --- we started in the financial district. We went inside the Bank of London building that is now the Bank of Santiago. The stainglass domes and marble work were awesome. We then walked into the stock exchange building --- the oldest in Latin America. The trading pit stands as it was once; however, there are no traders jumping and screaming like at the Chicago Board of Trade. In fact, they had placed flat panel computer screens to follow the on-line activity. The security guard was very friendly and invited us in to see everything. He is the first person to quiz us about being married and not wearing wedding rings (for safety reasons, we left out rings at home).

Our tour then headed to the square of justice. We saw the oldest firehouse in Chile. Given the long history of earthquakes in Valpo, many countries have donated fire trucks to Valpo. They keep each set of trucks separate and maintain the "feel" of each donor country in the station that holds those trucks. We saw the American trucks and the German trucks. Really, their trucks look nothing like ours. While the fire station seemed untouched by the quake, many of the other buildings in the square had lots of busted plaster, chucks of walls and roofs were missing, and there were cracks and separations in buildings. We walked up a steep flight of stairs to enter another neighborhood. We walled along promenades over looking the city and strolled past cafes and restaurants. The problem remains --- Valpo is filthy. The dog shit is everywhere. There is trash everywhere. And , there is graffiti everywhere --- some of it is art that someone did on purpose and it looks great. Some of it is the work of derelicts that just wanted to tag someone's house with their name and date. It is both a super cool city and disgustingly filthy looking and smelling place.

As part of our walking tour, we tried to visit the old cemetaries. We were able to get into the immigrant cemetary. There were people buried that came from Europe and the U.S. The most common was Europe. The other two cemetaries were closed and blocked off because the earthquake damaged the entry way stone arches. Anyway, the cemetary of the city's well-to-do did not survive the quake as well.

We took the funicular downhill and found a place for lunch. It was a dive recommended in our book. We ordered the Chilean classic dish for lunch --- "chorillana." Here is how you can recreate this delicacy at home. First, start with a platter large enough to hold a roasted chicken (this is a dish for three people). Fill the platter with as many french fries as it will hold. Really, pile those fries high. Dice up a cooked steak and scatter the meat on the top. Now, chop and fry two onions. Yep, add those to the pile. Fry an egg and place on top of the heap. Last, melt some cheese over everything --- it is the glue that keeps it together. It is not as bad as it sounds, but it is a coronary on a plate for sure.

We hung out in an interent cafe for a couple of hours. We were the only two people not on Facebook. It is all the craze with the younger people in Chile --- same as at home. We rode the funicular back up hill to our neighborhood.

For dinner, we tried a pizza place. It was the best pizza of the trip. It did not satisfy our cravings for our favorite pizzas in Seattle, but it was good. We watched a plate of bruchetta being served to another table. It was amazing looking. The pizza was fairly small and very thin. So, Arn asked how I felt about bruchetta for dessert. Are you kidding? Tomatoes for dessert? Of course! The waiter said it was strange, but agreed bruchetta beats panna cota. The tomatoes were absolutely awesome and it was the best bruchetta ever!

Walking the Streets of Valparaiso (Tues 3/30)

2010-04-02T05:48:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- hours of walking tours
- lots of earthquake damage
- 1 town that has gone to the dogs
- 1 megastore
-1 cafeteria style lunch
- best pasta of the trip
- best dessert of the trip

We have read that the best way to see Valparaiso, Chile is by walking the streets. Arn had researched a book with over 20 miles of walking tours. So, our plan for the day was simple. Find the book, buy the book, and walk. With a street map in hand, we headed out.

Valparaiso is north of Santiago and located on the coast. It is the largest shipping port in Chile (90% of all port activity occurs through Valpo). Parts of the town were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2003. Close to the water, the city is flat. In just a few blocks, it heads steeply uphill. There are in excess of 40 distinct hills. So, while you might climb up to one neighborhood, it is down and back up to get to the next area of the city. There are over a few hundred thousand people living in Valpo. If you have been to San Francisco, then you think it is probably a hilly city. By Valpo standards, San Francisco is flat! It is crazy steep. If you have been to Venice, you are familar with back alleys and narrow passages to get through the city. Well, this is like that, but vertical. The passages are crazy flights of stairs that climb 50 to 300 feet.

After a lot of up and down, we found a book store with the walking tours. Of course, the store did not open until 1pm, so we did some exploring "unguided". We took an audiotour of Neruda´s house in Valpo. Who was Neruda? Yeah, if you know, then you were not busy studying thermodynamics or linear programming like I was in school. He was a poet --- "probably the most read poet since Shakespeare". Who knew? Not me, I was too busy with math and engineering. His house was perched in the hills with commanding views of the city and ocean. His favorite chair was called the "cloud" and he kept a wooden trunk stocked with whiskey for his parties. Eventually, we picked up our guide book and continued our exploration.

Valpo is a crazy place. On the same street, there are beautiful houses. They are painted in bright shades of yellow, purple, green, blue, orange, pink, and red. Often, there is beautiful iron work on the windows, doors and fences -- painted white or black or a complimentary color to the house. Then, right next door, there is a dump....corrigated metal shack, peeling paint, broken doors, etc. The juxtiposition is crazy. In places, the city is stunning and next door it looks like a slum on the hill. Now, the city does not belong to the people. Valpo has gone to the dogs! Yes, packs and packs of stray dogs. How does one experience this? It goes like this --- "watch your step, watch your step". There is dog shit everywhere. It smells like dog shit everywhere. I really like Chile, but they need to clean this shit up. It is crazy. The dogs bark, howl and run throught the streets. It is a common sight --- laying in front of the pharmacy, 8 dogs asleep. In front of the mini-market, 6 dogs asleep. Two boxes in front of the produce stand? One dog sleeping in each box! It is nuts. The sidewalks and streets are filthy with dog excrement. Did I mention the smell? Seriously, there is more room to walk in a cat´s litter box that hasn´t been changed in a week! While you can hear the dogs during the day, the howling and barking takes on a whole new level of aggravation at night while you are trying to sleep. Last night, we turned on a fan to cool the room. I told Arn that fan will run all night, every night --- no matter the temperature. It creates white noise and you can´t hear the dogs.

During our exploration, we found the center market for fruits and vegtables. Here are a few prices for you. Over two pounds of awesome tomatoes -- 40 cents. A shoe box of strawberries -- 2 bucks. The produce market was one place without dogs. Why? Because the cats have taken over! At least there was no dog or cat shit! And, the cats don´t run in crazy packs growling and howling. We found one black kitty that reminded us a lot of Bean. It was both good and bad. It was probably the first black tabby like Bean. This kitty had the same markings in her head.

For lunch we headed to what we thought was a mall. It turned out to be a super store --- something like Target ot Walmart with something like Home Depot downstairs. We ate lunch in the cafeteria. We both had a salad and shared an order of fries. If you could have seen the meat, you would have agreed with this strategy. I have not seen that many people eating jello in the same place ever. But, I have not seen that many different varieties of jello desserts in the same place either.

Now, about the earthquake, we saw more damage today than we would have anticpated or expected. We saw broken windows, buckled sides of buildings, places where the sidewalk buckled and collapsed, collapsed roofs, and lots of cracks and busted plaster. It was not on every building, but there was a fair amount of it. Many things were taped off as dangerous and we found lots of piles of debris (bricks and busted plaster).

For dinner, we enjoyed the best pasta of the trip. Arn had gnocchi with blue cheese, walnuts, mushrooms and white wine. I had pumpkin ravioli with fresh tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, and goat cheese. We shared a chocolate brownie with a chocolate and cherry sauce and Dulce de leche ice cream for dessert. It was the best dessert of the trip. They actually pulled the brownie out of the oven on time --- leaving it gooey in the middle. They tend to over bake everything but the bread. We had a great Chilean wine and it was a great evening out. The only bummer --- oh come on, are you paying attention? The bummer was the dog shit dodge on the way back to our room and the ever present howling of at least a dozen dogs. Oh, and let's not forget the smell.

On The Road Again (Mon 3/29)

2010-04-02T05:46:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 1 long bus ride
- 1 view of Acongaua
- highest border crossing ever (for us)

Today was all about the bus. From Mendoza, we headed south before turning west. Once westbound, the landscape grew increasing desolate and yet more dramatic. The bus drove into the Andes. The mountains were extremely steep, jagged, and rocky. The largest plants were tufts of dried grass about ten inches high and a few cactus of the same stature. It was barren. The roughness of the terrain looked like the glaciers left only yesterday or that the mountains were pushed up just last night. The road followed the Mendoza River. Of course, we scouted rapids from the bus. A few days ago, we talked to a rafting company about kayaking the river. Once someone told us it was a 30 minute run, we decided it was too much overhead (van time) for such a short run. Now, having looked the river over, we confirmed that it was a good decision to not paddle. The rapids were not that interesting. Plus, to be honest, I wasn't fully sold on paddling 47 degree water in someone else's gear and no nose plugs. Our bus was a double decker and our seats were upstairs (yes, you have assigned seats like on a plane). We sat so high above the road that one could get a bit of vertigo looking down the steep drop offs.

Near the summit of the pass, we had our one view of Aconcagua. It tops out at almost 23,000 feet and is now the highest peak either of us has ever seen. Knowing the border crossing was ahead, I decided to use the bathroom on the bus. The light in the bathroom is through a window. Well, part way through my "business", the bus entered the seven kn tunnel. Lights? What lights? Now, there were lots of handrails getting through the bus and down the stairs to the bathroom. Inside the bathroom, nada. I mean zip, zero, nada handrails. So, here I am hanging onto the door knob, peeing, in the dark as the bus drives through the tunnel. I managed to finish the job and wash my hands in the dark. I felt my way out of the bathroom to the handrails up the stairs. Once upstairs, I took an open seat and waited for the bus to exit the tunnel before working my way back to where our seats were.

The pass topped out at roughly 10,000 feet. To cross the border, the bus was in line with a sea of trucks. It was a bit freaky to be sitting up higher than a semi-tractor trailor truck! Between road construction and border delays, it took nearly two hours to cross. We wondered, was this factored into the seven hour estimate? I will answer that now --- no.

Once through the border check, the road turned downhill. It was a white knuckle road with 28 switchbacks. We dropped 2000 feet in the first 9 "curvas". They actual had signs posted numbering the curves. This was a very popular ski area with the Chileans. The road made several turns underneath the ski lift! Maybe this gives you a better idea of the steepness of the landscape. It was wild watching a line up of trucks and buses driving super short and tight switchbacks down a black diamond run. The road dropped down to what I can only describe as a hanging valley. The far side of the valley was a steep drop and we couldn't see the road. Once the bus reached the end of the valley, we looked down what appeared to be more of a cliff that a place to put a road. Still, the road was a set of tightly stacked turns down the cliff. Do you remeber the game Mousetrap? This looked more like a ramp for rolling marbles downhill that driving huge semi-trucks and double deck buses. On one side of the "drop", there was a small creek. It was so steep that the creek was entirely white water! Eventually, we were down the pass and into the Aconcagua Valley. It is a wine and fruit growing region in Chile. As the bus rolled into Vina del Mar, we began to see signs of the earthquake. In several buildings, windows were broken and covered with plastic. Others were wrapped in plastic police-type tape reading, "Peligro" --- danger. A few buildings lost sections of the roof. After leaving Vina del Mar, the bus headed 6 miles down the road to Valparaiso. Along the water, we passed a few old warehouses that collapsed during the quake. Once off the bus, we found a taxi to take us to our hotel. The driver seemed very surprised to see two Americans. He said all the tourists left the day after the earthquake and they have not returned. His question was, "Tiene miedo?" In other words: are you afraid? We explained that we lived in San Francisco for many years and lived through a big earthquake. Secretly, I think he thought we were a bit crazy. Valparaiso is a long way from the epicenter of the quake (several hundred miles).

Our hotel is a small inn and the rooms are mini-apartment lofts. The woman that checked us in made us pisco sours before we left to have dinner. She is a lawyer and studied at Northwestern for her last semester. She couldn't imagine growing up in the cold Chicago winters. She is from Santiago. In Chile, lawyers are required to do six months of pro-bono work before they begin their law career. She is in Valpo doing her six month stint. She said she slept through the quake, but when she turned up at the inn all the guests were in a panic. Everyone checked out that day and headed to Santiago. Let me see if I have this right --- the morning after an 8.8 quake they got in cars and buses to drive over roads in unknown conditions to reach a location closer to the epicenter. Hmm...now might not be a good time to admit what I did after the 7.2 in San Francisco.

Our dinner was close by and we both had fish. It was okay. The best restaurants are all closed on Monday night. Figures.

Last Day in Mendoza (Sun 3/28)

2010-04-02T05:28:00.001-07:00

Stats:
- 1 "tv festival"
- 2 workouts (1 each)
- farewell dinner in Argentina

Well, perhaps it was all the meat for dinner or perhaps it was all the Malbec drinking that caught up with us, but Arn slept until 9:15am! I slept until 9:30am!! It was totally crazy. We had a late breakfast and went for a workout. Arn gave up in the gym and suffered a run in the heat. Having "survived" my first round of weight lifting, I went back for round two.

We headed back to the internet cafe. Arn did research on Valparaiso while I researched lodging options for a future visit to Santa Barbara with our friends, Doug and Marjorie. Lunch was enjoyed at Subway. See --- I wasn't kidding. After all the meat last night, we went of the Jared diet for lunch. We do this all the time in Seattle. If either of us feels like the numbers on the scale have gone bad, we declare "Subway diet" and we eat lunches at Subway. We are big believers in no starchy carbs for dinner, Subway for lunch, and exerise as the strategy for lower the numbers on the scale.

Our afternoon was a "television fesitval". Using our iTouch, wifi, and our Slingbox in Seattle, we enjoyed several hours of tv from our DVR at home. We watched episodes of 24 and Two and Half Men.

Our last dinner in Argentina was enjoyed at a place called, "Anna's Bistro". We sat outside in a garden so lush that one would have thought we were in the tropicals. There were banana trees (confirmed by the presense of bananas), hybiscus in full bloom, and palm trees. Given that tomorrow we return to Chile, we decided to enjoy one last Argentian dinner. Arn had another steak. I had pork tenderloin with a raspberry sauce and grilled fruit. And of course, we tried another new malbec. On the way back to hotel, Arn stopped for an ice cream cone --- Dulce de leche con brownies. It was a sweet ending to a good time in Mendoza. It is a bit sad to know we are leaving Argentina. This year was our second visit to Argentina. We are leaving having seen everything that held curiousity for us. We are feeling satisfied and satiated with out experience. So tomorrow, we will be back to enjoying seafood and Chilean wines.

Overdosing on Meat (Sat 3/27)

2010-04-02T05:25:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 2 quick workouts
- 1 trip to the bus station
- 1 visit to the Internet cafe
- 1 Malbec wine flight tasting
- 1 "asado" (BBQ) dinner with 4 steaks!

Today's goal? Make a plan for what we do next. The backpacking in the Andes near Mendoza is out. Further long bus rides in Argentina are out. Flying is out. All flights lead back to Buenes Aires. And, this would be the domestic airport. We would then have to switch to the international airport to fly anywhere in Chile. This is too much hassle and would involve two days of travel. So, we are leaving by bus.

We walked to the bus terminal. It is nearly as big as the airport and there are more buses companies than airlines and certainly more destinations. You need to understand something about bus travel --- it is how people getting around in South America. It is not like the U.S. where we hop flights between every two cities. Here, in every country, all the flights lead back to the main city and then head out again. In Argentina, everything runs through Buenes Aires. In Chile, it runs through Santiago. Yeah, okay --- there are a few exceptions to this, but for the most part the flight patterns are hub and spoke. As a result, the buses can be quite nice. For example, "Semi-cama" bus means seats like a first class flight. They recline with a full leg rest. The bus plays movies. They offer snacks and hot coffee. "Royal cama" means the seats lay completely flat and have privacy curtains around them. The "royal" service includes hot meals, champange or wine (by the bottle), pillow and blankets, and your own flat panel television for movie viewing. While bad buses (like our 12 hour ride without a bathroom) are possible, high-end rides are more likely on a long distance bus.

So, we walked the bus terminal and checked out the various companies and options. Our best bet still looks like heading to the coast of Chile. We bought two tickets to Valparaiso, Chile for Monday morning. It will be a 7 hour ride on a semi-cama bus. The route will cross the Andes and we may get a peak at the highest mountain in South America, Aconcagua.

We left the bus terminal and headed to an internet cafe. We needed to find a place to stay. We booked four nights at a new looking hotel. The rooms are mini-apartments. The town of Valparaiso has been declared a World Heritage site. It is supposed to be interesting with lots of steep hills and interesting buildings. Arn found nearly 20 miles of walking tours and there are 3 old cemetaries. So, we will see what we see.

Later in the afternoon, we checked out a wine tasting bar in town. We enjoyed a flight of Malbecs and a great cheese plate. It included a hard goat cheese that was awesome. We discovered two very good Malbecs. One was from a place called, "Flor" something. The family behind the wine is very wealthy. One of the brothers is in the business of selling Porsches. He decided to make wine as a hobby. He figured he would put of few cases of wine in the trunk of every Porsche as a gift. Well, the wine turned out to be better than expected and the hobby morphed into a business. The other wine was from a place called, "Flecha de Los Andes".

We returned to our hotel and hung out reading and using the Internet. For dinner, we did something we rarely do. We ate dinner at an inclusive buffet in a hotel. The Park Hyatt (high end $350 a night hotel) has an "asado" on Saturday. For $23, there was a salad and starter table, the BBQ, and dessert table. Everything was awesome. The salads and grilled vegtables were fantasic. The marinated and grilled eggplant was a highlight. There was a wide selection of meat. I tried the pork ribs, two bites of chorizo, and a steak. Arn tried the pork ribs, two bites of chorizo, and two different steaks (two types of meat). The meats were cooked perfectly. They had been slow roasted over open coals and the outsides had carmelized slowly. It was excellent. Arn's dessert was a third steak. Mine was chocolate mousse. Tomorrow, we start the "Subway" diet.

Into The Mountains (Fri 3/26)

2010-03-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 1 hike...climbed 2800 feet
- curiousity about mountains? answered!
- worst trail surface ever
- awesome dinner

From Mendoza, we can see the Andes. They are tall, steep and impressive. And, it is very clear that there is little in the way of vegetation. Think desert and you have the right idea. The mountains just top out alnost 23,000 feet and we are sitting at about 3,000 feet. So, they are huge. We have been curious to get into the mountains. We have the option of backpacking in the Andes for a few days. We have wanted to get closer and size things up to evaluate if this is something we want to do. Mendoza itself is this little oasis in the middle of the desert. The city streets are lined with beautiful and huge trees. The trees provide fantastic shade and comfort from the sun and heat. The streets are also lined with canals. There are "gates" at various points in the canals. These gates are opened and closed and used to control the water flow. The water is used to irrigate the trees, parks and gardens. Without the canals, the city would be scortched earth --- like we see in the distance. So, our goal is really to check out what things look like in the distance.

We found a company that does day hikes. Their fee is not that different than the price of a car rental and it is much easier for someone else to do the driving. People here drive like maniacs, so driving is an experience we don´t need. A van picked us up. Inside the van, there were several people going horseback riding for the day. There was a couple doing a 1/2 hike. We were the only two doing a "full day" hike. The van drove out to a ranch where the various groups headed off, each with a guide.

Now, I before I tell you about the hiking, I need to catch you up on something. You'll remember the weight lifting? Yes, today it caught up with me. Every muscle hurts to move. On the one hand, laying stone still for three days might hurt less. On the other hand, once I get moving I know the lactic acid will start to process out and things will feel better --- until I stop again or sit in a van for another 45 minute ride. I feel like the tin man from the Wizard of Oz. Alright, back to the story.

Our guide, Mati, was a nice guy. He gave us two options. We chose the hike with more climbing that reached something called, "Black Mountain". The vegation was short and scrubby. Much of it had nasty thorns that left plenty of marks below the bottoms of my capris (so glad I zipped off my convertible pants). As we climbed, we started to see more and more cactus. My hope was that we could reach the top and be treated to awesome views into the next valley. I was convinced the snow capped mountains would seem very close once we got to the top. Getting to the top was no easy task. The trail sucked. In Arn´s words, "This is the worst trail surface I have ever hiked for the full duration of the hike". It was terrible. It was either a sand pit, loose rock, or medium sized rock. And, it was really steep. The higher we went, the worse the surface and the steeper the pitch. The whole time, I thought of only one thing --- this is REALLY going to suck on the way down. In total, we think we climbed about 2800 feet. From the top, the views did not improve. Everywhere you looked --- more scorched earth. It was a totaly desolate landscape. It went on forever and forever and was the same. Mati said that in the valley where people backpack, it is even drier and nothing grows. I looked at Arn and asked, "What do you think of backpacking?" It was funny. I already knew his answer and it was going to match mine --- "no way". It is not our landscape and the temps were well into the 80´s.

At the top, we ate our packed lunches and Arn took the "obligatory photo". Yes, this is how he referred to it. Before we left the top, I zipped the bottoms back onto my capris. I figured there was no need to draw blood a second time with all the thorns. Then, I made my final preparations. I used my Buff to wrap my left hand. I used my long sleeve shirt (which had been stashed away in the backpack) to wrap up my right hand. Here was my thinking. I figured there was no way I was getting down from this summit without either falling or engaging in some five points of contact hiking. In either case, padding up my hands as protection from the rocks and cactus seemed like a good strategy. What is "five points of contact hiking"? Well, count them --- it is hiking when you sit on your butt and spider crawl down --- two feet, two hands, one butt. The downhill sucked, but admittedly it was not as bad as I feared. There were plenty of slips had by all three of us, but we all managed to stay on our feet. Funny --- cactus the size of basketballs is good incentive to remain upright.

So, today's hike was clariying. We will not be headed out for a backpacking trip or another day hike. It is not our landscape. And those trail surfaces, will leave me crippled and limping. Tomorrow, we are going to head to the bus terminal and figure out where we are headed. We did a bit of looking online after returning to the hotel. A last minute cruise is out (there are no trips running on the right dates). Heading north in Argentina to Salta (desert) is out. It is an 18 hour bus ride. So, we are going to check the other bus options, but it looks like Chile and most likely Valparaiso or Santiago.

For dinner, we returned to Azafran. We had a great meal there earlier in the week. While Arn enjoyed his meal, I considered my dinner one of the best of the trip. It was a filet steak topped with blue cheese, spinach, sundried tomatoes, and all wrapped with phyllo dough and served with eggplant mashed potatoes and grilled onions.

A Slow Day in Mendoza (Thurs 3/25)

2010-03-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 1 run for the gringo
- 1 more round of weight lifting for the gringa
- 1 "overdose" on cough syrup

Again, Arn took advantage of the cool temps in the morning and went for a run. I figured my upper body survived the weight lifting, so I returned for a lower body workout. I know this is going to come back to bite me. It has been too many months since I have done squats to not pay for this. After the weight room, I decided to take advantage of the stairwell. With 20 floors in our building, I figured I could use his as my stairmaster. After my first lap up and back down, my stomach went really south. It happened quickly and I dashed up the stairs to our room. More specifically --- the bathroom. It wasn't pretty. Now, perhaps what got my goat was the blood sausage from last night. I don't think so. See, I have continued to hack my head off with this cough and I have been hitting the cough syrup regularly. The bottle indicates that it contains sorbitol, an artifical sweetner. It also indicates that it can cause stomach upset and rapid evacuation of everything in your guts. Okay, that is not the direct translation BUT it is an accurate description of what really happens. It was the sorbitol and not last night's dinner. So, note to self --- take less cough syrup.

The rest of our day was pretty low key. We have booked ourselves for a hike tomorrow. More on that tomorrow. We are trying to figure out where we go from here and when we leave. The hiking tomorrow will help us decide if there is more hiking we want to do.

We enjoyed dinner in a lovely Italian restaurant. The tables were set up under a huge tent inside of a large garden. The temps were perfect for sitting outside. Arn had pasta with seafood. I had fish. We enjoyed a break from the Malbecs and ordered a white wine.

Today, I finished the book on brain surgery. If you ever need a brain surgeon, I have a good referral. It is sad, but I have more than one friend that needed this type of help. I have a lot more insight into the battles with brain tumors than I did before. Turns out the blood brain barrier is a really big deal in this war. So, I have started a new book. It is the Pat Tillman story. He played professional football, enlisted in the service, served in Afganistan, and was killed. Maybe you have ideas for some "lighter" reading material???

A Day In Town (Wed 3/24)

2010-03-28T18:43:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 1 run for the gringo
- 1 gym workout for the gringa
- a totally different dining experience

The temps in Mendoza are very comfortable. In the morning, it is mid 60´s and Arn has been enjoying morning runs. Today was no exception. He headed out early while I slept in still in a drug stupor from more Benedryl for my cough. Once I woke up, I finished reading the "Safe Patient, Smart Hospital" book. I am glad that one is over. Clenching my jaw while reading is not my idea of a good time. After Arn returned and showered, we had breakfast, packed up, and caught a cab --- 6 blocks to our new hotel! Luckily, our room was ready.

We checked out everything in the new hotel --- gym, computers, pool, wine bar, and breakfast area. We killed some time on the internet before heading to lunch. Lunch? McDonald´s. Again, Arn tried the "local burger" special; however, he substituted fries for the empanadas and a diet coke for the wine. I stuck with a kids´ hamburger.

After lunch, I spent a couple of hours in the gym. I am sure to pay for this in the coming days. It was the first workout with weights since I went to Borrego Springs on Jan 1st. So, this is going to hurt.

We did a lot of chilling today. We have decided to stay in Mendoza until next Monday. We don´t know where we are headed come Monday and we may decide to just stay here longer. Time will tell. But for now, we are reading, walking, interneting, eating, drinking, running, and using the gym. Mendoza is a wonderful city for just chilling. However, we are not good at chilling, so we will see what happens.

Now, dinner --- we must talk about dinner. Arn booked us in the number one rated best place for dinner in Mendoza. It is called, "Los Chocos". Let me explain these terms better. "Booked" in this case refers to an exchange of emails followed up by a message in our hotel and a live phone call. All of this was necessary to establish the date for dinner and to provide the directions. "Number one best rated" refers to what Arn learned on Trip Advisor. And "Place", this is the tricky one. The place is in two guys´ apartment. Yes, the two guys are together -- a couple. We later learned they share the same first name. "Hello, my name is Martin and this is my partner, Martin. Yes, we are Martin and Martin". How often do you think they say that?? Anyway, we were given an address and a time. We were told to wait downstairs on the street and someone would come downstairs to get us. So, 10 minutes before 9pm (the appointed time), we were waiting downstairs. It was basically a narrow outdoor alcove. On one side, there was a DVD rental and sales store. At the back of the alcove, there was the entrance to an old time pool hall. It was full of all these old guys shooting pool. The other side of the alcove was a locked door into a non-descript apartment building. At 9:05pm, someone entered the building and told us we wanted the 4th floor, apartment #12. He clearly was not the guy sent to meet us. He was a well intended neighbor of Martin & Martin. Once we entered the building, we could see a list of names on the apartments and the neighbor´s directions seemed to be correct.

Luckily, we got on the elevator with another couple because this was an old time elevator where the doors are operated manually. They knew how to work the elevator. We all went to the 4th floor. They went to their apartment. We knocked on the door for #12. There was no answer and no sound. We waited. We knocked again. Nothing. Then, the lights in the hallway went out and everything was completely black. The lights were on a motion sensor. Once we moved enough to trip the sensor, we had lights again. This is a pretty common set up with the lights in hallways and bathrooms. Yes, I have had a public bathroom go black in less time than it takes to pee. Anyway, we figured it was best to return to the street level and see what happened.

We stepped outside and waited. It was about 5 minutes past the appointed time. In a few more minutes, a young guy came downstairs and was clearly looking for two people. It was Martin #1. He introduced himself and led us back up to the 4th floor, apartment #12. Once inside, it was obvious that they never heard our knocking. The apartment had a huge entry area. The living room was well beyond the front door and music was playing in the living room. Okay, here is the deal. Martin & Martin used to run a catering business. They got tired of cooking for 200+ people. So, they decided to open a restaurant in their living and dining room. They cook for up to 8 people per night. They have one large table and everyone sits together. The living room and dining room are one large room. Tonight, we are the only two guests for dinner. We sit down in the living room and Martin #1 pours us wine -- a Mablec Rose. It is not our first choice in wine, but they are actually pretty good and not too sweet. Martin #1 heads to the kitchen where Martin #2 is fast at work. We are left alone with the music.

Martin and Martin have taken great care in their interior decorating and design. We both like their use of color. They have painted two of the walls orange. They have decorated the walls with fabric panels that have been framed. They have created different corkboard designs with wine and champagne corks. They have so many throw pillows that we have to reposition them just to sit down. They have created beaded wiring around the windows and have draped strings of beads around all the light fixtures. Everything is done in orange, rust, black, cream, and with lots of floral patterns. They have carefully placed objects on the tables --- stacks of old books, antique keys, giant serving spoons holding rocks, and candles.

Now that you have the scene, let´s move onto the food. Martin #2 served each course and described everything in great detail. He sources everything local and his goal is to showcase the food of Mendoza. The first course was a goat pate on crostini with a chickory leaf and some type of jam on top. The second course was the best carne (beef) empanadas I have ever eaten. They were made in phyllo dough and served with chimichurri sauce. The third course was goat cheese and tomato jam on a bread base (something called a sopapilla -- fried dough). For the next course, we moved to the dining table and changed wines --- a very nice Malbec. The fourth course was a blood sausage pudding with sweet potatoes and vegtables. Blood sausage sounds less scary in Spanish, but it is not at the top of our list. Still, it was interesting to try. The main dish was baby goat that was slow cooked for 6 hours. This is pretty traditional in Mendoza. Again, it was good to try and it actually tasted pretty good. The dessert was served with sparkling wine. The dessert is best described as a spice cake. Martin #2 buys these things that look like beans. He dries them, roasts them, and then grinds them to create the flour for this cake. The result is something very earthy and rich. All in all, it was a great experience and a really good dinner.

Another Day in the Vineyards (Tues 3/23)

2010-03-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 4 nice wine tastings
- 1 great lunch (prepared by a vegetarian)
- Aced on our "A Plan" for dinner

Today we took another wine tour. Again, the van was on time. This time, our fellow tasters were from the U.S. and Italy. The first winery was Terrazas. They did a great tour and even talked about the difference between American and French Oak. It all has to do with the speed at which the trees grow. French Oak grows slower, giving the wood smaller pores. This means the barrels are slower to impart the flavors into the wine and the barrels can be used a bit longer (one more year I think). So, you can guess the American story --- trees grow faster, pores are bigger, flavors are imparted more quickly, and are used one year less than the French barrel. Now, pricing --- the American barrels are much lower priced. I always throught the Americans were quicker than the French. Interesting to learn that our trees are quicker too!

Anyway, at Terrazas, the tour guide presented the wines and the "essences" of the wine. For example, if a wine had aromas of vanilla and caramel, she had vanilla beans in a glass and caramels in another glass. We could compare the wine to the actual things. In some cases, she had oils of essence (for prunes, pears, rose, etc). It was pretty interesting to smell the various scents and compare them to the wine. It was also interesting to experience how the smells changed over the time and we tried more wines.

Our second stop was at Renacer. In Spanish, "renacer" means to be reborn. Again, we had a very interesting approach to the tasting. We were given pours of 3 different malbecs --- one from a low elevation, one from 100 meters higher, and another from still 100 meters higher. We were able to taste the differences. Then, we were given a measuring cup and allowed to "blend" the three "component" malbecs to create a final product. It was very interesting to smell and taste the difference of altitude on the same grape. We both preferred the wine from the highest elevation and Arn declared any blend with the lowest elevation wine to be inferior. We also tasted other wines from Renacer. They are working with a winery in Italy (one that we quite like - Allegrini) to produce an Amarone style wine. To make this type of wine, the grapes are actually dried in the sun before the wine making process begins. In Italy, they dry 100% of the grapes. Here, they are drying 20%. The grapes are tested during the drying process for sugar content. When they hit the right level, production begins.

The third vineyard was Maipul. They were in the midst of bottling. The "bottling truck" is rented and parked outside. The wine was pumped through a hose to the bottling truck. It was interesting to watch. We were surprised by how the filled bottles were stacked on pallets and wrapped in plastic wrap. We quickly calculated the weight and it did not seem like the right warehousing strategy. We had lunch at Maipul. Lunch needs two statements to summarize it. First, the meat was dreadful --- over cooked to leather. There was a pork salad. The pork was like leather. The entree included a steak. It was also, cooked to leather on everyone´s plate but one. Now, everything but the meat was totally awesome. The chilled tomato and watermelon soup, the beet and goat cheese salad, the asian slaw, the roasted vegtables, and the dessert were all fantastic. So, I think the chef doesn´t eat meat. I have no other explanation for how a kitchen does such a beautiful job with fruits, vegatables and grains and misses it so badly on meat.

Our last wine stop was at Alta Vista. This was an all Malbec stop. The tour was interesting as we saw a winery that stores wine in concrete tanks. They don´t use metal or stainless tanks. They are concrete lined with epoxy. While this seems pretty old school, it sounds like places are actually building new set ups like this. Our day ended with a glass of champagne.

Having had a big lunch, we wanted a "little something" for dinner. We headed to a wine bar with a tapas menu. We figured we could get a couple of small plates and call it good. Well, it could have been good, but we were aced. They were closed for a private party. So, we strolled the streets looking for "Plan B". We picked a place based on what we saw on people´s plates and we were duped. Arn said, "You know, on the Carretera Austral, we would have thought this meal was great". Still, I don´t expect to cut into a piece of beef in Argentina and find myself asking, "Really, this is beef? It looks more like a pork chop".

Sorting Things Out In Mendoza (Mon 3/22)

2010-03-27T18:46:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- lots of time on the phone with Delta Airlines
- checking out the options
- finding a new place to stay
- and ANOTHER trip to the pharmacy

Okay, our return flight is scheduled for April 8th out of Santiago. Our original plans were to return to my favorite place in Chile. We figured we could chill out in the wine country in Chile --- Arn would go for runs, I would have a mountain bike (that belongs to the winery), we would enjoy swimming in the pool, reading, interneting, etc. The earthquake eliminated this option. Given this and the situation in Chile, we decided to check our flight options. Initially, it appeared we could fly home early for no change fee. We tried to do this on-line, but at the 1 yard line, we were denied --- "Cannot complete this transaction on-line". Turns out that this transaction cannot be completed on the phone either. Delta gives a different story on the phone and the fact we booked through Expedia makes the problem worse. So, while we initially thought about returning home a week early, that plan did not work out. Or, at least we were not willing to pony up the change fee. And yes, we even called Expedia and they were totally useless. Booking through them increased the change fee by $50 and they offered no help.

We spent much of the day strolling around Mendoza checking out our options --- rental bikes, hiking, kayaking, etc. We have heard about a few interesting bike ride options; however, the bikes are dreadful. With respect to hiking, it seems the best answer might be to rent a car and do it on our own. We will see what happens. As part of our "stroll", we checked out a different hotel. Our reservation ends and we will need to move on Wednesday. This is not going to be a hardship. We found a much nicer place with great ammenities including a pool and well equiped gym. So, while Arn enjoys his morning run, I can enjoy a weight room with reasonable cardio equipment. They even have pilates and spin classes.

On this trip, we have made many pilmagrages to the local pharmacy. Arn has gone looking only for toothpaste and dental floss. I seem to be on the "frequent shopper" program. Today, we went in search of cough medicine. I hacked my head off last night and did not fall asleep until after 4am. As the baby who slept through the night -- the first night home from the hospital -- this kind of thing leaves me totally rummy. Arn likes to say that his best night of sleep would leave me wiped out and grumpy. He is right about that.

Back to the pharmacy, you can´t look at shelves filled with things for coughs and colds. It is ALL behind the counter and requires a conversation with the pharmacist. Imagine what this would do to the cost of drugs in the U.S.? Oh well, after a discussion, the woman presented two bottles. Arn looked them over and picked the one she said works better. We also restocked on Advil --- 10 pills!!! Okay, they are double the dose in the U.S., so it is more like 20. And yes, I know the mg dose in Advil. You´ll remember my feet. Let´s hope the cough syrup works. If not, Arn is "suggesting" a trip to the doctor. Don´t worry, I´ll be calling American Express to help me out with this one if it comes to it. They have this service that helps you find an English speaking doctor (and preferrably someone trained in the U.S.). Let´s hope it doesn´t come to that! I have had to do this in Aruba and Switzerland. I would prefer to skip it in Argentina.

The highlight of the day was probably dinner. The weather is great for eating outside and we took advantage of it. We shared a goat cheese and roasted beet salad along with a sampler of cheese and house smoked meats. This is more variety of cheese that we have seen since we left the U.S. It was awesome. Arn had seared tuna for dinner for grilled shrimp. I had tuna tartare with smoked salmon and avocado. For dessert, we shared a "volcano chocolate cake" --- not as good as my molten chocolate dessert, but it was tasty.

Welcome to Wine Country (Sun 3/21)

2010-03-27T18:44:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- Dessert for breakfast
- 3 winery tours and tastings
- 1 winery lunch that included 11 courses
- Ice cream for dinner

Can you believe this? Today was the first day we did not eat dinner! Who could eat dinner when lunch did not end until after 4:30pm!

We had to set an alarm this morning. After arriving so late last night, neither of us could get to sleep right away. My issue is partly my fault. I am reading a book about "patient safety" in healthcare. It is so offensive to the whole science of industrial and process engineering that I cannot turn my mind off. I go from feeling shocked, to outraged, to pissed, and to pity for the medical community. Then, I remember, "Hey, I am a consumer of the community and then I start with the shock and outrage all over again. To help, I have started a second book for when I need to "take my mind off the first book". The second book is about brain surgery. My last two books were about the dynamics of communications. Last year in South America, I read the whole Twlight series. It might be time for some "lighter reading".

Anyway, we were slow to stir this morning, but we had to move. We had an 8:30am pick up for a day of wine tours. Breakfast was another festival of cakes and cookies. Dulce de leche was a featured ingredient. At least fruit was an option this morning. The van was on time. We were joined by another couple staying in our hotel. They are from Greece, living in London. On our way out of town, we picked up another couple (Canadians) and a man from the UK. We headed to the wine valley the furtherest outside of Mendoza. It is interesting in several regards. First, it is at the highest elevation of the growing areas around Mendoza. The elevations range from 3000ft to 4000ft. Second, it the newest growing region. And third, most of the investment in this region is from overseas. It is called the Uco Valley.

The drive to the valley took about 1 1/2 hours. The Andes have returned to our landscape. While we had a great time in Buenes Aires, I must admit --- I missed the Andes. Here, there is a bit of snow left from last winter. Included in the mountains was a stellar volcano standing at over 21,500 feet and covered in snow. It now ranks as the tallest peak either of us has ever seen! The winery person said, "But don´t worry, it is not active". I had to reply, "Yeah, they said that about Mount St. Helens". Another peak topped out near 20,000 feet. So, the mountains are TALL. We cannot see Aconcagua from our location. We have been told we need to be one valley further over in the mountain range.

Our first winery was Andeluna. Their mid-range Malbec and top-end blend were great. The top end wine, about $50 a bottle, was truly stunning. But really, shouldn´t anyone be able to produce a great wine for that price? The place was a joint venture between an Argentina family and "Mr. Lay". Yes, I mean Mr. Lay of Frito Lay potato chips. And you know what Arn had to ask while tasting wine ... "Where are the chips?"

The second winery was a place called Salentein. The woman gave a great tour and showed us everything. She kept referring to the "young" wines meaning their "entry level wines". In Argentina, they pronouce "y" like "j" in English. So, rather than "young", we kept hearing "jung" or "junk" wines. It was pretty funny. Their pinot noir and malbec were both good. They can actually grow pinot noir because they are located at the higher elevations where it is cool enough to grow the grapes.

The third stop was at another winery to eat lunch. The lunch started with about 8 rounds of starters served in either individual tablespoons or as small bites. The food was excellent. It was the first time Arn both ate and praised braised meat. I think lunch started around 2pm and ended around 4:30pm.

The day included a lot of wine, tasting grapes right off the vine, enjoying views of the Andes, and a lot of good food. We were returned to our hotel around 6pm and neither of us wanted dinner. We chilled in the hotel and headed out around 8:30pm to go for a walk around town. Town was hopping! We were stunned by the number of people in the park, eating outside, enjoying ice cream, and roaming the craft market. We were also blown away by the amount of retail in town. And, we were really shocked by two McDonalds that offer a combo meal --- some kind of burger, two empanadas, and a small bottle of wine!

We stopped for ice cream and shared three different flavors. The temperatures were perfect for a stroll wearing capris, t-shirt, and sandals while eating ice cream.

Tomorrow, we need to make a plan --- figure out how long we are going to stay in Mendoza. So, we will be figuring out the hiking and biking options. We can only do one more day of wine tours and that is scheduled for Tuesday. Really, we cannot drink and eat like this for too long!

Reruns and Delays (Sat 3/20)

2010-03-27T18:42:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 60 minutes wasted with Delta Airlines
- 1 last visit to Kitty Park
- a 1 in 13 million chance encounter
- 1 repeat on lunch
- a return to the movies
- 3 hours of delay!!

Today we headed to Mendoza. After breakfast, Arn did some checking on our return flights to the U.S. On-line, we have been given the option to make changes for free. In reality, they will let you get to the one yard line and then say, "Sorry, you can't complete this transaction online". It also turns out the you can't complete this transaction on the phone within 45 minutes either. More on this another day.

We returned to the kitty park on our way to the movies. While checking out the kitties, we hear, "Hey! I know you!" It was the woman that gave the underground tour yesterday. She recognized us (just as a clue, we were wearing the same clothes). She, her daughter, and a few friends manage an effort to help the cats --- adoptions, vet care, spay/neuter program, food, and kitten care. She said they found 6 new kittens today and have homes for three of them already. She said the hardest kitties to place are black cats. They have to be very careful with finding them homes. Given superstitions, they exercise care. The second hardest kitties are those with tortise markings. The easiest are all white cats. With 13 million people living in BA, what were the odds of ever running into someone we had met?

We returned to the food court in the mall for lunch. Arn ordered some "local" burger from McDonalds. I decided to try out the McCafe and made lunch out of a slice of pie. After trying "Pirineos", we both agree --- this should be brought to the U.S. From the bottom up, it is a brownie crust, followed by a layer of Dulce de leche, followed by another layer of something similar to cheesecake, and topped with a sticky, marshmallow like merguine that has been carmelized on the very top and drizzled with chocolate. Really, I wish I could tell you to look for this in a McCafe near you.

Today's movie was Shutter Island. It was not what we expected, but we still enjoyed it. After the movie, we hopped in a cab, picked up our collection of a backpack and three duffle bags, and headed to the airport. The cab driver revealed that all the cabs are run on natural gas. The large tank in the trunk explained why our bags were stashed in the front seat. He said that the buses, trucks, and many people have switched to natural gas. It is much cheaper than gasoline.

We were told to get to the airport 90 minutes before our flight. We were running ahead of schedule and arrived two hours ahead only to learn the flight was delayed THREE hours. This sucked. Rather than our nice dinner in Mendonza sitting outside somewhere, we ate an airport dinner (worse than a Carretera Austral dinner). And in case you don't know, we aren't good at waiting.

We arrived in Mendoza at nearly 11pm. After getting bags and a taxi, it was practically midnight by the time we were taking showers and going to bed. Arn said it right, "Traveling sucks. Being there is great, but the getting there sucks".

Crawling the Streets of Buenos Aires (Fri 3/19)

2010-03-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 1 run
- 1 sick puppy sleeps until construction starts
- 1 aborted subway ride
- 1 cup of coffee at McCafe
- 1 awesome pizza, but only 1/2 with cheese (there was also only 1/2 with anchovies)
- 1 below ground tour
- 2 gringos and a cab driver NEARLY smashed
- 1 fantastic Italian dinner selected by 1 sick gringa now wearing one of the last remaining "Breath Right Strips" belonging to the gringo (I argued that he should wear it as I am taking Benedryl, so it will be okay that I can't breathe as I try to fall asleep).

Okay, before we went to bed last night, I dipped into the "medicine chest" (or arsenal --- depending on your point of view). After the ripio riding, you need to get the right image in your mind. First, most of the reddish coating on the Advil is gone. It has been bounced off. Second, Aleve is a much lighter shade of blue. And everything, I repeat EVERYTHING is covered in the dust of Vicodin and aspirin (I started carrying these after a Cardiologist said they were good to take or administer if someone had the symptoms of a heart attack. I met this guy on our cruise, with our parents, to the Panama Canal --- seemed like a good idea to add them to the "kit"). What does this mean? Think!!! People, think!!!! Everything out of my med kit has a bitter and fowl coating!! It must be swallowed quickly and with a strong tasting fluid.

So Arn went for a run this morning. Being sick, I was sleeping hard and never heard him leave and only barely moved when he returned. After he showered, we had breakfast and headed out for the day. We decided to take the subway across the city to check out an "underground tour". After four or five stops on the subway line, we had to get off. Arn was melting down in the heat, humidity, and crowd on the train. I have had this experience in Santiago and you think you are going to die. It is a horrible feeling. So, with 5 stops left, we decided to walk. It was a long, long walk. However, it was not without it's rewards. First, we gained a better sense of the massive size of Buenes Aires. At one square, I am guessing I could count 50 buses within my field of vision. The road held at least 16 lanes of traffic. As a pedesterian, it was a sea of humanity over flowing with activity. The noise was incredible --- buses, motorcycles, taxis by the hundreds, people walking by the thousands. Don't get me wrong, I grew up just outside of Chicago, I've been to New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and London, yet this seems almost oppressive. Maybe the heat and humidty have something to do with it.

Along the way, we decided to stop in McDonalds for a break. Despite the heat, Arn was able to enjoy a cup of coffee from the McCafe. I found the bathroom and discovered a "first ever seen" in McDonalds --- an Internet kiosk with computers for rent! We continued walking and found ourselves in the neighborhood for dentists. Arn was fascinated and I was creeped out. There were all these store fronts showing the lastest dental equipment --- tools, drills, chairs, etc. I couldn't look too closely, but it went on and on for several blocks. There were even places to go in for treatment. The chairs faced the street so everyone could watch you having your teeth cleaned or whitened. Weird!!!

We also walked through the financial district. The taller buildings provided better shade from the sun. On many streets, the pedesterians took over. They filled the sidewalks and street. While cars were still 'allowed', they didn't dare to attempt it. It was like watching water that overflowed the river bank and just spread everywhere. The people overflowed the sidewalks and filled the street.

Eventually, we reached the location for the tour. We pressed a call button and talked over the intercom. The tour was scheduled to start in 90 minutes. So, we made a reservation and went off in search of lunch. We found a great looking pizza place with a real brick oven. The pizza was awesome and our Coke Zero was served in glasses bottles. My 1/2 of the pizza included tomato sauce, cheese and fresh tomatoes. Arn's 1/2 was tomato sauce, garlic and anchovies. He merged the best of his slices with the best of my slices and enjoyed the combination he had expected.

Our underground tour was a cool look into the past of Buenes Aires. This guy bought this run down, condemned property for very little money in the mid 80's. His plan was to build a restaurant and art gallery. As restoration work commenced, the history of the place started to be revealed. At the lowest level, they found three small houses built in the 1700's. In the mid 1800's, a wealthy family built a large property right ontop of the older houses. This house included rooms for servants. They found the cisterns used to collect and hold water. From 1880 to 1965, the house was used as a boarding house for immigrants from Europe. The most interesting feature was the fact at one time a river ran under the house. It ran under most of the buildings in the neighborhood. People built over the river and those that could afford it, built tunnels to enclose the river. The rivers were used as the sewage system and smelled terrible.

So, rather than building a restaurant and art gallery, the owner decided to restore this piece of history. On the tour, we walked through the old courtyards and tunnels. The river was diverted to run under the street and these tunnels are now dry. We could see the old walls from the original house, the house as it was built in the 1800's, and the tunnels. It was a very interesting look into the past.

Given our long walk in the morning, we decided to catch a taxi. Yes, the subway would be both cheaper and faster, but neither of us were up for the sardine in a can in 80 degrees with 100% humidity. It was actually interesting to experience the traffic of BA from inside of a cab. First, the people cycling (yes, there were a few), were insane. Several rode "no hands" and without helmets. It looked like a death wish to me. Second, the motorcyclists were also crazy --- wearing helmets but most not strapped on and tipped slighty off their heads. They wove through traffic like bees navigating through flower beds. For all the traffic, the painted lines on the road marking the lanes were merely there to suggest which direction traffic should be headed. No one drove within the lines. They bobbed and weaved like the motorcycles. It was one huge game of chicken --- who would touch the brake first. Of course, this was all played out at high speed with little respect for red or green lights. At one point, our taxi driver slammed the brakes, locked up the wheels, and the taxi started sliding and twisting. We thought for sure we were headed into the car in front of us. Once it looked like we might stop in time, I looked back expecting to see another car headed for us. Luckily, there was no one there. And seatbelts? What, there were no accessible seatbelts in the back of this taxi!

For dinner, we stayed close to our hotel and tried a great Italian place. We sat outside and made good use of the warm weather. We shared an eggplant parmasean thing to start. For dinner, Arn had a steak dish with Rosemary potatoes and garlic spinach and I had some kind of fish with tomatoes, eggplant and asparagus and a cheese soufflé. We passed on dessert. Arn said he wants my tiramisu and that will certainly not be what he gets. After we paid the bill, the waiter offered and brought us two glasses of champagne. It was a nice ending to our last in Buenes Aires.

Behaving Like Gringos (Thurs 3/18)

2010-03-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 65+ kitties
- 1 movie in English
- lunch in the food court
- dinner around the corner
- 1 sick person

I am sure there are those of you that will find our judgment today to be lacking. What, with all the musuems, galleries, yadah yadah yadah, in Buenes Aires, we chose to do what we have done. Well, in our defense I have two things to offer. First, there are a few key things that Arn and I share in common: we both hate horseback riding, we both love cemetary crawls, we both love factory tours (seeing how stuff is made), and we both have a sub-12 minute attention span for musuems. Second, you can take the American outside of the U.S., but you can't take the American out of me. Today, we decided to just enjoy a few favorite things.

We returned to the Kitty Park. Okay, it is the Botanical Garden, but we will forever call it Kitty Park. We were interested in checking out the conditions of the kitties after the massive rain storm. Unlike yesterday, the cats were gathered in huge prides like something off of Animal Planet. The first "pride" included 17 cats stretched out on the lawn next to a sign that read, "Please Stay Off The Grass". The next pride, about 10 cats, claimed a statue and the surrounding stone work. Tails and paws hung leisurely off the edges as they enjoyed sleeping in the emerging sun. The final pride, perhaps 21 members, took over a patio area that had become storage for supplies and building materials. Cats were tucked into corners, between stacks of lumber, stretched out on tables and sitting in the sun.

After a visit with the felines, we went to see the movie, "The Hurt Locker". It was nice to just do something we enjoy doing at home. Afterward, we checked out the nearby shopping mall. It was new, huge and filled with all kinds of high-end retail. We surveyed the food court and had choripan (sausage on bread) for lunch. It was good, but I should have gone with my original idea --- ordering dessert instead of lunch.

We returned to the hotel. I was pretty wiped out with a cold. I sound exactly like the chica on the plane from a couple of days ago. So, for dinner we decided to check out the Japanese/Peruvian restaurant around the corner from our hotel. Now, you might wonder --- how do they put Japanese and Peruvian food together. It is pretty easy as both cultures like raw fish. One is sushi or sashimi and the other is ceviche. So, we ate some of it all. Our conclusion was 1) it was good, but not as good as at home (the place we tried was highly rated and reviewed), and 2) the people in BA are obsessed with Japanese food. It seems to be the new "new thing".

A note about restaurant reservations --- we have made a few interesting discoveries. Some places only take reservations for the eariliest seating which is 8:30pm. So, if you are willing to eat "early", you are guaranteed your table. After that, all bets are off. The place we tried today for dinner had a different policy. They took reservations. If you arrived without one (like we did), they will tell you if they hav a table and if they do, they will tell you how long you can have it. For example, we arrived a few minutes after 8pm and we could have the table until 9:30pm. It worked perfect for us and the people who had the table reserved for 9:30pm. I like this policy.

Exploring Buenes Aires (Wed 3/17)

2010-03-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 1 more haircut
- 75+ kitties!
- 1st McDonalds in Argentina
- Best cemetary crawl ever!
- Shopping on steriods
- 1st Starbucks in Argentina
- 1st subway ride on oldest subway in Latin America
- 4 tired feet
- 2 "drown looking rats"
- Most memorable dinner
- Most outrageous statement by a local

If you get the idea that today was jam packed, then you are right. We started our day by walking to the Botantical Gardens. In route, we discovered that the camera batteries were dead. The camera has this bad design where it seems to turn itself on, allowing the batteries to drain while inside a jacket, pocket, or pack. Arn discovered today's lack of "juice" when he went to take a photo of one of Buenes Aires many "dog walkers". This woman was about 110 pounds, walking about 600 pounds worth of dog. No joke, she had 10 or 11 different dogs and leashes. So, we decided to split up and multi-task. I would stop in a hair salon for a haircut while Arn raced back to the hotel to put a quick charge on the camera.

I had a haircut photo in my pocket (same photo I pester Molly with in Seattle when I get a cut). So, it was easy -- point to the photo and say, "Como esto". Then, I think she asked if I really wanted it that short, did I understand how short that is on top, do I know how to style hair like that, etc, etc, etc. I tried to explain how long ago was my last cut and yes, chop it off. In the U.S., there is an infinite number of styling products to make short hair stick up. In this salon, there were zero and probably because other than men, there has never been a woman with hair this short before. And, by my standards she trimmed it. I think she was too nervous to cut it as short as the photo. I'll see what Molly thinks in a month. My mom would say, "she gapped it". There are a few weird bits, but mud, gel, and clay can hide a lot for a few weeks.

So, with a bit less hair and a bit of life in the camera, we resumed our pursuit of the botantical gardens. It is loved by people in search of beautiful plants. This was nice, but we have enjoyed awesome scenery, so we came for the second reason people love this park -- the feral cats. It is very sad to think about a pack of feral cats, living in a park, and most of them abandoned by their once families. Still, we wanted to check it out. It was unreal. There were kitties everywhere. You could stand in one place and several kitties might walk up to check you out. We saw a woman sitting on a bench reading. On the bench with her was a cat splayed out, sound asleep. Under the bench there were two more cats. And sitting near her feet, were still two more. We found cats crashed out in the grass, sleeping with their tongues sticking out. We found a few doing the "sleeping on my head upside down" thing. We found bushes with three or four cats crashed out together. Surprisingly, most were in good shape, well groomed, and friendly. I particularly enjoyed watching the dogs getting walked on the sidewalk outside the park while the cats seemed to rule every domain inside the park and gardens.

Arn has this thing about trying McDonalds in every country we visit. Before today, we had never been to one in Argentina. This has been resolved. And for those that have requested some food photos, this one was been captured. They were the best french fries since we left the U.S.

After lunch, we headed to the oldest cemetery in BA. If you didn't know this about us, we love to visit old cemeteries. We have spent entire days crawling through them. We have even done this in Seattle. Today's cemetery wins the award for most different and most creepy. The whole place is walled in. From the outside, you can't see in. From the inside, you can't see out. It is a tall, solid wall. From the inside, there is nothing green other than a few palm trees. The cemetary is rows and rows of walled together "things". I don't know the right term. They are these little above ground crypts. Most are set up the same way -- small room, a set of shelves holding two coffins (one stacked on top of the other), a metal grate in the floor, a staircase down to a lower level, and Jesus on the Cross on the wall. Some were very fancy little buildings --- granite, statues, stain-glass, turets up top, brass fixtures. Others were out of a horror movie --- crumbled brick, broken doors wired shut, coffins that were toppled off the shelves and cracked (no I an not bullshiting you on this), and ivy growing up through the floors. It was seriously spooky and not a place I want to be after dark and note: I grew up with a cemetary on the other side of the fence in our backyard. This cemetery is the resting place for "important", "wealthy", and "historical figures" in BA. Think presidents and military leaders. We took photos at Eva Perón's "place". Really, what do you call it? Her "crypt"? And where is she in there anyway as there are a lot of names on the door and only two coffins? The oldest grave we found was from someone born ~1760 and died ~1830. And they are still packing them in there as we found signs of current activity.

Leaving the cemetery, we headed to central shopping district. The "main drag" is closed to cars. Arn read that over 1,000,000 people walk this stretch of retail everyday. I think they were all there at the same time! It was mayhem. I have never understood how someone could get pickpocketed. However, the overwhelming nature of shopping here makes it seem like it would be very easy to get distracted and never notice it. It was a bizarre collection --- high end retail (say, "Izod") right next door to cheap boutiques selling plastic jewelry and flipflops. In the midst of it, we crossed a huge mall in a old and beautifully restored building. It reminded me of shopping in the Venetician Hotel in Las Vegas only much much bigger. Inside, we found a Starbucks. Arn learned that when you buy coffee here, you pay extra for the cream.

With 4 tired feet, we decided to take the subway back to our hotel. We have been told the subway was built in 1913 and is the oldest subway in Latin America.

We crashed for a while watching bad television and using the internet which only works in th hallway and lobby. While not private, it is at least fast. Now, at some point the skies opened up and it began dumping rain. I mean it was a down pour. So, we figured we'd get a cab to dinner. The hotel called for a cab, but it would take 30 minutes and our reservation was in 30 minutes. The girl tried to hail a cab. We finally gave up, borrowed two umbrellas from the hotel, and headed out into it. Within minutes, our feet were soaked, my nightgown-turn-dress was soaked, and Arn's pants were soaked. Now, maybe this is where I should tell you --- the streets in BA are not clean. There is a lot of trash. There is a ton of dog shit. And, my best explanation for the poor quality in sidewalks is that every business, building, establishmet is responsible for it's "out front sidewalk turf". So, the surface material changes every 6 to 25 feet. Some is slick when wet. Much of it is busted and uneven with the equivalent of potholes. So, add all this together --- rain, darkness, crappy surface, dog shit, and two people in sandals. You know we were glad to reach the restaurant.

Tonight's dinner selection was the best recommended steak house. It was a place called, "La Cabrera". This was truly the shock and awe dinner of the trip. We were told to order only one meal and share it. So, we ordered a cabresse salad and "one" order of fillet steak to share. Now, here is what came to the table:

1) bread sticks plus a basket of assorted rolls, roasted garlic, a jar with black olive paste, and a jar with a mayonaise garlic paste. The capresse salad included fresh and dried tomatoes.

2) "one fillet steak" --- FOUR pieces of fillet arrived. I estimate each to have been 6 ounces. And then, there were the 14 accompaniments!!! Yes, that was FOURTEEN!!! In one moment, this waiter deposited onto the table in front of us more variety in vegtables that we experienced in THREE weeks while on or near the Carretera Austral! People could hear our giddy laughter and Arn repeating, "This is unbelievable, this is unbelievable, I mean really this is unbelievable". This was the moment we needed to take food photos and didn't have the camera. And, you probably think we have lost our ability to count, so we are going to enumerate the dishes:
1. Baby potatoes roasted in a mustard sauce
2. Hearts of palm with homemade 1000-island type dressing
3. Sliced green olives with a chimichurri type sauce
4. Artichoke hearts with bell peppers of three different colors
5. Sundried tomatoes with mini corns
6. Black olive tapenade
7. Mashed pumpkin
8. Mashed potatoes
9. Pickled onions
10. Peas with mushrooms
11. Carrots with roasted garlic
12. Lentils
13. Roasted eggplant with tomatoes and onions
14. Homemade stewed applesauce

It was shocking and awesome and all of it was fantasic. We counted the dishes, we counted the unique number of fruits and vegtables, we compared it to our sum total for the Carretera Austral, and we continued to eat. If I arrive home and I look like I gained weight, you'll know it came from Buenes Aires. This meal was such a contrast to the days our eyes feasted and stomaches longed for something better. Really, if this meal was waiting at the end of the day's ride on the Carretera, I think I might still be cycling --- laps on the Carretera to earn this meal night after night. If you are ever in BA, this is a must experience. And the price for this "one filet and it's accompaniments"? $20!!!

Our unabashed expressiveness and enthusiasm over this meal drew the attention of the table next to us. It was so much so that we struck up a conversation. Arn explained where we have been, what we have done, and how far we had traveled by bike. They were a couple from Buenes Aires. He is a radiologist and she was a woman that kept referring to him as "the doctor". I don't know what this says about the relationship between them. Anyway, they, being Argentinian, enjoyed it when we said the people in Argentina are better cooks than the Chileans. The "doctor" was quick to say they are the best cooks in the world. I both disagreed and I enjoy the ocassional "stirring the pot". So, I added that yes the Argentinians are better than the Chileans, but the best in the world is a title the belongs to the Peruvians. At some point, the conversation turned to the earthquake in Chilean. This comment will stick in our memory for a long time. And I quote "the doctor"--- "We feel badly for the Chileans. Many have lost everything. But, as a result of the earthquake, they say Argentina is 20cm wider!!!" Can you believe this?!?! So many people have died and so many people have lost everything and this guy is talking about 8 inches of dirt!

We finished dinner with strawberries flambé and vanilla ice cream. This was a night worth returning to the hotel and washing my feet and sandals and declaring my dress too wet and dirty for anything other than the Lavanderia.

Buenes Aires (Tues 3/16)

2010-03-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 2 gringos eat dessert for breakfast
- 1 long flight
- 1 haircut

This dessert for breakfast thing beats bad toast. Arn considered the eggs, but the eggs are seriously under-scrambled. So when desperate, they work. But today, we stuck with cookies, bars and cakes.

This was our first trip to an airport since leaving the U.S. on Jan 22nd. The "in country rules" were pretty lax --- leave your shoes on, don't pull out any laptops, and carry as much liquid and gel as you like. While in line, a young couple asked, "Are you from Seattle?" They are from Seattle as well and claimed our numerous REI logos gave us away. It was my pants and my traveling duffle bag. Go figure.

Despite it feeling like a long flight that would never end and the fact that the women next to me sounded like she was dying from the flu (more on this next week when I feel the same way), I was glad to be getting out of the wind and cold.

Our landing in Buenes Aires was a rough smack to the ground. Even Arn said, "Wow, that was a hard landing". I explained it to him -- "You see, this pilot is used the wind in Patagonia. He normally has to gun it to get to the ground through the head wind". We both laughed at this as it is probably true.

Our hotel in BA (Buenes Aires) is a super modern place. The room has the biggest bed we have ever seen. We have CNN in English (I have yet to run all the other channels to check my options). The tables and chairs and other furniture items look like something out of Italian design catalog. Breakfast is included for the price of $100 per night. This seems like a good deal.

After arriving, Arn went out for a run. Not understanding the neighborhood safety for a woman alone, I decided to walk/run laps in the stairwell rather than go for a walk. There are nine stories of stairs and I do this at home in Seattle, so it beats looking for a gym. At least this stairwell has a skylight at the top and if I move fast enough, the motion sensitive lights stay turned on.

After showers, we took to the streets for a walk. Arn found a place to get his hair cut. You need to imagine a place that looked the inside of the barber shop on the Andy Griffith Show....same chair, same mirror, guy dressed in the same smock with the same patch pockets. He even used a straight edge razor over Arn's ears. Arn had to remove his glasses and once the guy got started, Arn put his glasses back on to check the length. He asked me, "Do you think that's too short?" I had to laugh. I explained, "It doesn't matter now. He has to make it all match, so go with it". It is not a bad haircut.

We wanted a homerun experience for dinner and chose a sure bet -- Astrid y Gaston. It is Peruvian food. We've been to one in Santiago and Quito. And, we have been to the sister restaurant, La Mar, in San Francisco and Santiago. In a word, it was awesome! We started with a very fine PIsco Sour. We shared a selection of "causas" --- mashed sweet potato base topped with crab, octopus, or shrimp and intense sauces. Arn had salmon and I had merluza (hake). It was out of this world. For dessert, we did a "tiramisu unplugged" thing. It was the components of tiramisu, but not put together. It was okay. We had a nice white wine (for a change). It was a torrontes. The whole dinner was a great experience --- service, atmosphere, food, and drinks. It will be hard to top this!

More Photos!!!

2010-03-16T05:31:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to our photos. You will need to copy and paste. This is the same link as before, but Arn has added 150 new pictures! He says, "Sorry about all the photos from Fitz Roy -- he just couldn´t cut them back any further".

http://picasaweb.google.com/ArnSchaeffer/ChileAndArgentinaCycling2010#

Killing Time (Mon 3/15)

2010-03-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- Dessert for breakfast
- 1 load of laundry
- Hours and hours of Internet
- 1 pizza

Well, we became honorary Argentinians at breakfast. We both passed on eggs and enjoyed only sweets for breakfast. In the U.S., these bar, cookies and slices would be called only one thing --- dessert!

Arn took our laundry to the Lavanderia. We will arrive in Buenes Aires with mostly clean clothes. I say mostly because we can't send our only pair of pants to the Lavanderia. It is too cold to try and get by in shorts for the day. So, I will handwash our pants at some point.

We spent hours on the Internet. Yes, we are junkies and are getting our online fix. After El Chaltén, it is going to take time to get caught up. Arn has been working on photos and future travel reservations. I've been working on travel research, communications concerning projects in Seattle and generally goofing off.

Before lunch, we scouted a new place for dinner. More on this after we try it. For lunch, we enjoyed a pizza and huge bottle of Pepsi Light. We prefer Diet Coke, but Pepsi products are sometimes the only option.

Arn spent the afternoon on the Internet. I spent the afternoon watchig a bad movie, but at least it was in English. Dinner was not at the place we scouted, but some where else. Our dinner conversation included a night by night recount of every dinner we have had since we left the U.S. It was during that I realized I have ordered lamb three out of the last four nights. I can only draw one conclusion --- I am tired of grilled steaks, my search for something different has led to lamb, and it is time to get to better food choices. More from Buenes Aires.

Killing Time (Sun 3/14)

2010-03-16T05:14:00.000-07:00

Stats:
- 1 run for the Gringo
- 1 walk for the Gringa
- Wind battering experience for both

Our day started with more good juice and nice breakfast. Also, we are drinking real brewed coffee again and it is very good. With his new shoes purchases in Chaltén, Arn decided to go for a run after breakfast. He braved it in a pair of shorts! I put on my hiking shoes and went for a walk. It is far too cold for shorts, so I wore my hydroskin tights (longwear under my pants, cycling tights over my cycling shorts, and the best thing for under a drysuit when kayaking but that is a different trip from this one).

We are sick of the wind. There, I said it. It has turned too cold and we have been in the wind for too long. My scalp hurts from the wind. My ears are tired of the sound. The inside of my nose feels burnt. It makes me grouchy. We have seen countless dogs laying around sleeping in the wind. They are totally out while their ears are whipped around. We have seen two cats --- one tucked into a windsill trying to get shelter and the other looked exhausted. I think the rest of the cats have either left or committed wild acts that got themselves killed.

For lunch, we did the "El Camino Crawl". This is an inside joke that has been around since we first started dating. El Camino Real is a street in the Bay Area tha runs just about from San Francisco to San Jose. It is suburbia lined with strip malls and storefronts -- some new, some old. Lacking a good idea or a plan for dinner, we used to do the "Crawl. This involved driving to El Camino and picking a direction. We would drive along the El Camino until a good idea presented itself. So, this is how we spent time today; crawling around looking for lunch. We ended up enjoying an awesome lunch of homemade pasta. Arn had linguine with pesto. I had cannelones stuffed with ricotta and vegatables in a tomato sauce.

Our flight to Buenes Aires is not until Tuesday. Given how the flights are priced, this was our first opportunity to get north. We are both ready for calmer days and a change of scenery. I think Arn is most excited about the eating options in Buenes Aires. I am most excited to get out of the wind and out of wearing at least two jackets simultaneously. Really, this is supposed to summer or early fall. Since we got off the bikes, it has turned colder and colder and windier and windier.

So, until Tuesday, we are killing time. We had a super fast internet connection yesterday. I even managed to call my mom for the first time in many weeks. She told me about some chocolate chip cookies she baked for church. She said she tried one and they were good. You'll notice, she told me this yesterday and I am still thinking about it today. The Skype connection went whacky in the middle of our call and I have not picked up the WiFi connection in our room since then. Gremlins are in my technology.

For dinner, we returned to Don Pinchon's for dinner and again, "Batman" picked us up at our hotel. We picked up another American couple from NY in route. They are traveling on a crazy itinerary and going to places to see things that don't make sense to us. Well, tonight's dinner was different. Arn ordered lamb ravioli in a garlic and anchovy sauce. He expected it to be olive oil based and it arrived as a cream sauce. Neither of us are big on cream sauces and we continually forget that we must ask about that in Argentina. If something is deemed too strong of a taste, then they add cream. A lot of places put cream in their tomato sauce because straight tomato sauce is too strong. Same rule applies to pesto. Luckily, the restaurant was willing to remake the dish for Arn with olive oil. Now, I ordered what can only be described as a Fred Flintsone meal. It was lamb --- you know, the kind where they saw off parts from the lamb strung up on the crucifix over the fire. It was served with roasted root vegtables and a reduced wine and Calafate sauce. Calafate berries are a lot like huckleberries. They say if you eat them, then they assure your return to Patagonia. My lamb required the skills of a butcher which I don't have. While I love meat, if it looks too much like ot once was, it is almost enough to make me a vegetarian. I didn't peer too closely at the lamb for fear I would find a hoof or the bell that was arounds it's neck. Still, it tasted great. After I gave up, Arn took over and demonstrated his butcher skills. Tomorrow, we will try something different for dinner

Perito Moreno Glacier (Sat 3/13)

2010-03-16T05:08:00.000-07:00

Well, our morning started with a few surprises. First, we were presented with REAL juice squeezed from REAL fruit for breakfast. Okay, it wasn't the grapefruit juice I squeezed in Borrego Springs, but it was the best juice since the fresh squeezed orange juice we enjoyed for breakfast in Pucon or the raspbery juice in Santiago. Yes, I probably take juice a little too seriously. I just figure if I am going to drink calories instead of chewing them, they should be tasty. The second surprise also presented itself at breakfast --- so many food choices it was staggering. Now, do you think I ate bread? No damn way! Fresh fruit, scrambled eggs, and a Dulce de leche "cookie bomb". Today was the best breakfast of the trip!

The third surprise was snow. Yes, it snowed last night and the current snow level seems to be between 750 and 1000 feet above us. This means it was in the 30's last night where we are. Given that we are downhill and to the east of the Southern Icefield, I guess one could call this 'fall weather'.

Over breakfast, we discussed plans for today, our next two days and three different all conflicting weather forecasts. Based on our sizing up of El Calafate, it is a one trick town for us --- the Perito Moreno Glacier. Beyond this, there is no hiking, biking, or other outdoor things of interest. We are not into "treking on ice" or "horseback riding". As Arn likes to explain, a horse killed Superman. And, as I like to say, "I ride only one kind of pony and it has two wheels." And, we could go watch them shear a sheep on a working ranch and eat bad lamb for lunch. Yeah, that's not happening either.

So, we decided to hire a taxi for the trip to see the Perito Moreno Glacier. The price is not vastly different than renting a car for the day, but the stress level is hugely different. The taxi was easy to arrange and he picked us up 45 minutes later.

The drive to the glacier was beautiful. The lake water was shades of teal against the golden grasses and the mountains dusted white with fresh snow. We drove through a beautiful lenga forest and there are more signs of the impending arrival of fall. The trees are turning yellow, orange and red. Along the road, we saw a huge fox. He trotted into the center of the road, gave the taxi a long look of assessment and jumped back into the bushes. You aren't going to be surprised by this, but the wind was howling again. From the shelter of the taxi, this road cried, "Ride baby ride". Really, everything about this road was ideal for a road bike ride...nice surface, no traffic, beautiful views, and the promise of a nice experience. HOWEVER, the wind guaranteed that no rider would ever live out that promise.

Once at the glacier, our cab driver dropped us off for the "walk" to see it. For you to get the right image in your mind, I need to give you some context. First, there was a guy named, "Moreno". He was an explorer in Patagonia and set out to demonstrate that people really could settle in these parts. Frankly, I think he must have had an in with the gods because in this wind, no one would park themselves here permanently. Either the gods put the wind on hold for a few seasons or Moreno is also the inventor of earplugs. So, the glacier is named after this dude. Second this glacier is huge. It is part of the Southern Patagonia Icefield. The terminal face of the glacier reaches to Lago Argentina. Despite being 50 miles from the glacier, the town of El Calafate is located on the shores of this same lake. The Perito Moreno Glacier reaches heights of nearly 200 feet. However, none of this tells you the single most defining feature. Perito Moreno is an advancing glacier. It is actually growing in size. It has advanced as much as 6 feet in one day! Third, the glacier is easily accessible. From El Calafate, it is a short drive that ends on a pennisula of land that juts into the lake. At times, the glacier reaches this pennisula. It creates an "ice dam" between the face of the glacier and the land. Since the mid 80's, this ice dam has formed and exploded 7 times. The glacier is part of the national park (Parque de Los Glaciers). The park service has built a raised, metal grate walkway with viewing platforms. There is a cafeteria that would hold several hundred people, parking for probably fifty buses, and a boat ramp for those interested in paying the bucks to take a ride along the face of the glacier.

Okay, in case you haven't read between the lines, I will spell it out. The place is more Disneyland than wilderness experience. While many are surprised to learn that we love Las Vegas, probably no one will be surprised to learn we don't like our nature experience "a la Disney". Still, we can be entertained by spliting ice. There was only one big break. It was a stunning face to a massive glacier. Our favorite part of the experience was the drive through the changing lengas and the fresh snow.

Our taxi driver took the scenic route along the lake into the center of town. The drive went along a small bay of the lake. The edge of the water was very marsh-like and it is the summer home for hundreds of flamingoes. I have only see flamingoes in the wild one other time. It was in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile where it was about 90 degrees. Here, the winds are howling, I'm wearing long underwear under my pants and there are flamingoes playing in the water. It was an image that didn't ready add up in my mind. Who knew flamingoes would tolerate having their pretty pink feathers whipped and beaten around in the freezing cold wind with snow on the nearby hills and mountains? Really, isn't it time to fly north?

The driver also took us past the President's house. Yes, the President and her husband have a house in town and it turns out they are IN town. It was a nice looking place along the water. Perhaps her location explains all the road improvements along the lakeshore. Yeah, I sound cynically, but I'm probably right.

Our driver dropped us in town. We walked around town looking for something to compliment the bad cheeseburger we shared in the cafeteria near the glacier. Arn had a slice of pizza on his mind. My idea won out and we had alfajores dipped in chocolate. I like alfajores. I make them at home. But, what I would really love is a good, chewy chocolate chip cookie made with no nuts and semisweet chocolate. Also on the agenda was buying another duffle bag. While waiting for the store to open (everything closes between 12pm and 3pm), we ducked into the enclosed ATM machine to get out of the wind. We noticed a poster advertising loan rates. 18% for a mortage, 46% for a personal loan, and 72% for some type of business loan. This certainly says a lot about the economy in Argentina Once the stores opened, we bought another duffle bag for about $18 and learned latter that everthing in it will need to be packed in plastic bags. The duffle smells like manure. Okay, horseshit --- I thought I would try and improve my language for the blog.

For dinner, we were picked up at our hotel by the restaurant. How nice is this? The driver looked familar and I finally put my finger on it --- he looked like Batman (Christian Bale). The restaurant was a place called, "Don Pinchon". Everything about it smacked of Argentina. The lamb was strung out on a crucifix over hot coals. The tables, floors, and chairs were well worn wood. The placemats were black leather. The light fixtures were wagon wheel looking things with huricane glass bulbs. The bar was massive and bulit from timbers that still show where the tree branches were cut off. The menu pages were incased in plastic sheet protectors. And, the silverware had wooden handles. We enjoyed a great steak dinner and the waitress complimented Arn on his Spanish. We enjoyed great views looking over town and the lake. Once it grew dark enough, we noticed that music videos were projected onto the wall above the bar. The music was like a Deborah's greatest favorites collection --- Scorpions, Bee Gees, Nazareth and Poison...just to name a few. We will be headed back tomorrow!

Bus to El Calafate (Fri 3/12)

2010-03-13T15:17:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- Wicked winds, threatening clouds
- 3 1/2 hour bus ride

Today's weather was really good for one thing --- being inside - out of the wind. Man, it howled and growled. It reminded me of the line from the "Three Pigs" about 'huffing and puffing until I blow your house down'. I really don't know how the people in El Chaltén live with it. I would be dead with headaches inside of a month. If by some miracle I survived the first month, then in the second month I would be sent away for help due to sudden fits of outrage that involved cursing and wild gestures into the wind. And should they leave me on the "outside", then I would be headed to jail by the end of the third month for killing someone. Seriously, the wind could drive me to do horrifying and unexpected things.

Well, I am back working with my thumbs on the iTouch after a few days of being held up in an internet cafe without WIFI anywhere. Okay, they claimed to have WIFI, but "having it" and "being able to use it" is like the ATM having cash. This was the reason for my delayed postings. And, a theme seems to emerging for the day, so my thumbs are going to go with it. With the wind that is.

Okay, you'll remember that the "ponies" were sold. We are still traveling with the panniers off the bikes. So, we walked to the bus station looking like two people in search of a couple of bikes...a pannier over each shoulder, another bag slung around neck and shoulders, and bike helmets bobbing along clipped onto something. Luckily, the wind was at our back and it waited until we were safely inside the bus terminal before it really let loose.

With an hour to kill, I started studying a bit of "human "nature". The bus terminal was a long, narrow structure running east west. The doors opened on the north and south side of the building -- basically you can think of the doors as across the hall from each other. The wind was howling out of the north. The doors only worked to be open one at a time. For example, if the doors were open on the south side, then the wind pressure would not allow the north facing doors to open. Same physics applied to the opposite door configuration. Okay, you have the physicality and physics of the scene. A bit about bus travel ---- everyone does it. It is the way to get around in South America. Car rentals are much more expensive (and crazy expensive as a one way rental), you can't always cross borders with them, buses are cheap and usually the long distance buses are pretty nice. "Usually" is the key word, but anyway, everyone is on the bus....backpackers, fancy lady from France with her eyeglasses that match her sweater and shoes, daughter from Holland traveling with her mom, guy from NY with his high-end suitcase, and us. Now, I was amazed watching people come into the bus terminal. As I have heard my mother say, "Were you raised in a barn?" People were blown into the north side door. They would struggle to open it against the wind. But here is the best part, they would walk into the terminal and leave the door open! The wind would catch the door and slam it shut. Now, the same individual would exit the south side door and leave it open. Someone else would appear at the north side door, but the vacuum made it impossible to open the door. The south door would slam shut and now they could open the door --- usually walking in and letting the doors slam. I mean really people --- when you go to bathroom, you seem to close the door once you are inside but maybe you have been backpacking so long that you have forgotten how door technology works!! I was reminded of an English teacher in high school. From her classroom, she could see students leaving the campus in the middle of the day. This activity was against school policy. She talked about her fantasy --- a rifle with a high powered scope so she could "pop off their kneecaps". A woman sitting on the floor and I started to make eye contact. Pretty soon I realized the following: 1) she and I were equally aggravated with all these morons, clearly raised in barns, that did not understand how to close a door behind themselves, and 2) she and I would be roomates in jail as the wind would drive us both to extremes and we would be popping kneecaps! She was wearing a very nice Marmot jacket in my favorite shade of green. So, clearly she appreciates good gear and maybe we even share the same favorite color.

From the front row in the bus, we watched the scenery. The wind howled and the bus lurched around on the road. With low, dark clouds, we returned to the Ruta 40 views --- rather dull...rolling hills, no tress, scrubby plants bent to conform with the wind patterns, and very dry grasses. The landscape included huge lakes of teal water. The lakes are fed by the Southern Icefield, so the water colors are fantastic. Over the lake, the clouds took on a shade of green. The wind whipped up whitecaps on the lake and waves crashed onto the shore that exploded six plus feet into the air.

The dominate wind direction (yes, I know I have said this before) is out of the north. So, anyone cycling northbound is suffering. During our trip, we met several northbound cyclists that described pushing this headwind. I have been waiting to experience it. In fact, they talked about their riding strategies: ride early in the morning and ride during the night. Their days were spent trying to sleep in the storm drains that run under the road --- the only place to escape the wind. There are no services for many, many miles. I saw these storm drains and felt the headwind bouncing the bus and quickly concluded: I would never have reached the Carretera Austral from the south. Riders said they pushed the wind and advanced the bike about 3 1/2 miles in an hour. Not bad if you only have to go 3 1/2 miles. But, it you need to cover 120+ miles, then it is going to suck. This would have crushed my enthusiasm and you know how Arn feels about wind. He says, "It is my least favorite weather feature."

After the bus, we hopped in a taxi to our hotel. It is a lovely, contemporary place situated along the edge of the lake. The sofas in the lobby and bed cover are bright orange. They remind me of home and our new, big orange sofa. Arn says, "The place feels a bit sterile". To this, I say, "Bring on sterile! Especially if it comes without roaches and it is clean!" I didn't tell you this, but two days ago a roach crossed the table while we were eating lunch. I didn't complain because the lunch was actually pretty good. Still, I hate bugs...in case you hadn't figured that out by now.

We dropped our stuff in the room and shortly headed to the "downtown" area. In a town of 15,000 people, the word "downtown" seems like an overstatement. We were in the market for a duffle bag. It was raining pretty hard, freezing cold, and still blowing hard. We worked through the shops -- most everything was tacky tourist traps offering "El Calafate" printed on anything you can imagine. Well, almost anything because it was a long hunt to find a duffle bag large enough to hold the panniers. They can't be checked as panniers. The airlines will tear then up. We can't carry all four of them on the plane. Finally, we found a duffle and escaped the miserable weather to our warm, dry hotel.

During our shopping expedition, we enjoyed what will be remembered as one of the funniest moments of the entire trip. We stopped in one of these hokey "expeditions" places. We asked about their "glacier hikes". Well, it turns out we cannot go on their full day hike as Arn is TOO old! You could have heard two gringos laughing all the back in Seattle. We told the woman about our cycling trip and she didn't believe that he is really 46 years old. The age cut off is 45. Still, she pulled out a brochure for a shorter trip that would be available to Arn. No worries, we had no plans to climb on ice with any such type of trip.

My lack of interest in battling the elements resulted in dinner in the hotel. The wine, smoked trout salad and bread were great. Arn's ribeye steak was also prety good. Enough said. We are enjoying what feels like ripping fast internet. Tomorrow, we will see if Skype works.

Hike to Chorrillo del Salto (Thurs 3/11)

2010-03-13T15:14:00.001-08:00

Stats:
- 5 miles
- very little climbing

Again, we both woke feeling like we had been hit by a bus. It seems so odd. The "engines" are finely tuned Ferraris at this point. Our cardio condition is fantastic. I continue to be amazed at my resting and standing heart rate. It is low low low. And, I feel pretty sure we both possess the strongest cycling legs either of us has ever enjoyed. Seriously, my legs are in better cycling shape than after our ride down the coast, before RAMROD and before the race up Haleakala. And still, we have hiked a few days and we feel beat up. My only solace in this is knowing that it is a shared feeling. Arn has not been out for a run since before New Year´s, so he is feeling the impact of hiking. However, the blisters are my experience alone. Despite buying shoes and breaking them in, I am the one with the blisters. I walked the treadmill at a 15% grade for HOURS to work in these shoes. Arn bought brand new shoes a few days ago --- no blisters! Just to point it out, I have NEVER had a pair of cycling shoes give me a blister --- never, not once.

So, we decided on a short hike for the day...enough to call it a "fitness" walk. We headed out to see a waterfall. It was a nice single drop waterfall of about 100 feet (but then I am bad at guessing this stuff). A few of the lenga trees were showing color. It would be really stunning to see them in full color. Along the walk, we watched a few people go by on rented mountain bikes. I am sure they thought this was a "bike adventure". We agreed they were not riders. They didn´t understand gearing, they dropped the chain, and walked a few short bits. Arn made his typical statement, "WEAK."

The rest of the day was pretty lazy...internet, lunch, reading, handwashing clothes, etc. Tomorrow we head to Calafate. It is another bus ride, but only 3 1/2 hours. More from Calafate.

Hike to Lomo del Pliegue Tumbado (Wed 3/10)

2010-03-13T15:07:00.001-08:00

Stats:
- 15 miles
- 3600 feet of climbing

We said good-bye to the Canadians and Austrian this morning. They were loaded up to ride south. There is a good chance our paths with cross again in Calafate. However, we continue to say big good-byes at each parting.

Our plan for the day was to make great use of the weather --- completely clear skies and no wind!! Today´s hike was to the only view point of everything...Fitz Roy, all the towers including Cerro Torre. It is the "post card" photo and we had a blue bird day for it. Unfortunately, I didn´t start with "blue bird" feet. My left heal was taped for blister prevention. Two toes have blisters that have expanded under the nails and created pressure.

Now, I have to digress a bit. There are two schools of thought --- 1) leave blisters alone and 2) pop them. In the "field", I leave them alone. Once home, I am a definite popper. Well, I have popped these over and over and over. I can´t seem to get them to dry out. So, I have this stuff I consider "magic dust". It is powder lubricant to prevent blisters. Before heading out this morning, we both shook magic dust into our socks. We will see how this works.

The hike was truly stunning. The uphill grades were pretty continuous and only really steep at the end. I rented a pair of Leki hiking poles for the day. This might be the bargain of the century --- sweet telescoping poles with springs for $2.50 per day! The poles were a huge help. The trail followed a small creek, then traversed a large meadow, climbed through a beautiful lenga forest, crossed a gradual scree slope and then headed up the final steep pitch to the summit. The views were mind popping --- the Full Monty. We saw Fitz Roy, all the towers, Cerro Torre with it´s ice cream topper of a glacier. Everything was wrapped in ice. The glaciers flowed into the lakes. The colors were awesome...dark rock, light grey rock, red rock, blue ice, white ice, white snow, blue lakes, teal lakes, and full blue skies. Arn tried to take a photos that he can stitch into a full photo. The challenge is that the scenery was a full 360 degrees of stunning. We could even look back and see the town of El Chalten. We decided there must be a conspiracy --- the locals are keeping this hike a secret. We saw very few people and this was the best view spot.

At the top, we enjoyed our empanadas for lunch. We also enjoyed what Arn refered to as, "The best thing I have eaten down here". My best description is this --- dulce de leche pie with a chocolate layer on top. It was awesome and something I will definitely recreate at home with a few minor "improvements". Doesn´t Grand Marnier make everything better? After lunch, it was time for "foot surgery". The toes were trashed. So, I cut blister bandages into small strips, taped them up, and slathered everything in a thick layer of Vasoline. I also removed my sock liners and let my wool socks dry out. I figured the "grease" would help with friction and less the liners would give my toes some more room. I also popped more pain meds for my feet and we headed downhill.

Yes, I take pain meds for my feet every time we go hiking for any distance. It is a combination of Advil and Aleve. Based on the day and the pain, the drugs get layered and timed and dosed to fit the bill. Today´s strategy --- 3 Advil to start, 1 Aleve at the top, and 2 more Advil once the hike was over (so that I might walk to dinner without limping). The Advil is better at reducing the bone pain. After about 3 hours, the effects are gone. The Aleve is a "patch" with a longer duration. Now do you see why I prefer cycling? My feet don´t hurt! It takes several weeks of cycle touring before I need to tape my insoles and even then, there is no pain like today. Oh well, it was a stunning hike and worth the effort and consequence.

Taking Care of Business (Tues 3/9)

2010-03-13T15:04:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 1 load of laundry
- 1 attempt at the ATM
- 4 (approximately) hours of internet
- 20 minutes in the police station
- 2 bikes

Well, today was one of those days that you just can´t predict. Despite weeks of cycling, two days of hiking has left us feeling like we have been hit by a bus. With threatening clouds, we decided to call it a day of "rest" and planned on taking care of some business...laundry, securing cash & bus tickets, reservations on the internet, attempting to sell bikes, etc. As we started our day in town, we ran into Jullian, Shauna and Phillipe. They too declared it a rest day. It seems we are all feeling the impact of hiking...sore knees, sore feet, and sore leg muscles. Cycling is really a lower impact activity.

So, Arn tested the waters for selling our camp stove while I dropped our laundry off to get cleaned. He quickly scraped the idea and decided we would risk getting it home (given that it is used, it may get confiscated from our luggage). I managed to negotiate laundry pick-up in time for dinner. We suffered the day in shorts to have clean pants for dinner (really, we should have left the shorts at home and brought two pair of pants each).

We headed to the ATM in search of cash. The ATM is out of cash. Now, you might think I´m pulling your leg, but this is a regular occurance. Just because there IS an ATM, it does not mean it HAS money. There is only one ATM machine in town, so this errand did not take that long. Oh well. At this point in the day, the internet crawl began...from one internet place to the next to the next. It is SO slow and every time Arn gets on the "1 yard line", it locks and does not return. It was so frustrating and so slow. Eventually, we secured plane tickets and bus tickets. In short, we are headed to Calafate by bus on the 12th, Buenes Aires by plane on the 16th, and Mendoza by plane on the 20th. (More details as it unfolds).

We bought bus tickets for the two of us and decided to wait on buying tickets for the bikes. We were still hoping to sell the bikes before leaving El Chalten. At worst case, we figured we would buy tickets for the bikes to Calafate, try to sell them again, and if not --- then we would take off the most valuable parts and ship them home. Bottom line, the bikes will go no further than Calafate.

Our search for better internet continued. We ended up in a place called, "Anita´s House". Arn managed to get online and things worked "okay". It was painfully slow, but his connection at least crawled. Mine never got started. After 13 minutes, I tried to log out. It was painful. I just gave up. The woman claimed we owed twice as much as we did for my time. Then, not only did she log off my machine, she logged off Arn´s. He had to pay her for both machines just to get her to unlock his machine so he could log out of his account. When she returned the change, she continued with charging me double! Double and I was NEVER able to access my email in 13 minutes and we were forced to pay for 30 minutes (time in purchased in 15 minute chunks). Well, there was no reasoning with her. This was extremely frustrating as people were very fair with the internet issues everywhere else in town. And trust me, we were in nearly every internet shop today. So, totally outraged, we crossed the street and headed to the police station. Arn explained the whole situation to the officer --- "it is not the value of the money, but the principle of how we have been treated". Long story...but, our money was returned and the owner of "Anita´s House" will now know how screwed up their policies are for people trying to use the internet. And, we feel sure that copies of our passports are floating around the Argentina police department. If something "happens", remember this story --- this may explain something down the road.

We returned to the wine shop to check on the progress of our bike selling efforts. Bottom line, both "ponies" have been sold. Arn´s bike was purchased by the brother of the wine shop owner. His bike was stolen and he seemed very excited to get a new bike. I enjoyed the expression on his face once he grasped the benefit of grip shifts. Frankly, he stands about an inch taller than me and I think my bike would have been a better for him with a few minor adjustments. However, the "male macho" thing meant he needed the bike of a guy 6´2". I guess this is not unlike the woman that buys a size 4 dress just because her size 8 body fits into this one size 4dress. My bike was sold to a woman from Brazil. She is headed to the U.S. later this year and will take the bike with her to Wyoming. She and her boyfriend are planning to cycle tour in Nepal, so the bike will definitely continue to travel to interesting places. Selling the bikes really marked the end of our "cycle tour". It was hard for me to part with "naranjita". Arn took a photo of me, the Brazilian (Kika) and "naranjita". Kika promised photos from Nepal with "naranjita".

The owner of the wine shop said any doctor would declare Arn sick and crazy. He said Arn is the only person in history to say he would prefer to be paid in Argentina pesos over U.S. dollars! Given that the ATM is empty, pesos will definitely help us over dollars. So, the bikes are gone and we have the cash in the right currency for our trip.

I collected our laundry and we returned to our very comfortable, clean room. I sorted "his" and "her" laundry. On a trip with three pair of underwear and 4 pair of socks, I count everything...what went to the laundry and what came back. Many weeks ago, things came back without a sock and a glove. I had to hunt them down at the lavanderia. Well, today my nightgown was missing. "Big deal" you say --- "it is just for sleeping". This is where you would be wrong. My black tank top styled nightgown doubles as a dress for going out to nice dinners. Clearly, I have not had an occasion to wear it in such a mode since Bariloche. Still, I know that in Buenes Aires and Mendoza, it will be warm and a dress and sandals will be great. So, I returned to the lavanderia to track down my missing "vestido" (dress). I described to the guy and he actually remembered it (seems a bit strange) and then he found it bagged with someone else´s clothes. Arn later discovered he was missing his only cotton t-shirt. That was not recovered. Go figure. In Arn´s words, "You gotta watch 'em like hawk".

Best Day of Hiking for all of 2010! (Mon 3/8)

2010-03-13T15:02:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 13.2 miles
- roughly 2700 feet of climbing

After not getting the views yesterday, Arn and I declared we were only going to hike if the day promised the views we expected. We woke to howling winds and skies that did not convey certainty. We still got up and went through the motions of getting ready for a day of hiking. At breakfast, the owner of our lodge looked outside and declared it a good day for hiking. I was not as sure, but we decided it was a go.

We met Shauna and Jullian for empanada "shopping". We marveled at the choices. We even found chocolate cookie "sandwiches" filled with dulce de leche and rolled in nuts. We all agreed it is a sweet kind of overwhelming to have so many choices after so long with no choice. And, we also agreed --- our juice situation still sucks. With food in hand, we returned to our lodge. Here was the plan...we would get a taxi to drive us out of town to the trail head. Our hike would traverse the valley alongside of Fitz Roy and the Rio Blanco. We would reach a junction. From the junction, we would do an out and back hike to the lake at the base of Fitz Roy (Laguna de Los Tres --- the three towers). Once we returned to the junction, we would take a different trail back to town. So, the owner of our lodge called the taxi and we waited 20 minutes for our ride.

The taxi drove out the same road that Shauna and Jullian had biked into town. It was truly terrible ripio and not worth a day ride (something we had considered until they told us the conditions of the road and recommended against it). After about an hour in the taxi, we arrived at the trailhead. Our views from the start were mind-blowing. We could see the full tower of Fitz Roy, it´s neighboring towers, and the glaciers that abounded everywhere. One of the peaks is named, "Electrica" and it was not hard to understand why. The rock was brilliant red and appeared to be illuminated from within. Against the ice and snow and blue skies, it was stunning. The hike was a gradual climb through a lenga forest. The forest was thin and we enjoyed view point after view point after view point. The cameras were never in the pack for more than a few minutes. It was awesome. Arn said, "This is awesome, this is incredible, this is the best ever". In the way that I dreamed of the Carretera Austral, Arn has dreamed of Fitz Roy. He has wanted to see it, hike it, and know the place. Shauna and Jullian came with no expectations and knew very little about Fitz Roy.

While it seemed hard to believe, our views just got better and better and better. Arn finally declared, "If we get to the lake and can´t see anything, it is fine with me. This has been awesome and I am going to go home happy." Well, I didn´t share his perspective. I declared myself too greedy and wanting the Full Monty from this hike. It was an awesome display of rock, ice, water, sky, and wind.

We finally reached the junction and turned toward Fitz Roy. The trail turned upward. It was a steady grind for about an 1800 foot climb up and over the moraine. The trail surface was good, but I knew this would hurt more on the return downhill. As we climbed, the skies were sunny and the winds disappeared. The four of us joked about the wind and all agreed --- when we reached the top, we were going to get blasted. Based on the downhill hikers, it appeared that more clothing was required for the top. We continued up and up and up and up. Once at the top, the views were unreal....full views of Fitz Roy, the other towers, the glaciers, the lakes, and all the other peaks. The fog and clouds were gone. And the wind....well, there was NO wind! It was calm and sunny! We took photos and strolled around until we found a nice place to park ourselves for lunch. We laughed about how few times we have enjoyed snacks or lunch without horseflies or violent wind. Today was sweet!

Arn, Jullian and Shauna decided to climb one more short pitch to see if the views improved. With fresh drugs in my system and a lot of miles to go, my feet prefered the downhill to more rocks. I slowly picked my way down the moraine. As we left, the winds started to roar and howl. We were lucky with our timing. The four of us rejoined toward the bottom of the descent. At the junction, we took the trail headed back to town. For many miles, we looked back to see views of Fitz Roy and the other towers. The wind continued to howl and whip around. The hike wandered through a dense, short forest. It was more like a maze through tight hedges. The trails are very well maintained, so at least we didn´t feel like we needed hedge clippers to get through.

The trail finally returned to the valley that includes town. We had views of the mountains and the braided turqouise river below. The trail wound through large rock croppings and slowly descended back to town. Under the "Canadian influence", we returned for more ice cream --- same flavors as yesterday. Arn summarized the day correctly: "Best day of hiking for all of 2010!" It might seem like a bold statement for the 9th of March, but it was so awesome that we cannot imagine anything that could trump it.

We met Jullian and Shauna later in the evening for a great dinner and great wine. It was an awesome day. We laughed about how many miles we have cycled and how beat up we all feel after two days of hiking. Sore feet and legs were shared by all. Plans for tomorrow remain uncertain.

Hiking at Fitz Roy (Sun 3/7)

2010-03-13T15:00:00.001-08:00

Stats:
- 10 miles
- roughly 1200 feet of climbing

Well, it has been wonderful to stay in a clean room and enjoy a roach free environment. We are staying at a place that opened only last October. Everything is new and the bed is super comfortable. Yeah, I told you this yesterday, but it was worth repeating. It is such a welcomed change! The shower leaks like a sieve, leaving the floor soaked. I guess it is the reason for a squeegy on a broom handle as there is a drain in the floor. Oh well, it is not perfect, but it is MUCH better.

Our first order of business was trying to find a pair of hiking shoes for Arn and a daypack. We walked through town, checking each shop. Really, without a lot of effort or stress, Arn found a pair of Salomon hiking shoes that he can also use for running. And, we found a daypack that he has declared as his "new favorite daypack". This is a good thing as he is the one carrying it. This is lucky for my feet.

We headed off for a hike to see one of the towers near Fitz Roy. The tower is called "Cerro Torre". The end point of the hike was to the lake with a glacier in front of the Cerro Torre (tower). The day was not perfect, but we hoped the weather would improve. After a full day of rest and another day on the bus (all day long), we needed to get out for some movement. Or as we like to say, "The dogs needed to be taken for a walk". We were feeling a bit like caged animals. The hike left directly from town. We picked up some empanadas for lunch. The choices were staggering....way more options than simply "carne". We selected tomato basil, chicken, and beef empanadas. On our way to the trailhead, we ran into Santiago (the Spainard we cycled with for a few days on the Carretera). He and two other guys were headed to do the same hike and we decided to go together. They were still trying to gather gear and climbing harnesses for some river crossing they wanted to do. After 45 minutes of hanging around, we decided to head out without them. It was a 10 mile hike and the time was nearing 1pm.

The hike was nice...no major climbs, no steep descents. We reached a viewpoint over the valley and could see the glacier in the distance. The tops of everything were shrouded in clouds and fog. We continued, hoping for improvement. It didn´t happen. The temperatures were nice for hiking and we joked that we could even take the temps a bit cooler. Well, sometimes you need to be careful what you wish for. We reached the glacial morraine. The trail stayed low and curved around to the lake and the glacier. Well, once we gained views of the lake, we also gained a violent wind coming off the ice. It was raining, windy, and unbelievably cold. We basically walked up to the view, said, "yep, that´s it, now let´s get out of this". We turned and started walking back up the trail (this was an out and back trail).

Once out of the wind and cold, we pulled out the empanadas. We continued to walk and enjoyed the empanadas. We kept thinking we would run into Santiago and the two guys we met with him. So, we had our eyes out for familar faces. I am convinced we met most of the people that were on the bus yesterday. And, most of them had gotten an earlier start than we did. I looked down the trail and saw a person with a green jacket and a person with an orange jacket. I told Arn, "That has to be the Canadians". We started screaming, "Shauna, Shauna, Shauna". And sure enough, it was Shauna and Jullian (we first met them in El Bolson and enjoyed beers together and met again on the Carretera Austral). They too had gone to the lake, got beaten back by the wind and rain, but they took their lunch shelter in the campground. So, we just missed each other at the lake.

The four of us hiked together and shared travel stories. They told us about the crossing from Villa O´Higgins and it sounded like they had good strategies for managing a tough hike-a-bike. They removed their pedals and everything from their panniers. This allowed their bikes to fit in the trench. They managed to load all their gear onto their backs and pushed the bikes. They also told us about another tire blowout. They said that if there are 1000 tires you could pick for the Carretera, they rode on tires 998, 999, and 1000 .... not great tires. The last 23 miles of riding into El Chalten took them 6 hours! This is how bad the ripio was!!We told them about the boat trip to Laguana San Rafael and our day in the Valle de Los Exploradores. We also told them about my rear hub. In hind-sight, my hub came apart on the day we rode together (the four of us plus the Austrian and the couple from the U.S.). Of course, at this point in the conversation Jullian revealed that he was carrying cone wrenches and could have fixed the hub. We didn´t know there was a problem until the next morning after we had spilt company the afternoon before. Bummer!

As we continued along the hike, we ran into Phillipe, the Austrian. He is still traveling with Shauna and Jullian. He told us about his bike crash coming into Villa O´Higgins. He has the holes in his clothes and skin to illustrate the story. And, he told us that he too is carrying cone wrenches!! The five of us finished the hike in the cold and wind. Arn was nearly frozen. He continued to hike in a just a t-shirt and never broke out more clothes. Shauna and Jullian had dreams of ice cream and once in town we headed to the "helado artesenal." Arn had dreams of a hot cup of coffee until we walked into the ice cream shop. It was toasty, warm, and smelled great.

Arn and I shared a bowl of three different ice creams -- coconut with dulce de leche, chocolate with cherry sauce, and banana split. They were awesome and we don´t even like ice cream that much. Over ice cream, we hatched a plan for tomorrow´s hike and will meet at the panaderia to buy empanadas. We parted ways for the time being.

Arn and I headed to the wine bar. Several people have told us that the owners of the wine bar are very avid cyclists having ridden from the southern tip of South America to Alaska. They lived in Alaska for a few years before returning to Argentina. So, we thought they might know someone interested in buying mountain bikes as our trusted "ponies" are now for sale. After a brief conversation, we figured "show and tell" is better than "tell". We picked up the bikes and returned to the wine bar with them. Once they looked them over, they started making phones calls. Several people came buy to look them over and take test rides. So, now we wait and return to see what people think.

We enjoyed a pretty good pizza and a great salad for dinner. Our food and lodging has greatly improved! In fact, we have extended our stay in El Chalten by a day.

Los Antiguos to El Chaltén by Bus (Sat 3/6)

2010-03-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

This was the longest bus ride in the history of our 15 year marriage. It started at 9am and ended at roughly 10:15pm. It was long. The scenery was barren. The route headed down Ruta 40 through Argentina. Believe it or not, some people choose to cycle this rather than the Carretera Austral. It is completely dry and unchanging. There are no mountains, canyons, walls, rock croppings --- nothing. In fact, during the entire trip, we saw no more than five or six ranches and fewer than 20 cows or sheep. We did see huge herds of guanacos. I believe they are members in the llama and alpaca family. We also saw lots of rhea birds. They look like a leftover from the time of the dinosaurs and are the size of an ostrich.

One of the men on the bus had a "medical condition" that required him to urinate every hour. The bus did not have a bathroom. So, there were MANY stops along the road that added to the length of the ride. While our bus ride to Pucon included movies, this bus had no televisions, no airconditioning, no windows that opened, and did I mention no bathroom!?!?

When we arrived, we pulled the bikes out of the storage container under the bus. It was difficult to tell they were orange as the layer of dust was so thick.

Despite 13+ hours on a bus, the day had some spectacular highlights. You are going to be SHOCKED --- we arrived at 10:30pm and checked into an awesome room! For $70 per night, it is a huge change from the last three weeks. It is a super king sized bed. Everything is NEW and CLEAN and roach free! And, then it got BETTER! At 10:45pm, we headed to dinner and ate an awesome meal! The salad was super fresh and the steak was fantastic. While we love Chile and the Chilean people, we both agree -- the food and the cooking is better in Argentina! It helps that we have landed in a total tourist town. El Chaltén is the town near the base of Fitz Roy (more on that tomorrow). It was a long day, but a great ending.

Reflections on the Carretera (Fri 3/5)

2010-03-13T14:11:00.000-08:00

Totals:
- 1,111 miles (1,778 km)...a lot on ripio
- 64,100 feet (19,400 meters) of climbing
- 51,100 calories burned
- 139 hours of cycling (includes breaks and lunch stops - not actual ride time)
- 1 crash, 1 warped brake rotor, 1 flat, 1 loose rear hub (all mine)
- 1 lost grease port cover for a pedal (Arn's)

Our trip is shifting in focus from cycling to hiking. Given this, I decided to focus today's blog on a few reflections on our cycling and Carretera Austral experience. If I don't do this, then you are just going to hear more of the same from our rest day in Los Antiguos (bad food, slow internet, good room).

So, given that my thumbs on the iTouch are doing the work, then I get to decide the format. In part, you are going to get my brain dump thoughts. Then, I think FAQs are the way to finish this. We'll see how this goes. Given my technology, big edits are not fun.

This trip was more my idea than Arn's. We both left South America last year excited about this idea -- a cycle tour in Chile and Argentina. After we returned home, Arn did some reading and was bummed with what he learned...traffic, bad roads, miserable weather. Given my over optimism and love for cycling, we continued with the idea despite Arn's concerns. I had these dreams about a wild place along the Carretera Austral.

If you followed the story, all of Arn's fears were proven more than correct during the first two weeks. While we had a few awesome days, we had a lot of bad followed by more bad. In El Bolson, I suggested we pull the plug not wanting to see either of us get hurt and realizing that this kind of suffering might not be worth it. It is one thing for something to be "your idea and the other person goes along", IF everything is going well. If it doesn't go well and you are concerned about your safety, then being the "holder of the idea" feels lonely and a bit overwhelming in responsibility. I think I will never forget Arn's reply to my suggestion to bail and buy backpacks, he said, "one day at the time". I was surprised and had to dig up some backbone to continue.

When we left El Bolson, things started to swing our way. It included weather, roads, traffic, and meeting fellow cyclists. The magic started to happen. The magic only heightened when we reached the Carretera Austral.

I would love to find the right words to convey how I feel about the experience and how I will remember it. I know, this is going to sound cliche. The Carretera Austral, the towns and the people that live there are a wild mix and like nothing I have experienced before. Examples seem the best means to convey the thoughts. We attended a fiesta to celebrate the 27th anniversary of a town. People at the party included the town's pioneers and founders. Despite the youthful age of the town, the way of life is closer to that of my grandparents in a farming community in Tennessee than to mine or my parents.

Along the Carretera Austral, the infrastructure for supplies and communications reflect the remote and only recently reachable nature of the place. Some people have a telephone and Direct TV, many do not. Most don't have Internet. Some towns have an Internet cafe, some don't. Wood burning stoves for heat are commonplace. Gas tanks for heating water are turned on and off based on need. Trucks deliver gas to those that can afford to purchase a large tank. Others buy gas by the kilo. We regularly saw fuel and gas tanks driving the Carretera. Groceries are delivered via the same route. They use the same ripio that we have bounced and slid around on with bikes. Banks and ATMs are miles and miles and miles apart. While every town seems to have a welder, hardware store and a panaderia (bread shop), very few have a pharmacy and only one had place to buy cars, trucks, and electronics. And, only one town had a high school. Children leave to attend school, living with extended family or friends.

Every town also has a main square usually with beautiful flowers, trees, benches, and playgrounds. Families seem to congregate with young children. The elderly seem to hang out and chat. We have watched children ride horses through town and play computer games on the internet. There were no malls or movie theaters. In a couple of places, "screens" were created and movies were shown outdoors in the central square or at a special event. Many people tended vegatable gardens and greenhouses. Greenhouses were built with tree branches and covered in clear plastic sheets. Chickens, horse, cows, and sheep could be found in many yards. Dogs and cats roaming the neighborhoods occured everywhere. Most houses were simple, small, and not well insulted. Even in the summer, the nights and early mornings were cold much of the time.

At 6'2", Arn stood a full head above any crowd. With his height and blue eyes and my highlighted blond hair, we were easy to recognize as extranjeros (foreigners). We greeted everyone in Spanish and the locals offered a warm response. We had the occasional, "Hello!" from a school child eager to try out their English. Other kids were a bit more shy and wide-eyed. Many of the people we met were born elsewhere in Chile and relocated to a town along the Carretera Austral. Some came for adventure in the '50s and the next door neighbor helped to deliver her children and others came for the "calma and tranquilo" in the '90s and to be closer to their children. My impression is that few Americans are found along the Carretera; we are known more by our movies than our actual presence. We were frequently mistaken for a pair of Germans.

So, it was a place of contrasts. It was a place like none other. It was a place that will stay with me.

Q: If you knew then, what you know now --- would you still make the trip?
A: Absolutely! There are a few things in the itinerary that we would change. We would have taken a bus between Bariloche and El Bolson. The traffic on that road was not worth it.

Q: Given you answer above, will you do the ride again?
A: No, for two reasons. First, weather is what makes the Carretera either magical or miserable. We lucked into the best streak of weather during the entire 2010 season on the Carretera. Our only rainy stretch was through the rainforest. It seems only fair that it rained those days. So, I think we had perfect weather. Second, part of the "wild" of the place is the "newness" of it. That can never be had again.

Q: So, did Arn have a good time given that it wasn't his idea?
A: He did. He said, "If I had known we would have the trip we had, I would definitely sign up to do this".

Q: Is there anything you would change in your packing strategy?
A: Well, I am only going to answer for myself as Arn probably has a different answer. My first aid kit would have been different --- full tube of antibiotic ointment, more stretchy tape, a second roll of sports tape, and more Second Skin. I would have brought the long sleeve wool shirt that I debated and left at home. I would have brought two pair of convertible pants and left the cotton shorts at home. I would have brought my best winter cycling gloves. I would have bought better shoe covers --- ones that stayed over my toes and didn't leave snake bite holes in the back of my leg. I still have scabs.

Arn weighed in on this question He would have not brought a cook kit, stove, pot or fuel. Every night we camped, we could have purchased warm food. If we had to wild camp, in Arn's words, "In the history of mankind no one has ever died from eating cold food". Perhaps an emergency kit with a super small stove with a fuel canister would have been considered. He too would have brought two pair of convertible pants and left his shorts at home. He would have brought warm waterproof gloves for cycling and left the light weight full fingered gloves at home. He would have left the GPS at home and would have brought the card reader for the SD card (virtually impossible to find in the Internet cafes here).

Q: Any brilliant moves in your packing?
A: iPod touches worked brilliantly. With slow wifi the specialized apps use the bandwidth more effectively than a laptop. They were the perfect size and weight for cycle touring. Despite the snake bites (we both had them), the shoe covers were great. I bought those goofy looking Buffs for both of us. We had one in polypropylene and one in wool for each of us. We used them as cold weather hats, neck gators, balaclavas, sun hats, head bands and sweat rags (okay, at least I did). I packed big yellow refelective triangles that we attached to the rear of each bike. They were way better than lights and they are a must. Our Cabela's rainjackets were awesome. In a perfect world, they would have pit zips, but oh well. The Second Skin saved my bacon with road rash and I didn't know it could be used for that until I went through my kit in desperation. I will never leave home for an active trip without it. My new wool hoodie from Icebreaker was an indulgent and last minute purchase. They listed everything in black for 30% off and I jumped at the chance. It has only been washed once since January 17th and it is still smelling sweet. Really, wool doesn't stink. I have only worn it off the bike with the exception of 'around town riding' in Los Antiguos. I have slept in it more days than I cycled in it. It is perfect and I would highly recommend the indulgence. Lastly, it was a good thing I switched my brand brand loyalty from ASSOS to Pearl Izumi. The PI shorts have held up to washing, drying, and a huge ripio slide. They get a two thumbs up from this Chica.

Q: Any changes in the bikes?
A: Yes, in hindsight, we should have bought new handlebar bags that were waterproof. I would have also liked a better structured trunk bag that was either waterproof or had a waterproof cover. Arn still has hub fantasties about a Rohloff hub, but then we wouldn't be looking to sell the bike in it's whole form. We would not have used carbon fiber handlebars as we later learned you are not supposed to attach handlebar bags to them. Yeah, this weighed on my mind while ripping downhill on ripio at 15+ mph. The bars were spares we had laying around at home, but we should have bought something else.

Q: You left with so few clothes, how did you keep things clean?
A: Well, "clean" can be a very relative term. For me, my only "clean" priority was cycling shorts. I defined "clean" as washed in the sink with laundry detergent, soap or shampoo. Beyond that, I wasn't too picky. After riding, I washed my shorts and hung everythig else up to air out. So my socks, sports bra, tank top, wool t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, arm warmers, and gloves were worn day after day. My off the bike clothes received the same repeated appearance. Really, if the people that you see are different everyday, then it doesn't really matter. We found places to have our clothes washed on a "regular" basis. During our longer stretches without laundry service, I washed more stuff by hand.

Q: What kind of cyclist do you need to be to ride the Carretera Austral?
A: If you are riding for a day without gear and you are riding a mountain bike, I would say anyone can enjoy a day ride. Touring with a full load is a different story. I think you have to love cycling. You need to be very determined. And, if you don't like the idea of riding your bike in a gravel pit, well, it is probably not for you. And if pavement is your experience and preference, then this is definitely not for you. Arn adds, "You need the ability to deal with mechanical things on a bike. Drivers will stop to pick you up, but it is hundreds of miles between bike shops. We found only one town on the Carretera with a bike shop that could deal with problems and it was in Coyhaique".

Q: How does this trip compare to the trip you did down the west coast in the US?
A: This trip was much harder. With full camping gear, we carried significantly more weight. The dirt road surfaces were much more tiring than pavement. This trip had more climbing per mile and the grades were steeper than the coast. All of this was in an environment with very few services. Many stretches of road had nothing --- no town, no store, no lodging, no woman selling anything from her house, no organized camping. These stretches could be more than 50 miles. From a car, this is one thing. From a bike, this is entirely different.

Q: What were the biggest surprises?
A: While we had looked at photos online, nothing prepared us for the diversity in the landscape. The changes in scenery were extremely dramatic --- rolling meadows, small and tight valleys, massive and sweeping valleys, narrow gorges, red and black rock, rainforest and jungle, desert, mountains, lakes and rivers.

Arn was surprised by the lack of mechanical issues with bikes.

We were both surprised by how dreadful the food and the. accomodations were along the Carretera. Really, a Motel 6 would have looked like the Ritz Carelton. Okay, we have never stayed in a Ritz Carelton, so we are only guessing about this!

We were surprised by how many riders we met in the first half of the trip and how few we met in the second half. We enjoyed meeting so many different people. We had about two weeks in which we ate dinner most nights with other riders.

Q: Did it live up to the vision in you mind's eye?
A: No...it exceeded it.

Chile Chico to Los Antiglos (Thurs 3/4)

2010-03-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 13 miles
- 300 feet of climbing
- fastest border crossing in history
- roadkill: 1 dog/cat/fox....we couldn't decide

Okay, I am done with it. Breakfast was another horrible piece of stiff, dry, cold bread with butter and peach jam. And the coffee --- come on you know this --- it was instant. Until now, I have spared you my rants on juice. But not anymore. Unless you can find "jugo naturaleza" that someone has actually made in their kitchen, none of the juice is real. It is 90% some concoction of concentrate, sugar, fructose, etc. The max is 10% juice. I am sick of it. The fruit sucks and juice is worse. Okay, you now know what kind of orange "juice" I had this morning.

We loaded up and headed to the grocery store. Since we are leaving Chile, this was our last shot at another jar of peanut butter as the stuff cannot be found in Argentina. Lucky for me, Arn scammed the last jar on the shelf --- it is creamy and not crunchy, but I can add peanuts and create crunchy. So, we headed off for Argentina. It was a super short ride.

We passed not a single car, truck, cow, sheep or horse. It was almost spooky. We did pass San Sebastian. He is the saint for drivers. We have seen shrines all along the Carretera built to honor San Sebastian. You say a pray in his name and hope he blesses you as a driver. In our case, we said prayers for the drivers that were going to pass us. From the number of shrines, I might vote for some driving lessons and a few less shrines, but then I am not Catholic and I don't fully get the whole saint thing.

The Chilean border patrol basically said, "You're free to go". The Argentinian border patrol basically said, "Hola." It was all low key. The locals cross the border back and forth to shop for shoes, so it is not a big deal. In fact, it is said the the town of Chile Chico has better relations with Argentina than Chile. This is not surprising.

We rode into Los Antiguos and we saw what looked like more services than we had seen since Coyhaique. Our first goal was to sort out the bus. We stopped at the information center and the woman sent us to the bus terminal. Our bus company doesn't work from the terminal. Turns out, tickets and info are dispensed from a woman's house and she also runs a campground and hostel. So, we made a side stop to drop off our laundry with a different woman that does laundry out of her house. We returned to the search for bus details. We found the right woman and she was very helpful. Our bus to El Chaltén leaves on Saturday. We bought tickets for two people and two bikes. It is a 12 hour ride! At her place, we met another touring cyclist. He was a young guy from Colorado. He is traveling northbound. He has not seen many riders. He is hoping to ride to Chile Chico and catch the boat across the lake. He was pretty bummed when we told him the boat does not run until Saturday or Sunday and it is a big if as to when. For someone so young and fit, he actually seemed worn down, weary and perhaps a bit lonely. He also seemed to feel time pressure as he needs to be in Bariloche by the 29th to catch a flight. While Arn bought bus tickets, I reviewed the map with him highlighting all the places he can buy food supplies.

With bus tickets in hand, we headed to our lodge. Of course, we were early and no one was there. We headed back to town and suffered more Internet through a straw (this time WiFi) and another truly bad meal. This lunch was "pollo milenesa" --- chicken pounded as thin as paper, breaded, and fried. It just proves --- with enough ketchup and mustard, anything is possible. We returned to the lodge and the woman was home. It is a beautiful place and lovely room. Okay, CNN and FOX News (all in English) are a nice diversion, but they are not the best part. The best part is a king sized bed, nice linens, and NO roaches.

After showers and handwashing the clothes we were wearing, we enjoyed just hanging....reading, television, cold Diet Coke that Arn rode down the road to buy. We ventured back out on bike late in the afternoon. We went in search of hiking shoes for Arn as he is traveling with cycling shoes and his Chaco sandals. The best suggestion we got was to ride back across the border to Chile Chico. We looked there the day we arrived in Chile Chico. They had a few things that might work. However, by South American standards, Arn has boats for feet. So, we are not going to find his size until we get to someplace that sells to tourists. During our ride around town, we stumbled upon a "chacra" -- a small farm stand selling fruits, vegtables, homemade jams and liquiors. Our eyes grew wide when we saw bushels of strawberries. As a smart sales woman, the girl handed us two berries to try. We bought two pounds for three bucks and a jar of cherry jam. The tomatoes were stunning. They reminded me of the tomatoes from my parents' garden.

On the way to pick up our laundry and eat dinner, we watched kids playing in a huge communication dish. It was a very antiquated piece of technology. The dish was probably 20 feet across with large sections of metal torn, twisted and curled. The kids were climbing in, on and around it like a jungle gym thing in a playground. I wondered, 'Are their tetnus shots up-to-date?'

Dinner...well, we were hopeful. We ordered a steak and chicken dish to share with a salad and French fries. The salad had the worst tomatoes of the whole trip. Arn asked, "Are you actually going to leave tomatoes on the table?" You bet I was. It was too much to see beautiful farmstand tomatoes and eat something worse than grocery store tomatoes in Chicago in the dead of winter in the 1970's. Trust me, tomatoes are my favorite food and I still remember the difference between summertime and wintertime tomatoes growing up Arn claimed the steak was okay, but overcooked. I'll leave it at that. Now, let's talk chicken. I suppose on this one I broke my own food rule. Along the Carretera, I told Arn, "If you see chickens in town, order the chicken". I failed to think about the corallary to this -- if you don't see chickens, then don't order the chicken. In this case, the steak, salad and fries arrived. We shared everything and figured the chicken was on it's way. When Arn asked it, the guy seemed shocked. It was something like this (I have translated it for you)...."Chicken? What chicken? We don't have chicken!" Okay, this information would have been useful about 30 minutes ago!!! It was enough. The remainder of dinner would be elsewhere. We paid the bill and walked out in search of ice cream. The only place we found it kept the lids on the ice cream, so we couldn't see anything. Given our streak in food, NO ice cream is going to be selected sight unseen. I know, we are getting picky but you have not eaten what we have eaten and craved what we have craved. So, we walked in darkness back to our lodge. I was hopeful for the stars, but there was too much cloud cover. Once inside, we cracked open another package of dry, crunchy cookies. The flavor was orange. I broke our the cherry jam. It was actually a good combination. Paired with fresh strawberries, it was the food highlight of my day. The best highlight may be the bed we are laying in!

Bus from Cochrane to Chile Chico (3/3 Wed)

2010-03-04T16:30:00.000-08:00

Okay, this blog is going to be different. I am trying to write as it happens today...as best I can. Sorry, I was interupted by the offer of another dry crunchy cookie. However, this was the double chocolate kind and they are better. At least ground up they would make a good cheesecake crust. Arn just pointed out the spare tire for this trip. It is a can of that stuff you can try to use if your car gets a flat tire. And then he said and this is a direct quote, "I would feel a lot better if each of our bags were tied in; especially the one with all of our money".

We are on a "bus" headed to Chile Chico. It is NOT a bus, but a minivan type thing. We started with three sets of passengers...an older woman who arrived with her luggage in a plastic garbage bag. She is a local and YES she knew something. The second person is a young guy with a backpack. And, then there is Arn, me, two bikes, and our gear. Everything was loaded onto a rack on top of the van. The bikes were stacked on top of each other and tied down. Arn washed them yesterday. Any chance they will still be clean??? Any chance nothing gets damaged??

Hey, get this --- we are listening to our Spanish music and I just heard a song about las cucarachas screaming out of the wall. Wow! Does this ever match our experience last night. I am going to need to hear that one again. "Las cucarachas" are cockroaches.

Once the van headed off, Arn said, "Look back, with all the dust you'll never know if anything fell off". The driver asked me to open the window. Why? Well, there is such a gap between the floor and sliding door that a) I can see the ground and b) dust is blowing up through the gap and it looks like the floor is smoking. So, the open window, in theory, sucks it back out. My feet in my sandals are feeling gritty which tells me is it not a failsafe system. It does explain the layer of dust that covered the seats in the van.

On our walk to meet the bus this morning, we discovered that today was the first day of school. The kids, their families and the school faculty were all outside of the school as we rolled through the central square. They were singing songs together and someone who I guess was the principal talked about the importance of school.

After a short time in the van, I thought about the difference between driving and cycling the Carretera. In the van, it feels all wrong. The size of the place is the size of what I can see from the window. On the bike, the size of the place is measured from horizon line to horizon. It is so much bigger and grander from the bike. In the van, I don't feel the warmth of the sun that I feel when on my bike. I don't know if the horseflies are out. I can't detect the temperture of the breeze. No, this is not a place to be experienced from a car. It is a place to ride. Again, Arn must have heard my thoughts. He said, "You miss everything about the Carretera from in here. This is a place to ride, not drive".

Now, the van has stopped again at a supermercado. The driver indicated there were bathrooms inside. We went inside. A friend, Dan, requested that we take photos of the supermarkets. Arn went in with the camera and the owners loved it. This was a great example of the local supermercado. To reach the bathroom, I had to turn sideways to pass by the multiple sides of beef that were hanging on a rack by huge hooks. Unfortunately, I don't think Arn's photo will capture the pools of blood on the floor.

Our van made several stops picking up and dropping off people and packages along our route. We retraced the ripio we rode yesterday. As the engine sputtered and grinded, it confirmed that the road was steep. We eventually reached a junction. One way followed the lake around to the west -- where we came from. The other direction headed east to Chile Chico along the south side of the lake. This will be a stretch of road we had only heard about by northbound riders on the Carretera -- the few that actually took this route.

This side of the lake was sheer cliff walls --- think Big Sur. The exposures were huge and the drops were long. The road was blasted through rock. It had long, twisty climbs. This was followed by steep descents back down to lake level. And then, it repeated. Everything everywhere was rock and it was dry, dry, and drier. It was the desert. Anyone riding this would need to pay attention to water sources. The ripio was butt smacking --- I could feel it in the van.

I said to Arn, "If this was paved and I had a road bike unloaded, this would be an awesome ride". With the ripio and unloaded, this looked like two hard days of suffering with crazy wild camping and water hunting.

After arriving in town, the van unloaded and everything was covered in a layer of sand. We piled stuff on the bikes and headed off to find a place for the night. We found "girl clean" and left our stuff. We needed the Internet to help figure ot where we are going.

There are a few basic choices --- take a boat across the lake, ride back North to Coyhaique, catch a bus north, make the ferry on the 9th, and head to a place called Chiloé to continue cycling. OR, we load the bikes and ride the 10 miles into Los Antigulos in Argentina, find a bus, and head somewhere to go hiking. OR, we make the same crossing to Argentina and figure out a bus and flight combination to get to Buenes Aires and to Mendoza (wine country). Again working with connections speeds akin to frozen molasses, we turned to the internet to look at the weather forecast. We figured this would make the decision for us. It didn't. Mendoza is really really hot. Buenos Aires looks hot, but maybe not miserable. Everywhere else shows signs of a storm rolling through.

We decided to head to Los Antiguos tomorrow. It looks bigger than Chile Chico with more options. And, we are going to look for a bus south --- headed to El Chatén and the hiking at Fitzroy. We don't know the bus situation until we get to Argentina. Arn called to book a nice place to stay tomorrow night. They are located 10 miles away, he talked on the phone for 7 minutes and it cost -- get ready -- $7. Now, do I need to tell you what kin of mood this put Arn in??? It is blistering hot, the Internet sucks, he is slowly melting, and now he paid $7 to make a phone call literally just down the road.

Okay, things are figured out to the extent possible. We went out for dinner. As we reach the only real restaurant in town, a group of 20 Germans walk into the same place. A huge table has been configured for them. We grab a table and figure this is going to a loud, slow, and bad dinner. After 15 minutes with no service and listening to a very large and loud group, Arn declared, "I can't hear myself think in here. I can't do this". So, we crawled through town trying to find another option. A local told where we could get something that would pass as dinner. We ate upstairs in an ice cream shop. I will describe what we ate and then you figure out the title --- think bread like Wonderbread...melt a bland white cheese over the top....chop fresh tomatoes and place generously on cheese...add canned mushrooms and canned black olives...sprinkle oregano. What is it? Pizza!!! At least the Austral beers were great.

I now believe Arn has hit the food meltdown wall. He simply needs something better to eat. At dinner, I simply needed him to be happier. We returned to our "girl clean" room and it had finally cooled down from the day's heat. We took showers and called it a day.

Patagonia Baker Lodge to Cochrane (3/2 Tues)

2010-03-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 29 miles (all dirt)
- 2900 feet of climbing
- time...a really long 5 hours!!!

Well, this was the first day I woke up and thought I could sleep for three more hours with no trouble. While the forecast suggested clouds, it was another sunny day on the Carretera. The temperatures were a bit cooler, but not a lot.

We rolled out and began the "ride along the river into Cochrane". As you know, rolling in the direction of the flow of the river should be good news. Should is the key word in this sentence. We started off with a lot of rolling ups and downs. This was where I learned what I had left in my legs for this ride --- nothing; absolutely nothing. It was fatigue that actually hurt. Still, lacking a future looking weather forecast, the only good choice was to ride.

The Baker River provided a good distraction on some of the climbs as we scouted rapids. In one case, we stopped to "admire" the size and depth of a nearly river wide hole. It was a massive hydraulic. The aqua water was beautiful, but some of the river features where hard to judge from our height well above the river. In one section, the river was canyoned up and our road was cut into the walls.

At some point, our road turned away from the river. At the point I thought, 'hmm, we have done a lot of climbing through rolling stuff, but the grades haven't been that bad -- nothing like yesterday'. I even thought about making this comment to Arn, but decided that giving it a voice could tempt the road gods into giving me a beating. Well, I got my beating just for having the thought! We came around a corner to find a steep climb. Around the next corner it continued. And the next corner brought more of the same. I was in my granny gear carefully working my way uphill. I tried to bring my heart rate down a few beats everytime the road gave up a few degrees in the grade. We rode the outside of the corners to find the easiest places to ride. I knew I would find Arn at the top. Around every corner, I hoped to see him. For those of you that have biked with us in CA or Whistler, you will understand my comment to Arn once I found him at the top. I said, "Holy moly, I feel like I just pulled this bike up Windy Hill or up the road to the Flank Trail". Arn asked, "Did you ride it all?" I answered, "Yep". He declared this to be the new steepest section of the Carretera. At least this was confirmation that it wasn't just a pair of dead gringa legs that thought this was suffering.

Now, you know this downhill was not going to be drawn out and slow and over many many miles. We descended really steep grades and returned to river level. This time it was the Chacabuco River. The water was a light grey color with silt from coming off a glacier. Standing on the bridge over the river, we had a snack of chocolate and cookies. If I never eat another Chips Ahoy style cookie, this will be fine with me. I miss chewy Peperidge Farm style cookies. You know what is going to happen next. Come on --- tell me I am describing the geography well enough for you to know. We climbed again! Overall, the grades weren't as steep, but the surface quality went to shit --- loose, sandy, lots of loose rock, and for a while about half of the road had been graded creating a dirt mound about a foot high down the middle of the road. You could: a) ride on the graded side which was a better surface leaving yourself head on with oncoming traffic and with a dirt mound crossing to escape it, OR b) you could ride on the right side of the road, clear of traffic, but in shit ripio. Different strategies were used by different riders at different times. A note about traffic --- there was none! Given my legs and the climbing, this ride took about 5 hours and we probably saw fewer than 50 cars.

We passed a northbound cyclist from Australia. He seemed only too pleased with the good quality of the ripio and indicated it is much worse south of Cochrane. Now, his butt has only been riding ripio for two weeks, so he did not yet share our feelings about ripio. It was actually interesting to see the "glow" of a rider so new into the experience. He reminded me of a puppy that was happy with everything. He wasn't a seasoned dog that knows the difference between Alpo and fine table scraps.

Our day began with scenery looking like the desert. As we climbed, descended and climbed again, the landscaped turned dark green with Lenga trees. The lengas have very small leaves ---smaller than the nail in my pinky finger. Over the last few days, we have seen fewer and fewer wild flowers. Today, there was a few clumps of red and gold leaves on the Lenga trees. I have seen photos of fall colors here and it looks stunning. We just saw clumps of color. They were definitely a reminder than the season is short for riding the Carretera. The best weather is February. Frost has already occured in places. So, Fall is around the corner.

We rolled into Cochrane and decided to have lunch before finding accomodations. We enjoyed sharing two really good sandwiches --- chicken and smoked salmon. In the restaurant, we talked with a couple that said they passed us on the road. They were friendly and offered us all kinds of suggestions for what we should before the end of our trip.

As for the trip, this is the end of the Carretera Austral for us. The road continues further south to a place called Villa O'Higgins. From there, it takes two ferry crossings and a 7 mile hike a bike section to cross into Argentina and to return to a dirt road. The "hike a bike" is a deep, unrideable trench. In dry weather, it is slightly muddy. In wet weather, the trench is full of water. We have talked with northbound riders about this crossing. They moved gear separate from the bikes and spent all day moving forward the 7 miles with repeated trips. Oh, and let me not forget to mention the ripio quality. It gets much much worse. And, there are next to no accomodations between Cochrane and Villa O'Higgins and there is 150 mile of soul crushing ripio and wild camping. Now, my cycling shoes are meant for riding; not hike a bike. And, yes I brought a pair of hiking shoes, but seriously --- does this sound like fun?Last, and definitely NOT least, there is the matter of the ferry schedule. We mapped it out. We would reach Villa O'Higgins and have to spend most of the week waiting for a ferry; hoping it runs. Just because it is scheduled, it doesn't necessarily go. Seriously, two girls crossing from Argentina into Chile told us about a five day wait for a delayed ferry. On the Argentina side of the crossing, there is ONLY wild camping. They waited five nights with a group of cyclists. A farmer had to kill and slaughter a lamb to feed them all. Really, this story is too crazy for me to make it up!!! And, given what we have seen, the Carretera is for riding and not hanging out and waiting.

So, this is a very long way around to saying --- today was our last ride on the Carretera Austral. It is a strange feeling. Everyday has been centered around riding and now we don't have a ride for tomorrow. It feels good to be in Cochrane. We originally didn't think we would come quite this far south. We thought we would have exited a few days ago, but the weather continued to hold and hold for us.

So, we found a place to stay --- not even "boy clean". Our priority was to figure out "what is next". I have already explained that a "Further South on the Carretera" plan is out. The next step is to get to Chile Chico. It is a town further around to the east along the huge lake we rode along a couple of days ago. We could hang out in Cochrane for a bit of rest and then ride this section (after backtracking about 40 miles). This section is described as horrible ripio and we are feeling ripio trashed. Or, we could hop a bus. We heard from the Australian rider that the buses are full - probably because of the earthquake. We made it a priority to find Internet access and to learn the bus schedule.

For the bus, we went to the post office --- a room smaller than our kitchen. They were sorting the mail by hand when we walked in. They actually have 26 mailboxes in Cochrane (letters A thru Z). When you want your mail, you check the box that matches the first letter of your name. Does this communicate size of where we are?? Anyway, the woman was very helpful and we are lucky. We can get a bus to Chile Chico tomorrow morning and they will take the bikes. We bought our tickets and headed off in search of the Internet.

As we strolled through town, we watched a great sight come down the street. It was four little boys riding horseback; all on the same horse. Their nonchalance told you his was a regular occurance for them. It was certainly different than my "Big Wheel" that I rode at their age. It made me think of my dad's stories about him and his horse as a kid.

Our only Internet option was the library --- frozen molasses pours faster than the Internet speed in Cochrane. With a 20 minute limit, it was impossible to assess weather forecasts for all of our options. So, we gave up. We headed back to our hosteria and organized our stuff for a 5 hour bus ride.

Dinner was not bad. We had nice wine, steaks, and salad. Afterwards, we watched some television coverage of the earthquake with the woman that owns the hosteria. She explained that a young woman in Cochrane went to Santiago for medical care after some fainting spells. She left her family and young children behind. She was killed in the quake. It was not necessary to understand Spanish to understand the devastation experienced and felt by so many Chileans. In one film clip, they showed a house that was a pile of rubble. The family was digging through the remains. The man found his bicycle and dug it out. The handlebars were bent at a 90 degree angle. He collapsed in tears and sobs. It looked like nothing would come out of that rubble intact.

Calling it a day, we returned to our room and turned on the only working lightbulb. There was a scurry of cockroaches on the floor. I stomped them to death and Arn picked up the remains with toilet paper. Really, we need to find better places to stay.

Puerto Rio Tranquilo to Patagonia Baker Lodge (3/1 Mon)

2010-03-04T12:57:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 44 miles (all dirt)
- 4100 feet of climbing
- roadkill: 2 dead rabbits
- time...roughly 6 1/2 hours

We enjoyed another fantastic breakfast and this time with the company of a couple from Santiago. They were in Coyhaique for a wedding having left before the earthquake. They hope to fly home tomorrow, but the flight situation is unknown. After breakfast, we talked bikes and pricing with the lodge owner. He expressed interest in buying them for he and his wife. There was no alignment in our thinking, so the ponies continue to be ours. In all honesty, we both admitted later that we were not really ready to part with them.

We rolled out of town on the late side for us (9:30am). It was the warmest start of a ride and I started in my tank top and no additional layers. The sky was completely cloudless and brillant blue. The was not even a hint of breeze. So, while my body is screaming for a day of rest, this is definitely not the day. The legs, the triceps, the hands and the butt had to "man up". The rough ripio has made for upper body workouts to keep the bike upright. My triceps are sore to touch. My hands (thumbs, wrists and forearms) are feeling trashed from the banging despite riding with a nice shock. We both have butts that have been spanked by the ripio. The legs are just tired.

Our ride started out along the lake. We climbed and climbed and climbed and climbed. The lake was royal blue. It was beautiful with snow covered mountains in the distance. As the second largest lake it South America, the lake was enormous. After roughly an hour, we had been passed by 2 motorcycles, 1 tractor, 5 sheep and 2 cars. Most of the passes were pretty good.

We continued to climb and descend around the lake. We gained and lost the same 300 feet over and over. Eventually, the road headed away from the lake. The valley was enormous. The mountains came closer into view and they looked more like photos of the Himalayas than the Andes. Glaciers were wrapped over, around, ontop, and between everything. Today was our hottest day of the trip so far. It was strange to be dripping in sweat and seeing a landscaped frozen in ice. Our ride through the valley was nice --- huge views, straight road with long sight lines, good quality ripio and no cars. In was in this stretch I drew an important conclusion about assessing your death potential on the Carretera Austral. If you have long, straight, flat stretches of ripio and the surface is horrible with potholes and washboard, then you are screwed and taking your life into your own hands. The road is giving you evidence of a lot of bad driving --- high speeds, sudden braking. Today's long, flat, straight section had reasonable ripio to ride indicating our relative saftey on the road.

For the first time in many days, we enjoyed a snack break unhassled by horseflies. They are still around, but not as numerous and not as voracious. It was really nice to have the "calma and tranquilo" of the Carretera back today.

Now, I must tell you, today's climbs were the steepest in the trip so far. Arn admitted to using his granny gear - which is more like my 3rd from granny because he has a road cassette on his bike instead of my beloved mountain cassette - for the first time out of need and preference. I've been in that gear a lot, but today it was a stiff grind. Some were short, but others went on and on and on.

Around mile 27, we arrived at a fishing lodge. The lodge was set on a stunning lake. The water was the color of blue Powerade (the sports drink). We were planning to stop in another 30 minutes for lunch, but this looked like a better option. And, it was! Cold Diet Cokes on ICE and cheeseburgers!!! We sat outside, enjoyed the views, the food, the silence without the hum of horseflies. It was totally awesome.

After lunch, we continued south expecting to find a possible place to stay for the night in about five miles. It came up in three miles and didn't look too special, so we rode on. With a cheeseburger in his belly, Arn seemed to come to life. There was the usual, "Isn't this great? Look at that -- isn't that awesome". Frankly, my legs had trouble getting started again. It was hot and the road continued to climb. We had one serious slog up from the lake. With views of the mountains on our right (the ones that looked like the Himalyas, we crossed into an area that looked like riding in the desert! It was totally crazy -- ice in the distance and scrubby bushes and sand nearby. The immediate surroundings were a perfect match to the temperatures. The climbing went on and on and on and on and on and on. Okay, perhaps when you are climbing as slow as I was, then it goes like this.

Eventually, we reached a downhill with a few miles to go until Puerto Bertrand (our next place to stop for the night). Arn asked, "Do you feel lucky?" He meant --- do you think we can coast downhill into town? I didn't feel lucky, I felt dead. The legs were empty. Luck was with us and we cruised downhill and stopped at the supermarket. It was smaller than our kitchen at home, but we still found two juice boxes of pineapple juices and two bottles of sparkling water. I had been riding with an empty water bottle and 1/3 of a bottle on "must conserve" mode. (We filled up at lunch, but today was a soarcher in the sun and heat). Refreshed with fluids, we started shopping our options for the night. Again, they ranged from dreadful to dreadful that you can make work. We also knew about a place three miles south of town, but we had no idea if they had room and we didn't have a phone number for them --- not like we really had a place to call from in Puerto Bertrand (you gotta think small place). I was whipped from the ride and Arn left the decision to me. So, here it was -- the bird in the hand was really bad, the bird in the bush could be better OR we could be wild camping and eating PBJ sandwiches for dinner. I decided to roll the dice and we continued.

Now, after climbing what felt like all damn day, the road turned to follow the Baker River. In fact, we rolled past the "birth place" of the river as it is the lake outlet. The Baker is the largest river by volume in Chile. It was huge volume. Of course, we are now distracted looking at eddy lines and hoping to see some good rapids.

And then, we passed another fishing lodge. Arn asked, "Do you want to check it out?" He added, "I think this place is really fancy and like $800 a night". Now, we have stayed in SO many $30 per night places drinking $2 per box wine that I figured I could price average my way into something really special. Arn then said, "You be the one to look at it and decide". This was a shift in roles as I have stayed with bikes and let Arn handle the arrangements. As we rolled down what felt like a long steep hill, I thought, 'This is going to suck to climb back up'. And then I looked around and thought, 'Nope, I can't do $800 for this'. Arn must have heard my thoughts and said, "Come to think of it, I think the $800 was an all in package with food, guide and fishing". So, paroting all the Spanish I have heard Arn use, I asked about room availability, could I see a room, what was the price, do they have dinner and is breakfast included. It looked great --- just over $100 with breakfast, a view of the river, and they serve dinner. I said, "Yep, we will do it". We later learned that the lodge had had all kinds of cancellations due to the earthquake. They had six rooms. One other was occupied by a Chilean couple. One more couple from Spain was scheduled to arrive the next day (they were in the country before the quake). The woman even said we were lucky to be traveling by bike as people are concerned about running out of fuel along the Carretera. This left some lingering thoughts about buses, ferries, planes, and ATM machines.

We did the typical unload rountine, locked up the bikes, and enjoyed the attention of a very friendly kitten. Arn went to check out the river while I enjoyed a hot shower. He returned offering salty peanuts. This was the point at which I crossed to the dark side --- food was no longer interesting. Fatigue had taken over and this was the day I could have gone to bed without dinner. Not a good sign.

Despite my lack of interest, we enjoyed an awesome dinner with great chicken, a steak, and a salad with fantastic tomatoes. Really, in a place so far from anything and without the right conditions, it is magic how they turn out tomatoes from these plastic sheeted greenhouses. Dessert was described as lemon ice cream, but it was more of a frozen lemon merguine ice cream thing with strawberry sauce.

With two queen sized beds in the room and my level of exhaustion, I claimed a bed all to myself and fell dead asleep.

Valle de Los Exporadores (2/28 Sun)

2010-03-03T13:38:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 33 miles (all rough dirt)
- 1900 feet of climbing
- roadkill: 2 dead legs belonging to a gringa from Seattle (an endangered species in these parts)
- time...close to 4 hours

Okay, we are on the hunt for better food. Last night, I removed the sauce from my pasta and added butter, dried cheese and salt. We started discussing food before our dinner was served and we had to stop. While I might have stopped talking about it, I am still dreaming of the filet mignon from La Vita Bella with gorganzola cheese and wine reduction sauce, the pizza from Pagliacci, and a gyro from Wally's (a place I grew up with as a kid and visit everytime I am back in Chicago to see my mom). And, I would love Marjorie's borsht soup and brownies. Once we finish with the bikes, food may be a driving factor in our decision making.

With this said, we had a good breakfast. Nice homemade bread, homemade yogurt, homemade jam, scrambled eggs and REAL coffee made in a French press. It was awesome!

The couple that owns the B&B also have an "excursions" business. They offer treking and glacier hiking in the Valle de Los Exploradores (Valley of the Explorers). You will remember the guy, Santiago, that we rode with a couple of weeks ago. His friends told him their best ride on the Carretera Austral was actually riding up and back on this side road on the Valle de los Exploradores. The road has been recently extended back into the valley for a total length of 32-ish miles. And, you'll remember the boat trip we took to Laguna San Rafael. Well, this road heads into the backside of what we saw from the boat last Tuesday. So, we worked it with the owners of where we are staying to get shuttled into the valley --- all the way to the end of the road. With no gear on the bikes, our plan was to enjoy the ride back out the valley and return to the B&B.

On the shuttle, I remembered the day I walked the marathon in Anchorage, AK. They bused us to the start and I kept thinking, 'wow, I am going to walk this far'. We enjoyed the ride in andthe views were awesome. At the end of the road, we hopped out of the shuttle, left the bikes and did a short hike to a stunning viewpoint over the glacier. Ice seemed to hang from everywhere and filled the valley in front of us. I recognized a man at the lookout and said, "Hey, haven't I seen you in a bus stop twice recently?" He said, "Yes, and I have seen you four times since Coyhaique on your bike". He was very impressed that anyone would consider riding down here. The views were great and Arn took photos. And it was time to get the "ponies". As an aside, I actually dreamed last night that my bike was swallowed up in shifting sand dunes in a wind storm. I woke up in a panic that "narjanita" was gone. All my bikes have names and this was christened "little orange".

The ride offered supreme views --- huge mountains, features that looked like Yosemite wrapped in glaciers, rivers of aqua, waterfalls, and small creeks. The views were in tight and the valley was pretty narrow. The centerpiece of our views was the highest peak in Patagonia. It is nearly the heigt of Mt Rainier and equally beautiful. Our ride actually crosses the continential divide. At close to 1100 feet of elevation, it has to be one of the lowest passes. Our low elevation only added to overwhelming size and stature of the Andes.

During the entire ride, we saw 4 cars and had 3 great passes. This was a huge improvement from our prior two days. So, it was a great experience to not feel the pressure of trying to "survive" the cars. Riding the bikes without gear was fantastic and they performed much better in the junky ripio. With the exception of a few miles, the ripio was butt busting --- lots of potholes, lots of washerboard and a far amount of loose.

Our nemisis today was the freaking horseflies. Arn was bit twice --- his first bites of the trip. One got him through his glove. I managed to avoid bites today. Perhaps all the bites in the head when the bastards got in my helmet two days ago gave me some immunity today. While I didn't get bit, I did get hounded. We were both chased all day. Given that we have been assulted by the bastards for several days now, I have had the chance to study their flight performance. With a stiff head wind, a rider can out pedal them at about 9-10 mph. However, with a tailwind, the escape velocity is in excess of 13.5 mph. Today, we had a tailwind and nasty ripio, so there was no hope for escape.

Given the horseflies, we abandoned any idea of a nice picnic lunch with PBJ sandwiches. We ate some chocolate and cookies and opted for lunch in town after the ride. Now, for Arn, I think he would say this was one of his favorite days on the trip. For me, my legs were fading. They went from good to dead. There is no life left in them --- food, water and sleep are not the answers. They need time off. They were the roadkill of the day.

Back in town, we had homemade empandas for lunch with cold Diet Cokes. This little store is the only place we have seen a television since the earthquake in Chile. We saw images that were heart-wrenching. After showers, we returned to town to check email and the weather. We both looked for more info on the impact of the quake. At this point, I am guessing you know more than we do. Our only internet is extremely slow, so loading articles to read takes forever. You can imagine that photos are worse and video is impossible. As two people who experienced the 7.2 quake in the Bay Area, we can't wrap our minds around 8.8. It is very, very sad.

The only impact we have experienced is the result of damaged communication equipment. There is a lack of phones and internet. We have managed to see the weather forecast and the blog of a fellow rider ahead of us. It looks like our road conditions should improve. Our weather looks like it is going to hold for another couple of days. So, tomorrow we are going to push further south. It won't be pretty for my legs. Hopefully, we can find a nice place to hang for a few days.

Bahia Murta to Villa Rio Tranquilo (2/27 Sat)

2010-03-03T13:36:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 15 miles
- 1100 feet
- time... 2 1/2 hours

In a nutshell, ditto yesterday....beautiful scenery, crappy surface, asshole drivers (not a lot of them, just all of them bad). We had one truck head on that was moving so fast he could never have stopped if we had been a car. I mean seriously, is this a one way road and we don't know. We have stopped waving. If we don't get a good pass, we don't wave. These people don't get it. There are crazy with how they drive and they smile and wave. We are not playing nice anymore. Yes, our attitudes kinda suck.

While this ride was expected to be short, it featured the steepest grades of the trip. Arn finally used his granny gear! At one point, he passed me and said, "This is really tough. I will be really impressed if you make this". Then he stood at the top cheering, "Si se puedes!" or "You can do it!". I made it. The nastiest section featured swithbacks, steep banks, blind corners and the constant threat of assholes on the road. Getting to the top first, Arn got out and blocked the road. Once I reached the top, Arn asked, "Did you make it?" I replied, "Yes". He clarified, "You rode the whole thing?" My answer was the same, "Yes".

The setting for Puerto Rio Tranquilo is beautiful. It is set along the shores of the second largest lake in South America. The water is a beautiful aqua blue. The mountains are stunning everywhere. If you have seen Bariolche, this is an even more spectacular location. The town is small, but larger than where we have been the last two nights. There are the occasional chickens and roosters running around. We saw one horse tied up in someone's yard. Things seem better cared for and some even have lovely gardens.

Arn found us an awesome place to stay. It is a super cool room --- beautifully done in wood, super high celings, no head smacking options, nice sized private bathroom, and towels that smell so fresh I just want to hold onto them. We are staying two nights and plan to do an out and back ride tomorrow (more on that tomorrow).

After arriving today, we tried to use the WiFi in the place we are staying. This is when we learned of the earthquake in Chile. The lines have been damanged outside of Santiago, so the internet service is not available. We are a very long ways away from the earthquake. I registered us with the American Embassy and they contacted us in email with offers of assistance. We are glad to not need it. We had homemade empandas and french fries for lunch. During lunch, we saw television coverage of the quake --- pretty scary stuff. We have passed through some pretty rural and basic communities. Things would not fair well in an earthquake of that magnitude. Our thoughts go out to the families that have lost loved ones and that have had their lives literally shaken to the ground.

Villa Cerro Castillo to Bahia Murta (2/26 Fri)

2010-03-03T13:32:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 61 miles (all dirt...okay, Arn insists there was 2/10 of a mile of pavement)
- 3500 feet of climbing
- time...including breaks, but remember the flies...8 hours 45 minutes!

After a breakast of instant coffee and toast, we headed south. The plan was this --- ride until we had enough and find wild camping. "Wild" means there are no sactioned camp spots. Or let me put it differently --- you are SO damn remote that no one even wants to attempt to make a few bucks by charging for camping on their homestead. The trick to wild camping is finding a place with water, a place to put your tent (not in a mud flat, a dry wash, etc), and place where you won't get caught.

So while we didn't know where the day would end, I knew toast was hollow fuel for this suffer-fest. Things started out pretty well. Our awesome views from yesterday continued and the ripio wasn't too bad. We saw only a few cars and people were reasonable. We knew a climb was coming as we would have to get up and out of this valley. So, the climbing commenced. While not terrible, the legs were not feeling completely fresh. Evenually, the road dropped down into the next valley. The mountains were more rounded. The bottom of the valley was totally flat --- like a table top. Down the center, a small turquoise river braided through gravel. Then, it turned into a giant bog. There were pools of water, reed like plants, and I could feel the humidity increase. The temps were warm and I was already down to my tank top. From reading the blog of a guy we met many weeks ago, we knew there was bad ripio coming. In fact, this guy cursed this stretch of road. And before the day would end, there would be two more people cursing this road with him.

Okay, we first picked up a massive head wind. Looking down valley, it was clear we were going to navigate the edge of this bog for a while. Note "navigating edge of bog" does NOT equal flat. It means gaining and losing the same shitty 100 feet for a few hours. We couldn't hear each other scream, we rode in silence. Well, the wind howled, but we were silent Then, the surface got ugly. It was the new "worst ever" surface of the trip and the first time that tempers (namely mine) flared. You might remember the stretch of road I called "riding golf balls in the swimming pool", well, this made that look like a paved sidewalk. This crappy excuse for a road was sandy and loose and full of huge rocks that slid around. Riding in the flats was awful. The cars had set up huge washboards and massive pot holes that were filled with sand and more loose rocks. This kind of stuff chews off your legs in a big hurry. Riding uphill is frustrating as you can't get a bite in the surface. You push the pedals and the back tire, despite the massive weight of gear on the back off the bike, just spins --- the back wheel can't get traction. It is like driving your car in snow and the wheels spin and you go nowhere. Unfortunately, on a bike you can't do this for long before you are off the bike with no traction. This happened and this sucks. The only thing harder than pedaling this crap is trying to push your bike in this kind of crap. Now, I am not the strongest rider around. However, I can hang with a bad surface on the uphill for a while. Twice, I was dumped off and had to push the bike about 20 feet to find a patch of ripio that offered a better chance for the rear wheel to get traction. At one point, Arn asked, "Are you okay?". I bit his head off and ate it as my second breakfast. 16 miles into 75 miles of road to be covered in two days --- this was NOT going well and was defintely NOT the follow up to yesterday that I was dreaming about. Now, if the uphill was frustrating in this stuff, the downhill was terrifying. If you are a skier, think of spring skiing in the slush. Think about the sound your skies make going through really heavy, wet slush --- it is a swooosh, swooosh. Now, think about that sound riding downhill with NO traction on a fully loaded bike in the middle of a place so remote there are no services and no camping options. I don't know --- if we got lucky, maybe we could find a hospital in 24 hours if someone helped quickly. I laid myself out in ripio early on in this trip and it was not a confidence booster for today. So, it went like this for hours.

To make matters worse, we started to see more cars, trucks and buses. Last night, a man warned us about the crazy traffic on this stretch of road. We thought, 'hmm, dude we haven't seen anything like that since we rolled onto the Carretera Austral". I am sorry to say, but he was right. The drivers were NUTS! They were driving way too fast for the conditions. If you measured the full width of the road, then I would say, "yes, the width is two lanes wide". HOWEVER, the road is high in the middle and slopes downward on both sides. The amount of road usable by cars is about 1 1/2 lanes. In other words, they need to work together to pass each other and they SHOULD be concerned about oncoming traffic. Now, for a cyclist, the slopes on the edges of the road are suicidal. They start off as deep sand and end in a trench of rocks about the size of cantalopes. So, for those on two wheels, the section of road that is rideable is about the width of 1 car lane and it runs -- you guessed it -- right down the center of the road. Add a few more ingredients to the mix: a) every driver believes there will be NO oncoming traffic or bikes, b) every driver thinks their stopping distance is the same as driving on pavement, c) every driver assumes a speed appropriate for pavement and d) every driver is sure a cyclist can ride the trench on the edge of the road (read: ride cantalopes). Where in the hell did these rules and these people come from??? We have not seen this anywhere on the Carretera and it was terrifying. We didn't have a lot of traffic, but 90% of what we had felt life threatening. If you know Arn, then you know about his own private language when he gets ticked off. At the point in the ride, the fuck speak commenced.

As a self preservation strategy, we adopted a new riding technique. You might say we played a game of "chicken" with the cars. We would spot a car (from either direction). We would let them see us. Then, we would ride in the center of the road next to each other. We watched their approach. Once they slowed down enough, we would slide over to our maximum point and ride single file. It was an aggressive and stressful way to ride. The scariest thing was watching cars barreling down us head on and never slowing up. Like I said, it was a game of chicken.

Finally, the road surfaced improved. This of course came with a long climb up and out of this valley. We reached a sign marking the pass and the road still climbed. I am not sure how they determined "pass". The scenery was beautiful and the winds continued. Again, we tried to pick a windy spot for our PBJ sandwiches and again, we were chased back onto the bikes by the horseflies. The motorists we met conintued to be assholes, however, the better surface gave us more road width to work with.

Eventually, we finished our slog uphill and had views to the next valley. Here was my only thought -- "shit, this looks exactly like where we just came from and we are going back to that same lousy ass surface". There was no satisfaction in being proven right about this. It was during this section of ripio that I wanted to kill a few Chileans. We had a car approaching from the front. Then, a car appeared from the back. We took the center of the road in attempt to slow everyone down. Then, it became clear --- neither car was going to slow down and they were setting up to pass each other and us at the same freaking time! We pulled out single file. Still, they didn't slow up. We had no where to go if we were to stay on the bikes. We looked backed and this guy was still coming full speed. We both headed into the ditch of cantalope rocks and tried to hold on. I landed on my feet and heard the wheels lock up on the pickup truck behind us. I looked back to see Arn's rear wheel lined up with the right side of the truck. The truck lunged once and again. It was about six feet off his wheel. I thought for sure I watching Arn get hit. The truck lunged once more and stopped about three feet short of his wheel. At this point, the oncoming truck passed and never stopped. I started screaming in Arn's private language. Let me tell you, you did NOT need to speak English to know exactly how I felt. Arn then started screaming. These two assholes never rolled the window down, never got out of the truck, never said, "Lo siento" (I'm sorry). They drove off!!!!

This and 90% of the motorists we saw today made this the worst day of the trip. Our next pass was by a couple in a white van. They slowed way down and inched past us. The woman hung out the window and gave us a huge thumbs up. We needed more like her today.

Now, we were supposed to be looking for wild camping. To this I said, we can either stop and deal with the horseflies or we can continue to ride. Arn would see camping options and ask, "How are you doing?". My reply was the same, "Let's ride". Eventually, it became clear we could gut out another 14 miles and find a place to sleep indoors out of the flies. Shortly after we made the decision to ride to Bahia Murta, we passed our first cyclists in many days --- a couple from Switzerland with a dog they said that has been following them for three days. They offered the dog and we said, "no thanks". So, we finally called it day --- cold beers, hot showers, boring dinner. The only good thing about this ride is that it is over.

Coyhaique to Villa Cerro Castillo (2/25 Thurs)

2010-03-03T13:27:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 60 miles
- 5100 feet of climbing
- roadkill....it was a bad day: 4 unknowns, 4 birds, 2 chickens (really, what were they thinking), 1 rabbit, 1 skunk, and 1 frog
- time ... I think it might be interesting to know how long some of this stuff take and this was a 7 hour day!

Okay, I am writing this blog from a room that would make the back end of a semi-tractor trailer truck look like the Ritz Carleton. Actually, I am so tired that the back end of a truck might promise no barking dogs and this could be a good thing. Despite the accomodations, we both agree --- today was the BEST DAY EVER of road cycling. As I mentioned yesterday, there was suffering to be expected, but my eyes have feasted until they nearly popped. But, let me not get ahead of myself.

We started with the traditional Chilean breakfast. I accepted the offer of cereal and yogurt. We both ate bread, butter and jam. When fruit was offered, I suggested the bananas. Given our ride profile, I thougt about leg cramp prevention foods. Then, and only after we have consumed all of this, we were offered eggs. So, we consumed eggs.

With full bellys we headed to the grocery store for bread to make PBJ sandwiches. We arrived just as they opened. Arn picked up two rolls for sandwiches and two olive rolls. We were off.

Our ride headed out of Coyhaique to the south. With the airport well south of town, we expected to share the road for a while. Luckily, we had a shoulder and the traffic was not too bad. For a while, Arn kept saying, "Have you noticed, we climb in the sun and descend in the shade?". Then, he would say, "I am storing up this cold feeling for later when we are getting cooked".

After 20 miles or so, we started looking for a place to take a break. Luck was with us and we rolled through a tiny town. The thing that put the town on the map was the "Museo de Mate" (museum of mate --- something most Chileans don't drink, it is more of an Argentina thing but here the lines get blurried --- remember this road was bulit to kept it straight as to what belonged to Chile and what belonged to Argentina.). For us, the best part of this town was finding a woman selling drinks from her house. We downed a huge Coke Zero and two Snicker Bars.

The scenery was awesome. To the left, it looked like walls in Grand Canyon. In the middle, it looked like the wide open spaces of Montana. And to the right, it was the Andes in full display. In the distance, we could see more and more jagged peaks. Arn said he thought this was our destination for the day.

Our ride profile was described by fellow riders, people in Coyhaique, and the woman selling sodas from her house as "UP". Well, it went up and up again. Eventually, we reached the turn off for the airport. We headed the other way and left all signs of traffic, cars and trucks behind us. It was some totally sweet riding. Arn said, "Now, this is good suffering". I swear the climbs didn't look like they would go on that long. Our first stiff climb seemed to wander up through pasture lands. Really, how bad could that be? Then, our view opened and we dropped down a bit. In the distance, we could see the road become surrounded by giant mountains --- red, tawny beige and black. The colors were awesome. When we see these views, we wonder --- where in the world is the road going to exit this? Well, we climbed and wound through peaks and climbed some more. We were following a creek (it flowed in the opposite direction).

At one point, I hear Arn shift gears and then the cursing began. He dropped the chain, which is a hassle. But, he also seemed to have damaged a link in the chain. He fought the gears and popped things around. Some more "choice" language was used. While all this is going on, I'm thinking --- 'there is no damn way I would be riding this in my middle chain ring in the front'. I seriously could not see my way to needing to make that shift because I had been spinning my easy gears for many miles. Eventually, he finds some gear that works, continues riding, and declares this as a "must look at issue" for the next day off.

The weather was quite toasty! I mean it was hot. I find the sun in mountains feels warmer than it really is and today was high 70's. So, water was a concern for this ride. We finally reach the top of our second long uphill grind. We reach a campground and planned to refill our water bottles. There was a fee to enter the campground, so we headed to the park office and poached water from their hose. We each downed our water bottles and refilled them. In this amount of time, the horse flies found us. I am going to use restraint in my language to describe the little fxxxing bastards (see how well restrained I was?). They were voracious and I was probably bit no less than 10 times in two minutes! Bastards!!

Our ride continued along the creek and it felt like we were encased in the Andes. It was like being wrapped in a tortilla and rolled into a burrito (sorry, my food fantasies might be getting the better of me).

At some point, we crested the climb and started a long descent along a different creek. This creek had a super cool attribute. Much of the creek bed was a solid rock slab. It was smooth and white. The water was stunning aqua and clear at the sametime. We felt like we were flying and making miles for the first time all day and it was early afternoon. We were pushing a slight head wind and wished the wind would just blow the life out of the horse flies. We found what seemed to be a windy spot along the river. It was a beautiful spot for lunch. However, it was NOT meant to be. The horse flies found us in about 90 seconds It was the fastest making and eating of PBJ sandwiches in recorded history. As my family and husband will attest, I am a slow eater. Still, I crammed that sandwich down my throat in record time. Arn asked if I was ready and I said, "Get on your damn bike and ride."

Again, given the tightness of the landscape, we wondered --- where is the road going to exit this. And then, something very sad happened. We reached a Y intersection in the mountains. Our super cool, dowhill creek took the right fork. I looked right trying to see the road. There was NO road. Our road took the left fork --- the one that went UPHILL. After a few curves and twists, we picked up another creek. It flowed in the opposite direction to our ride. So, we were back climbing again. The grade wasn't too stiff, but the head wind made things more difficult. Now, I need to come clean on the head wind thing. We are riding south and the "prevailing" should be out of the north. HOWEVER, it has been explained to us the the Pacfic Ocean is colder than the Atlantic, this creates the wind dynamic, yadda yadda yadda yadda yadda, and when the wind blows from the south it means you are going to have good weather. So, I am shutting my pie hole about winds from the south. Did I really say "pie hole"? I don't even like pie crust, but chery pie or lemon merguine pie or my mom's pecan pie would be SOOO good.

We knew this ride would be in the neighborhood of 60 miles with a lot of climbing. After 48 miles (all on pavement I might add), it seemed like we were going to grind it out uphill for all 60 miles (other than two short descents).

Well, well, well....what happened next is going to be the highlight of my entire Carretera Experience. Yeah, I know what you are thinking -- how could I possibly know this? I know this because this was one of my best cycling highlights EVER!! Really, mother nature laid it all out there and it was AWESOME. Okay, I'll try to get to the point.

First, the road turned ever so slightly downhill. In the distance, we could see beautiful mountains. At first, we thought we were coming in near the valley and would probably have another climb out. But no, we rolled downhill and emerged from our mountain encasement. The view was spectacular. The valley was HUGE! The farside was stretched wide and full with massive snow covered mountains. They stepped downward to the valley in a series of dark black cliffs and terraces of lighter colored rock. The river at the bottom of the valley was teal and braided. It was quite the sight. Then, looking forward we could see our road. It was like a helicopter shot during th Tour de France --- huge, sweeping switchbacks as the road slowly snaked it's way down into the valley. From the top, we couldn't see town, but we saw a lot of free miles! As we cruised downhill, our views to the right kept revealing themselves. There was a lot of "oh my god" and "that is freaking awesome". Things continued to open up to our right and the mountains got bigger and bigger and bigger. We reached a pullout view point and the sights were mind blowing. Villa Cerro Castillo was our destination and "cerro castillo" refers to a castle shaped mountain. It was awesome --- too vertical to hold snow, too vertical for the glaciers to cling on, and razor sharp with teeth like a shark. It really looks like the glaciers were there and then the mountains grew up and through them. It looked like a landscape where the glaciers never had a chance to smooth the edges --- the mountains simply declared their dominence. It was awesome. We enjoyed the free miles...all 12 of them right into town! I think one car passed us.

We found the room where we are staying --- not many choices. "Town" equals about 40 houses, about 5 tiny grocery stores (all smaller than your bedroom), and one information booth. Our room is primitive, but the beers were cold and shared bathroom was reasonably clean (as the girls from the UK taught us --- it was boy clean; not girl clean). After a dinner that left Arn more satisfied than me (I am having Argentina steak fantasies), we called it a night.

Now, I just needed to end this post with this. Sometimes, you see a landscape and there are peak-a-boo views to something really fantastic. Or maybe, it is a place that features something that is fully in your face. Today was a landscape that showed itself in the large, then swallowed us up, encassed us, opened itself back up and gave us the Full Monty for the finish. I am going to bed tired and it was a tough ride, but I could do today over and over and over and never get tired of it. It can only be done once for the first time and today will go down as one of my best days ever.

Huge Earthquake --no where close to us

2010-02-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

This is a quick note out of order with the blog. Many of you have learned about the huge earthquake that hit Chile this morning. We are a long ways from where it hit and were unaware of it until we rode into Puerto Rio Tranquilo. The internet access is very, very, very limited because the lines near Santiago are damaged. Things here don´t work if things there don´t work. So, we are fine. And, we are in no danger of proximity to a tsunami unless it is over a few thousand feet high. While the last two days have included a lot of "suckiness", it sounds like we are lucky. This was the 7th largest earthquake ever. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those impacted. We had lunch in a tiny place and they had the television running. Everyone was coming in to see the video of the damage. It sounds like 35 people were killed in one town. Just an FYI --- we registered with the Embassy. We have already received emails offering help. I am glad we don´t need it. I am impress by how quickly they put out an email and the number of options they gave us for contacting someone. They even asked that we contact our families and friends.

I´ll post again soon when we have WiFi.

Puerto Chacabuco to Coyhaique (Wed2/24)

2010-02-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 49 miles (all paved)
- 2500 feet of climbing
- roadkill: 3 birds and 1 rabbit (I think one of the vultures was creamed while trying to eat a dead rabbit...different than this dead rabbit)

Arn and I enjoyed the best breakfast of the whole trip this morning! We feasted on scrambled eggs, toast, fresh fruit, soft cookie sandwiches with dulce de leche, an apple-banana-cinnamon crumble torte, apricot juice, and real brewed coffee. It was totally awesome.

We got off to a relatively early start --- 8:45am. The skies were completely blue and the temps were crisp, but definitely not cold. Today's ride was a bit of a backtrack to the Carretera Austral and then a turn to the south. We pedaled 10 miles back to Puerto Asyen and stopped at the grocery store for fresh bread. We have decided that being near or at the port means we are at the start of the "Carretera Austral Food Chain". This explains our breakfast, two jars of peanut butter, and relatively better fruit. This morning, it also explains a strange item that Arn claims jumped into his arms near the checkout stand --- a 6-pack of Snicker Bars. Really, it is the small things in life than can mean so much!

So, with 10 miles down, roughly 40 to go, fresh bread for more PBJ sandwiches, and 6 Snicker Bars, we were off again. The next 15 miles continued to come off quickly. Over the first roughly 25 miles, we only gained a couple hunderd feet in elevation. Around mile 20 we reached the Carretera and we turned southbound toward Coyhaique. Our road followed the river...upstream. We were in for a long gradual climb. The valley was stunning.

Dark, rock walls lined the valley on either side. The aqua green Rio Simpson ran down the center. Rolling green meadows surrounded the river. Given our early start, we did not have direct overhead light. We were often riding in the shadows of the walls. In the sun, our backs were warm. In the shadows, it was cool and refreshing. It felt like we were down in a gorge.

Traffic was heavier than most of the rest of the Carretera. Coyhaique is the big town, so there was more activity --- buses, gas trucks, supply trucks from the port, people on the go. For the most part, everyone was respectful. The city buses continue to be the worst. It is best to just get off the road for them.

At one point, Arn said, "You know that your scenery has been good when you see what we see and you don´t even want to stop to take a photo!" This was true. After the 27 fastest miles since we joined the Carretera, we pulled off for a snack --- Snicker Bars! As the girl who trained to race walk a marathon powered by Snickers, this is my kind of power source. Arn has said many times, "If I have a choice between Cliff Bars and Snicker Bars, I am taking Snicker Bars".

While our weather has felt like summer for a while, today smelled like summer. I can´t exactly figure it out, but there was just something in the air that smelled of summer. The lupine is fading...something that happens by August at home (February is the equivalent here). The daisies and clover are continuing to bloom. The grasses are drying out. I don´t know, but if I closed my eyes and breathed deep, there was no mistaking the season.

We knew that eventually, we would need to climb up out of the gorge and there was no confusion about the exit. In the distance, the road was carved into the walls up and out of the gorge. There was also a short tunnel. At first we thought it was a "day light" tunnel with cut outs to allow the sunlight to permeate. This was true --- right before the section where it was totally dark. We turned on our lights (thanks to Susan for our flashing red and white lights). Luckily, the total darkness was short and daylight returned before a vehicle caught us. As we grinded (okay, I grinded and Arn hummed) up the climb, we could see the peaks beyond us. Our valley was surrounded by what looked like the Canadian Rockies. In the distance, it looked like the American Southwest. At times, I thought I was seeing the walls of the Grand Canyon, only in shades of black and brown, not red. Once out of the river valley, we continued to climb. We passed our only cyclist of the day. He was enjoying a screaming downhill and never stopped. Go figure.

Eventually, we topped the climb and caught our first glimps of Coyhaique in the distance. About 60,000 people live in Coyhaique. It is the largest town we have seen since we left Bariloche over three weeks ago. Our arrival was a long downhill along the river. However, you are going to love this --- the river was flowing downstream (counter to us) and yet, we were descending. You know what this means. Yes, we headed back uphill into town.

Our first choice place (that Arn emailed two days ago and they never replied) was full. So, we are staying at the place where Dominiq & Michelle (women from UK) stayed. After checking in and taking showers, we both noticed what Dominiq had warned us about and we had forgotten. There is NO window in the room. So, it is a double room (two twin beds) with a private bath, but no window. It is not a place to hang out and it is place with 10,000 low hanging objects on which Arn can earn himself a concussion --- television, door jams, light fixures, etc.

Given that Coyhaique has more services than any place we have been in a while, we arrived with a list of "must do´s". Since arriving, we have had our laundry done (it was getting really disgusting). We have, in Arn´s words, "porked the ATM twice". We´ve been to the pharmacy for sunscreen, toothpaste, and sports tape (I am taping the insteps of my feet for additional support). We have been to the gas station to consider maps for sorting out options after the Carretera, to the tourist office to find any interesting ideas, and to the grocery store for apples (me) and potato chips (Arn). And now, we are chilling...waiting for the appropriate dinner hour.

Tomorrow, I have been told will be a "suffer-fest" followed by a "fiesta of suffering". Today´s ride burned 2300 calories. We will see about tomorrow´s ride. A few days ago, I hit a new low on the "pre-ride standing heart rate". It was 43 bpm. Arn explained, "You are getting more fit and not burning as many calories". This is true. My limiting factor is leg strength on a fully loaded bike --- the heart rate has not been tapped out. Tomorrow, will be a leg burner for sure. Our forecast continues to look good --- the low tomorrow is 50 with a high of 80! Tonight will be the warmest walk to dinner since we left Pucon in late January!

Laguna San Rafael (Tues 2/23)

2010-02-23T17:20:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- Zipo....a day off the bikes and on the water!!!

About a week ago, we made the decision to take a slight detour to Puerto Chacabuco for a high speed catamaran trip to see the national park called, "Laguna San Rafael". For many, it is considered the highlight of a trip along the Carretera Austral.

We woke to mostly sunny skies. After a quick cup of coffee in the hotel lobby, we boarded a bus with our fellow travelers for the day. It was an all day trip --- breakfast, lunch, and dinner and everything in between.

The boat headed south, navigating through the fiord and various water passes. Compared to our pace on a bike, this thing cooked --- 25 knots! To us, it appeared that 1/2 the passengers were traveling together and French speaking. The other 1/2 appeared to be speaking Spanish.

The views were specatular --- water, mountains, glaciers. We were treated to views of the highest peak in Southern Chile. At 4058 meters, it is almost as high as Mt. Rainier. The climax of the scenery was our arrival into Laguna San Rafael. The water was filled with ice bits and icebergs from the tide water glacier. The catamaran creeped closer and closer to the face of the glacier and then the show began. While we have seen more impressive sights of ice (Antarctica for sure), we have never seen a better show of melting ice. The glacier made sounds like my feet creaking in the morning. However, the sounds frequently resulted in exploding towers of ice plummeting into the sea. Whole sections, the full height of the glacier erupted into waterfalls of ice. I can only guess the sizes. At times, it looked like balls of ice the size of a house rolling off the glacier. Sometimes, the ice would rise up from the water before everything came tumbling down. Most of the time, it appeared to be in slow motion.

The passengers were loaded into small zodiac boats and zipped around through the sea of icebergs and brought closer to the face of the glacier. While in the zodiac, we saw several massive calves of the glacier and at least two were the full height. The average deepth of the glacier is 300 feet, so it was an impressive wall of ice. The waves created by falling ice looked huge. We thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride, the scenery and the ice show.

"1000 year old ice" was plucked from the sea and brought back to the catamaran. As we left Laguna San Rafael, the party started ---- whiskey and glacier ice! Being in Chile, we opted for Pisco Sours and ice. For a while, we sat in the lower level of the boat, enjoyed the views, and read. Then, we ventured upstairs to the lounge. The party was in full swing and we noticed an important split in the crowd. Downstairs, the French were sleeping or reading. Upstairs, the Chileans and Argentinians were singing karaoke and dancing. Now, you may not know this, but Arn is a secret lover of karaoke. I can now say he has sung karaoke in Spanish! We danced a bit and luckily both of us were tall enough to touch the ceiling for stability when the boat started rocking.

Dinner was accompanied by fantastic views of Volcan Baca as we returned to the fiord leading to Puerto Chacabuco. Nice finish to a great day. The five day forecast looks good, so tomorrow we ride!!!

Better maps!!!

2010-02-23T17:18:00.000-08:00

Arn has done some more work on the maps. Here are some better links.

These are small and also are preset as topo maps.

From Pucon to just outside of Futaleufu:
http://tinyurl.com/y9m9jn2

From Futa to Puerto Chacabuco:
http://tinyurl.com/y8dazx3

Puerto Asyén to Puerto Chacabuco (Mon 2/22)

2010-02-23T17:16:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 10 miles
- 200 feet of climbing
- Weather: full head wind, mostly cloudy, light drizzle

Food ---- it is an important part of life for Arn and me. One benefit to all this riding is the ability to enjoy food. However, this assumes you have good food to enjoy. At the end of the ride yesterday, Arn mentioned the book he is reading --- something about the history of In-n-Out Burger. He said it is too much at times and he has to switch to another book. I laughed until I hurt. I cannot imagine reading about In-n-Out burgers. I have remained silent about my food fantasies; however, this conversation opened Pandora´s Box. Arn talked about BBQ ribs, In-n-Out Burgers, french fries, and a good steak (have not had this since Argentina). I mentioned all my burger fantasies --- Five Guys, Red Mill, Fat Burger, In-n-Out. To this Arn said, "Wow, I forgot about Five Guys".

Our food options have been bad to basic for the last 9 days. Here is how to think about it. Breakfast = bread, butter, jam, and instant coffee. Lunch = more bread with cheese (always the same non-descript mild cheese). Dinner = chicken / bad fish / mystery meat with potatoes / rice. Snacks are the highlight. Snacks = dry crunchy cookies (think Chips Ahoy), chocolate bars with almonds or a fruit filling, and peanuts. Now, I know what you are thinking --- "Hey, you guys need to get more creative and hit the grocery store". To this I say, YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE STORES!!! There is ONLY one kind of cheese. We cannot carry meat (salami, etc) that needs refrigeration as the sun is warm. Peanut butter has not been seen since Pucon and our jar went empty a few days ago. Sure, we could buy fresh fruit. HA HA HA HA HA!!!! The summer has been so bad that all the places that grow fruit have nothing. Everything is coming by truck and it is not great. Now, I happen to like pears and all stone fruit as hard as rocks. Ocassionally, I have gotten lucky and found a few cement like pears. The bananas are all split open. The apples are scary looking. The citrus has mold. The stone fruit is more like apple sauce than an actual piece of fruit. There are no such things are soft chewy cookies. The packaged cakes (think pound cake) we saw in Pucon and Argentina are NOT here. Dinner is the hardest...no spice, no choice, no change. We are a couple of foodies walking around hungry.

So, last night, we went to dinner with two fellow cyclists. Dominque and Michelle are traveling from the UK and we met them yesterday in our hotel. Given that we are in a port town, there is actually seafood in the restaurant. I say "the" restaurant as there is only one. However, the place had a menu --- we actually had choices. Dominque and Michelle do not speak Spanish, so they were thrilled to go to dinner with two people that would help them to fair better than their previous attempts. We introduced them to Pisco Sours and Chile´s red wine. We talked about the Carretera food experience. It took us 20 plus minutes to fully study our choices and decide what we wanted. Arn and I ordered one dish of a shellfish stew and another of a baked shellfish casserole. Of course, Dominque and Michelle ordered the same thing. It was a great night of sharing Carretera travel stores --- their stories from the south and our stories from the north.

You will remember we arrived into Puero Aysen with a "limping" rear hub on my bike. The best way for me to describe the riding experience is this --- think of when you were first learning to ride a bike and the bike would wobble around as you were developing your sense of balance on a bike. That captures the feeling pretty well. After breakfast this morning (bread, jam, butter), Arn headed off to the bike shop with the bike in tow. The man in the internet shop next door said the bike guy does not open until 3pm. He told Arn about another man in town that fixes bikes. He told him where to go, but his directions were wrong. Arn asked some guys working on a truck and they showed him the bike guy's house. Arn showed him the problem and he pulled out a set of cone wrenches. He completely serviced the hub and repacked the bearings. The hub was dry! No grease at all! Can you say RAIN?? Rain is very hard on a bike. So, my "pony" is good to go --- even on ripio!

Before leaving town, we stopped at the grocery store. Much to our surprise, this was a SUPERmercado! It was huge! I stayed with the bikes while Arn did our shopping. He returned and asked, "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" I said, "Give me the bad news". He replied, "There is no bad news!" He opened his bag of goodies and revealed TWO jars of crunchy peanut butter. I nearly started dancing in the streets. I finished our first jar (of creamy - beggars can't be choosers) a few days ago and have been carrying dulce de leche --- a very poor substitute. Also in his bag of goodies --- two dark chocolate bars with orange filling, bread rolls, a package of strawberry jam, peanuts, a can of potato chips (think Pringles knock off), and a banana. In South America, most jam comes packaged in a foil bag. So, once it is open, it does not close again. It can be messy. I figured Arn had to have some big idea and then he said it --- peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch with potato chips and a diet coke.

Today´s ride was really just a "repositioning" to set us up for our boat trip tomorrow. We decided to move the 10 miles down the road to be at the actual port. Puerto Aysen used to be the port, but due to silt deposits the port was moved. The actual port is now in Puerto Chacabuco. It was a uneventful ride -- head wind, light drizzle, and more traffic than we have seen in two weeks. Arn kept saying, "I hope we can get there without rain. I just do not want to have to deal with the bikes again after the rain".

Now, I have to admit, I would gladly punch a 10 mile head wind for the shower I enjoyed today. It was clean --- our first mold free shower in 9 days!!! The water was as hot as I wanted and it had great shower pressure. It was also the first actual shower curtain rod we have seen in nearly two weeks. There has been a lot of creativity in the creation of shower curtain rods --- used pipes both plastic and rusted, bamboo cut, tree branches, a "system" of plastic bags braided into a hanging contraption. This is the first place in almost as long that has provided little bottles of shampoo. And, the towel I enjoyed was big enough to wrap around me. I know -- I am a spoiled brat. But see how much I appreciate these sweet luxuries in life??? But the best part of the day was still to come --- peanut butter and jam sandwiches! The peanut butter was crunchy, sweet and salty all at the same time (brand was Planters). The jam was thick with chunks of real strawberries. The bread was a fresh, soft kaiser roll. The Diet Coke was cold and the potato chips were very much like Pringles. It was the best PBJ sandwich ever! After Arn finished his, he said, "You know the best part of waiting to eat your sandwich until after you washed our pants? You still have your sandwich to eat!"

Photos!!!

2010-02-21T19:11:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to our photos. You will need to copy and paste. This is the same link as before, but Arn has added 71 new pictures!

We have a stellar forecast for the next five days. So, hopefully, we can resolved the bike issue and go SOUTH!!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/ArnSchaeffer/ChileAndArgentinaCycling2010#

Maps!!!!

2010-02-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

Well, I have been writing about all these places and towns. I thought you migt want to see it all on a map. So, Arn has worked Google maps. You will need to cut and paste the links.

There are a few caveats:

- The first part takes us through beyond Trevelin but there is a missing piece in the google maps so it won´t connect to Futa.

- This also doesn´t include any side trips (Pucon, Bariloche day trip, Manso, glacier viewing, hunting for places to stay, etc.).

- All of the stuff on the Carretera is approximate. Google distances and placement of the carretera are not correct (if it was, our climbout of Puyuhuapi would have been double what it was, for example).

- Still useful as an approximation.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Lincoy%C3%A1n&daddr=Ruta+199+to:Av+Ant%C3%A1rtida+Argentina+to:Av+San+Martin+to:Rivadavia+to:RN+234+to:RN+231+to:G%C3%BCemes+to:RP+83+to:RN+40+to:RP+16+to:RP+15+to:RP+71+to:RN+259+to:-43.188156,-71.610947&geocode=FSa4qP0dLrK1-w%3BFWVXpf0dzzy8-w%3BFZpznv0drlXD-w%3BFVtHm_0dBlu_-w%3BFXAvm_0diTy_-w%3BFfYnlP0dmXu6-w%3BFXsxkv0dzXG6-w%3BFVhLjP0dhtK_-w%3BFdeDhf0dtwK9-w%3BFR3Wf_0dTnS8-w%3BFa37fv0dluK7-w%3BFYNPd_0dwCS--w%3BFTIadP0dHI65-w%3BFc6nbv0dqIq9-w%3B&hl=es&mra=dme&mrcr=11&mrsp=14&sz=11&via=3,10&sll=-43.241201,-71.6185&sspn=0.244601,0.441513&ie=UTF8&z=11

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Ruta+231&daddr=Ruta+235+to:Ruta+7+to:Ruta+7+to:Ruta+7+to:Ruta+7+to:-45.138461,-72.130737+to:Eusebio+Ibar&hl=es&geocode=FQQ7bf0dQza3-w%3BFdevaf0dytWu-w%3BFSpsYP0dUwyv-w%3BFQxDW_0dSMus-w%3BFWbSWP0dsM2s-w%3BFbRfVv0duTqx-w%3B%3BFewWS_0dSOmq-w&mra=dme&mrcr=5,6&mrsp=6&sz=10&sll=-45.220743,-72.398529&sspn=0.473021,0.883026&ie=UTF8&ll=-44.0718,-71.674805&spn=3.860051,7.064209&z=7

Villa Mañihuales to Puerto Aysén (Sun 2/21)

2010-02-21T19:08:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 37 miles (all pavement!!!)
- 1200 feet
- roadkill: 1 skunk, 3 birds, 1 giant beetle (seriously, the splat remains were the size of a lemon), and 1 rabbit --- we think it was a rabbit as a tribe of no less than a dozen vultures were circling the sky and road, picking apart the remains and leaving pieces scattered for about 25 feet!
- rain? ZERO!

Last night was cold! Our room had twin beds and we each slept under four wool blankets. Now, I left the window open while we went to dinner, so I "cooled" it down quickly. However, this morning, our room was the same temp as the hallway. I stuck all of our clothes into the bed to warm them up before getting dressed.

Breakfast was at 8:30am. It was three bad bread rolls (think something that looked like yesterday's hamburger buns), jam, butter, a few slices of cheese and some "ham-ish" thing that looked so weird that Arn offered me the cheese that had not touched the unknown meat-thing. Every day he gives me more reasons to add to the infinite list of "why he is a keeper"!

Our plan was to start off with the American couple. Eventually, we would reach a split in the road and head different directions. However, plans changed. Arn rolled the bikes out of the wood shed and said, "We have a problem with your bike". While all the rain did a number on our pedals, washing out the grease and leaving a lot of creaks (this problem has been addressed --- we think, but one bleedport on Arn's pedal is gone). the ripio has taken it's toll. My rear hub was loose and there was a lot of play in the wheel. It wobbled. We let the Americans know they were on their own plan. Arn checked the wheel, took it off, tried to adjust it in the drop outs, but in the end there was nothing we could do to fix it. The repair, we think, needs some special tools called "cone wrenches" to tighten the hub. Between us and the next bike shop is only pavement, so we decided to ride.

The day started off crisp and cool. Under completely blue skies, Arn put on his rain jacket for warmth. Slowly, things warmed up and we shed a layer. Once again, our ride followed the river headed to the coast. We enjoyed more stunning views that included a lot of rock walls up high, mountains, bridges over small rivers and creeks. One creek was set down in a tight gorge with a series of waterfalls.

We stopped for a snack and Arn talked with a man on his horse. Arn said he could only understand a few words. I couldn't even recognize it as Spanish. It was another fantastic ride. Arn said, "This might be my new favorite day". I asked why. "Because the vegatation has changed and it is drier. It is a landscape I like better". It is true. The jungle look was gone. The grasses were tall and golden. The lupine has started to go to seed.

Arn kept an eye on the wheel. Once rolling, it seemed fine. If I moved from sitting to standing (you know, just to get off the seat for a break), I could feel the wobble. Beyond that, it felt okay. I took it easy on the downhill and laid off the rear brake. I don't want us to end up on the side of the road. However, I feel pretty sure we would either get a ride from someone or the next bus would pick us up.

We reached the split in the road. The Carretera heads to Coyhaique. It is a large city with two bike stores! However, our plan is to head to Coyhaique on Wednesday. We took the fork to Puerto Aysén. Our plan is to stay one night in Puerto Aysén --- get our laundry done, see if we can find a bike shop and chill with the internet. Monday, we will move ten miles down the road to the port (not many services here). On Tuesday, we have reservations for a high-speed catamaran trip down through the fiords to Parque Nacional Laguna San Rafael. The scenery is supposed to be fantastic and we thought it was an opportunity not to be missed. So, Wednesday we will backtrack to the junction and head to Coyhaique.

Once we turned to the west, we pushed into a head wind. We only had about eight miles and it was flat to a slight downhill, so it was not bad riding. As we rolled through town, everything was closed as it is Sunday. We never saw the two lodging places we were looking for and instead spotted something new looking. We checked it out --- new hotel, super clean, private bath, WiFi. SWEET!!!! There was a bummer --- no laundry services anywhere in town today.

So, after we took showers, I washed our clothes by hand. Thank god for modern washing machines and dryers! It took a long time ---- 4 pair of cycling shorts, 5 pair of socks, 1 sports bra, 7 shirts and 2 pair of underwear. Arn went in search of a bike shop. It turns out there is a shop, but it is closed today. The man has wheel rims hanging in the window which would suggest he can build wheels. If he can do this, then he should have the tools to fix my hub. So, tomorrow we will return in the morning and try to get things fixed.

We had a late lunch of fresh vegetables and French fries. The veggies were more expensive than a steak! They come from a long distance and the price reflects the transportation costs. We hit the ATM for the first time in a while. As Arn likes to say, "we'll pork it again tomorrow". The South Americans limit what you can get in a single transaction. When you don't see an ATM for a week at a time and everything is paid for in cash, you need more than the limit.

We returned to the hotel to enjoy hanging out. We met two other touring cyclists. They are two women --- one from South Africa living in the UK and the other is a Brit. They have traveled from the south and one has been nursing a bad knee. We are having dinner together and will exchange notes as we are heading in opposite directions and can help each other out with what we have discovered. They have already given us hope --- one of the two bike shops in Coyhaique is described as "Mecca and has everything". So, it may be a place to get things fixed or in the worst case, we can buy a new wheel. My bike wheels are "standard" size for South America and hopefully it will work out. We can't ride more ripio with the wheel and the trip would end in Coyhaique without a fix.

Where's dinner? Oh come on! Are you not paying attention to the stories? You should know this by now. Dinner will be at the same place we ate lunch! See how easy your choices become when there is only one restaurant or the supermarket for dinner!?!? Well, I need to turn my laundry or we'll be carrying a bag of wet clothes tomorrow!!!

Villa Amengual to Villa Mañihuales (Sat 2/20)

2010-02-21T19:05:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 36 miles (12 on bad ripio)
- 1600 feet
- roadkill, wind & rain ALL ZERO

There is one thing in life that I clearly excel at compared to Arn and it is sleep. If he sleeps six hours straight through, he thinks this is awesome. For me, this same night of sleep would be a disaster. This morning, I woke up mad. My night of sleep and recovery was stolen by the very people we were paying money to for the experience. It is true, one can roll over exhausted inthe morning and feel quite ticked off. My parents actually have a photo of this expression from when I was about four years old in pink pajamas. Nothing has changed except I am older and the pajamas are black.

Breakfast was scheduled for 8:30am and we found it sitting on the table waiting for us. Of course, the owner was still in the bed after partying until 3am on the other side of the wall from where I attempted to sleep. Yes, I'll get over it but I don't like my sleep &$#@ed with.

At breakfast, we discovered another couple from the US. They too are cycle touring. Arn engaged in the traditional biker chat while got my act together. The other Americans pulled out about an hour before us. We met the posse in the park. We left town in a group of five. The sky was broken clouds and given my feelings about the prior day and my lack of sleep (have I mentioned that yet?), I only put sunscreen on my face.

The temps were cool and we started with a long downhill. Phillipe is carrying so much gear that he is impossible for me to catch on a descent. His dry bag (laid across his panniers) is so large that I told him I would crawl in and go back to sleep if it started raining.

The rain did not return. In fact, the clouds broke and the sun returned. The day warmed up as time went on and once again, we were treated to the awesome views of the Carretera. After about and 1 1/2 hours, we found the two American riders we met at breakfast. They were nursing a busted tire on her bike. The innertube was popping through the tire and they had no spare tire. I need to clarify --- she is not running the beefy tires that most riders are using (Schalbe Marathon XR). She is on a 27" wheel with a skinny tire. In other words, finding a replacement tire is going to be hard. Shauna is actually running the same size and similar type of tire. She too has had problems. Her spare tire is now on her bike and her "exploded" tire is tied onto her gear. They gave the exploded tire to the American couple and they figured out how to patch something together. So, while the Canadians are helping the Americans perform tire surgery, these two Americans continued to ride. And somewhere, the Austrian rode alone with his massive dry bag.

Today's ride included 12ish miles of ripio. In parts, it was akin to the Futeleufú ripio and was not enjoyed. Given our start on asphalt and our expected return to asphalt, we rode with the tires pumped tight with air. This resulted in less forgiveness of the bike in chunky, loose ripio. Somethings are trade-offs (tougher ripio riding versus letting air out, only to pump it back up with a small hand pump). Now, if I knew then, what I know now, I probably would have done this differently --- but I must save this for tomorrow's tale.

With today's posse of five all spread out, Arn and I return to pavement. Let me tell you --- in good weather, the Carretera is awesome. In good weather and WITH pavement, every rider is overwhelmed with the experience. It is like being a kid and having Halloween, your birthday and the last day of the school year all rolled into one --- costumes, candy, cake, presents, friends, and freedom!!!

Arn and I were at the front of the posse. Once we reached pavement, we took a break and thought we would see the others. We didn't, so we continued. We met a couple riding north. They were from Switzerland. We asked what language was best. They said German. We asked about second best -- Spanish or English. English it was. She was sporting a Rohloff hub. Again, I think Arn had hub envy. We shared tips from the road. Their big tip was the discovery of a cash machine in the next town. For a week, there has been no access to a bank or ATM. We chatted for about 20 minutes and still our posse had not arrived. We said good-bye and sent a message back to our fellow riders via the Swiss.

Our road followed a river for much of the day --- in the direction of the flow or GRAVITY! So we enjoyed a downhill bias and it was sweet. After the prior day's uphill bias, it was a welcomed changed. About 6 miles from town (our stopping point for the day), we meet another northbound couple. They were a pair of Brits. We talk for a while and again exchanged tips and learnings. They were facing an uphill day and got a late start. Again, we talked for about 20 minutes and our posse did not arrive. And again, we sent another message via the Brits.

We really hoped out luck would hold and downhill run would drop us right into town. Given that this has not been the experience, our eyes were peeled and searching for the "final insult". It never materialized and we sailed downhill into Villa Mañuhuales. Upon arrival, our goal was a cockroach-free, smell-free and quiet place to sleep for the night. We checked two hosterias and decided on the one where the woman wouldn't let us in until she had finished her daily cleaning at 4pm.

We went in search of lunch and enjoyed fantastic roasted chicken and mashed potatoes. The posse rolled in as we finished. They enjoyed ice cream and loaded up on groceries for their night of wild camping. They explained that "tire surgery" took in excess of an hour and they stopped along the side of road to eat lunch out of their packs. We bid farewell to Jullian, Shauna and Phillipe. After their night of camping, they will head to the next large town to the south. Tomorrow, we will head to the coast --- an "opportunity" we have discovered and want to explore. So, we don't expect to see them again.

A couple of hours later, the other American couple arrived. Later in the evening, we enjoyed dinner together --- at the same place we ate lunch. Really, this is the only restaurant choice. Arn wanted something different and ordered salmon. I ordered the chicken again. Here was my thinking --- I see a lot of chickens running around, so they are great at cooking chicken. Arn now agrees --- this is a good rule!

Fiordo Queulat Eco-Lodge to Villa Amengual (Fri 2/19)

2010-02-21T19:02:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 37 miles
- 3800 feet of climbing
- roadkill ZERO
- rain MUCHO!!!
- wind NONE -- whew, good thing!!

Okay, we spent last nght in the attic and I listened to the Germans until much too late. Of course, we woke up early to the sound of rain. It poured all night long and this morning was no big change....rain, rain, rain.

We arranged for breakfast at 8:30am and naturally, we are alone as everyone else was STILL in bed. No surprise here! I took my wool hoodie to breakfast. I washed it last night in the sink --- first washing in a month! It was still wet and there was a fire built downstairs. While this morning they would have had a cabin for us after someone left, we decided to head south. Yes, it was pouring rain and we were going to ride. Arn thought he had cracked the code on the weather and micro-climates. We needed to get up and over the pass into the next region. Things are drier and the forecast was better.

So clad in FULL rain gear --- plastic bags in my shoes, shoe covers, rain pants, rain jackets, and over mittens --- we headed off. We had a good idea of what to expect...about an hour of flat-ish ripio followed by a series of steep switchbacks up to a pass (17-ish switches in total). This data was communicated by a fellow cyclist (read: perhaps a reliable source). The man working at the Eco-Lodge said that from the pass, we have a very long descent for most of the rest of our day into the next town (read: he is a motorist living in the area for 18 yeas and maybe he has knowledge).

It rained on and off and on and off. The mountains were shrouded in low hanging toufts of fog. It looked like a scene from "How someone killed a cyclist on the Carretera?". It was eery and beautiful at the sametime. The plants would have told you that this was the rainforest. The rain just underscored that fact. The birds and frogs seemed especially pleased with the day and the sounds were a huge part of our experience. The road got very narrow and felt like a jeep trail at times. Again, it was part jungle, part Candian Rockies. Through the low clouds, we had peeks to the mountains aboves --- huge, towering, forceful mountains wrapped in glaciers. It was so freaky this combination of ice and ferns, jagged peaks and jungle.

We had been on the bikes for nearly and hour when we reached the start of our climb. Up until this point, we had not seen a car on the road --- how was that for no traffic! At the base, there was a short walk to a waterfall. We took it and it was THUMPING! You could see the river round a corner, pop off a few good rapids, and then drop --- bombs away. It was pretty cool. Okay, we scarfed some chocolate and started up the grind.

For me, it was a granny gear grind. I am sure Arn pushed his middle chain ring. The ripio was pretty good and only the corners of the switchbacks were really tough. We passed a few cars, but everyone was courteous. It continued to rain then stopped and then rained again. I found it annoying as I am greedy and I wanted to know what was hidden behind the veils of fog and low clouds. Much to my surprise, Arn had a differetnt perspective. He kept repeating, "Isn't this cool? Don't you think this is great? We are seeing it like it is most of the time! Hey, check out that waterfall on your left!! Oh, see that one on the right -- it is even better!". I have to admit it. I kind of wanted to tell him to button it up -- I hate riding wet; especially wet to the bone. And while I could see his point, I missed the glowing feeling that comes from the sun on your back. I also have to admit, all this rain had set this landscape into action. The rivers and creeks were thumping. While on a sunny day you might call a stream, "babbling", this was "thumping". It was ground vibrating kind of stuff and there was water EVERYWHERE!!! We couldn't keep up with the "hey, see that waterfall" and " look high left at that one". They were everywhere.

It was somewhere along his point that I started to feel like I was riding in deep sand. I looked down to discover a flat tire on my rear wheel. In pouring rain and on a switchback road, this was not good news. Being optimistic, I pumped air into the tire and we continued. We checked it again in 10 minutes and it seemed okay. After another 20 minutes, we reached an incredible pullout along the road. From one spot, we saw in excess of 25 waterfalls going at the sametime. I know, you think I making this shit up. But really, I was pumping more air into the tire and I had time to count. It was again a surreal sight. With the climb not over, we continued --- in the rain. And again I heard, "Isn't this so cool?" Arn scouted so many rapids in creeks and rivers that I wad not sure if he was on the bike or dreaming of his kayak. In all honesty, I was dreaming of sunshine and dry clothes.

After crossing the pass, we began the downhill. It didn't take long until I grew cold. We stopped for more clothing and to put more air in the tire. Yes, this was a lot of pumping, but we were trying to milk this baby over the pass to a covered spot to deal with a tube change.

We finally reached the end of the descent and for the first time in many days, we returned to ASPHALT!!! Sweet baby Jesus this stuff was awesome. The rain stopped and we decided it is time to change the tire. We took all the gear off the back end of my bike, pulled off the wheel and began the process. As Arn got the repaired wheel back on the bike, it started to rain. We scarfed down some chocolate cookies with orange filling and took off again.

Now, remember that guy at the lodge that said,"it is a long downhill after the pass"??? This guy doesn't understand how gravity works. Our road followed the river --- upstream!! We were going against the current which means only one thing. We were climbing again! This went on and on and on and on. There was nothing like riding wet, in the rain, and looking miles into the distance to seeing your road follow the same freaking river. Never trust anything a motorist tells you about a road -- distance, elevation profile, grade, or surface conditions. Never ever.

Finally, we passed what looked like two new bus stops. They were covered and offered protection from the rain. We have joked that we feel it is very possible we will spend a night in a bus stop before this journey is over. Today, we stopped for lunch. We scarfed down bread and cheese. Have you noticed the pattern? All of today's food was scarfed. Once you are wet on a bike, you don't want to cool down. It is too hard and exhausting on your body to warm back up. Repeatedly cooling and warming will leave you much more exhausted than just continuing to move. It is all about staying warm. So, with about 10 miles to go, we were off again.

Now, the road also seemed to want to make sure that we didn't get cold. In the distance, we saw a truck make a few switchback turns on a place well above us, cut into the mountain. With about 6 miles to town, this was the "final insult" of the day. It was a steep grade that went on and on and on.

Finally, we saw town! As we rode in, we were greeted by the three remaining riders in the "posse" --- Shauna & Jullian from Canada and Phillipe from Austria! We never expected to find the wild campers in town. They were so wet after their ride the previous day, they checked into a hosteria to dry out. The weather was so bad when they woke up today (the day we have just ridden), they decided to take the day off and hang out.

Arn and I found a place to stay for the night and unfortunately, we were not at the place with the posse. After cleaning up and trying to hang two bushel baskets full of wet clothes, we took a walk around town. The "supermercado" was about the size of a gas station snack center in the US. We canvased our options and bought two ice cream bars, some raisins and a roll of paper towels. We continued our walk through town. Some people kept sheep in their front yard. Some kept chickens. One person had the hide of some large animal draped over the fence with the hoofs still on it. It appeared to be "drying out" from a recent slaughter. Near one yard, a black kitten charged about to greet us. While we attempted to pet it, the kids came up and explained it was "Pepe" and it sounded like he had escaped. The kids scooped him up and took him home.

We rejoined the posse for wine and dinner. The soup, potatoes, and salads were great. The meat remains a mystery, but was eaten by all. After dinner, there was a fiesta in town celebrate the town's 27th Anniversary. Of course, the 5 of us decided to attend. Kids were dressed in traditional costumes and danced. Let me tell you, if I were a 12 year old boy, I would have taken any kind of dance lessons to get the chance to wear spurs like that! The kids were really cute. Sitting in the bleachers, the little boy next to me asked if I was from Argentina. When I explaIned the United States, his eyes grew wide.

Arn and I are not late night party people. So, we made plans to meet the posse in the morning to ride of out town together and we returned to our hosteria. The party we left continued until well past 1am and we could hear it from our room. After it ended, the owner and her family cotinued the party in our hosteria until well after 3am. It was a lousy night of sleep and in a lousy place. Each time we returned to the room, we said, "this place smells really bad and it doesn't smell like wet cycling gear". It probably explains why the window was open when we arrived. We knew something was funky when the toilet plunger was stored in the shower (common bathroom down the hall --- we haven't had a private bathroom in a while). Luckily, we pulled out our own sleep sheets and sleeping bags. Note to self: tomorrow we need a room without cockroaches AND that doesn't smell!!! We need some standards!!!

Puyuhuapi to Fiordo Queulat Eco-Lodge (Thurs 2/18)

2010-02-21T18:59:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 22 miles
- 1100 feet of climbing
- roadkill = zero
- precipitation = rain, rain, rain
- wind = zero while riding

So, we did something that we are now thinking might have been a bad idea. We booked two nights at an ecolodge. They have beautiful cabins along the water and we have booked two nights. Of course, one of those nights is tonight and we have woken up to driving rain. It has rained most of the night. And now the wind is howling.

We are still in the sweet cabana in Puyuhaupi. The couple that runs the place have really taken us in. She has given us a tour of her garden, greenhouse and store that sells handmade items. He has talked about the various woods he has used to build each piece of furniture, the walls and doors in the cabana. Rather than traditional door hinges, he has fashioned a pin and groove type of door hinge from wood. He gave us a tour of his wood stash and work shop.

So, after a breakfast of eggs, cheese and bread --- we wait. We watch the weather and listen to rain on a tin roof and the howling wind. We wait some more. Now, if you know anything about the two of us --- or more simply, if you know anything about Arn; then you can guess how this is going. We have roughly 20 miles to ride to the lodge. On pavement and free of gear, it would be no big concern. But, this is ripio fully loaded. 20 miles will take well over two hours. With this wind and rain, it could be a real problem. Plus, given the remote nature of where we are, you have to consider the worst case scenario --- something goes wrong with the bike or one of us takes a fall. We wait and wait and then wait some more. Finally, the downpours are further apart and the wind has stopped. We quickly load up and head out.

From Puyuhuapi, the Carretera Austral (CA) follows the edge of the fiord. Even in light rain, it is a beautiful ride. The plants, trees and flowers remind us we are in a rainforest. The rain seems very fitting. Given the rain, the rivers, streams and waterfalls are all cooking with fresh water.

After roughly 14 miles, we reach a turn off to go see a hanging glacier. At the turn off, we find one of the "posse" from yesterday. It is the Chilean. He explains that the "posse" did a hike at the hanging glacier. He slipped, fell and injurred his knee. The other three continued south about 45 minutes ago. He is resting and waiting to see if he will feel better. So, we head to see the glacier and decide to skip the long hike. The glacier is impressive and twice we hear huge chunks of breaking ice. After checking out the views, we ride back to the CA expecting to see the Chilean rider gone. Instead, he has taken apart his trailor, changed clothes, and swapped shoes. His knee is too pain to ride and he has decided on a "Plan B". He is going to wait for the bus headed south and ride to the next major city (easily a week away by bike). He is going to take several days off and see if his knee will improve. It is a big bummer for him. We offer him pain meds and he says he has them. So, we wish him good luck and continue southward.

The sun tries very hard to warm things up and dry out the rain. We go from a light rain to a moderate rain to sun and then cycle through it all again. We have discovered some new yellow flowers. The feel of the place is part jungle meets part pacific northwest. We have discovered that the hoods on our rain jackets will actually fit over our helmets. It keeps us both dry and not too hot. We are very pleased with these jackets. They are a relatively new purchase for cycle touring and biking in foul weather. They are our first purchase of gear from Cabela's. We found them on sale ($90) -- full gortex, seam sealed, fleece around the zippers, lots of pockets, AND a hood that fits over the bike helmet. Arn declares, "These are the best rain jackets - ever!"

Wet, but happy, we arrive at the ecolodge. The barking dogs greet us and a man comes out to see what we want. Arn explains we have a reservation. Well, there has been a mix up and there is no cabin for us tonight. Now, it seems kind of obvious to us standing over our bikes in the rain, wearing rain gear that this is very bad. The man explains the problem with their reservation system --- center office is hundreds of miles away, they don't have a phone, they communicate once a day by radio, we booked via email with the center office, someone else drove up looking for a room, blah blah blah. How do you say "unacceptable" in Spanish??? So, he eventually offers us two small rooms upstairs over the kitchen in the attic. "Over the kitchen" is really not a problem --- it is also over the dining room where the Germans are still sitting around the table laughing and drinking as I write this note getting mauled by mosquitos very late at night. Arn is sleeping in a different room in his twin bed. I am in the slightly larger room in a twin bed with all of our wet clothes drapped around on our laundry lines, hooks and chairs.

There is a cabin available for us tomorrow night. We are going to see what the weather brings. If we can, we are just going to continue south. What we thought would be two nights and some R&R in a private, secluded and romantic cabin has turned out to be something very different with a very different kind of vibe.

More words from Arn about bikes (Wed 2/17)

2010-02-21T18:57:00.000-08:00

A few words from the bike guy about some of the setups that I've seen. People are on all kinds of different rigs. The vast majority are mountain bikes. I'd estimate that only 15% of the people we've seen are on road bikes albeit with beefier tires. They seem happy with their setups. Rigid forks are much more common than front suspension. Everyone with a rigid fork also has front panniers. Only one guy with front shock has panniers using a home made very slick mounting system reinforced to his stem. We've only seen 3 trailers. Two bobs and one homemade Chilean contraption that apparently was made for twenty bucks. While I have no experience with trailers, I am struggling to see the benefit.

In terms of cool bike setups, I've seen four things of note.

First there are a number of people with Rohloff hubs. There is no question in my mind that this is the superior transmission system for the Carretera. Less external parts to get destroyed by the road and weather. Expensive but worth it. The only tradeoff is that an unlikely failure is a trip ender.

Next, I've been shocked by the number of busted racks and brazeons. Fully a third or more of the people we've met have had failures. Most of the problems were with front racks or front brazeons. I was concerned initially with the mounting system for the Old Man Mountain racks that we have, but I'm more than just a little impressed by them now. Spend the money, like Ortlieb panniers, Ergon grips, Schwalbe Marathon XR tires and Rohloff hubs. They are the gold standard.

We've seen a number of people with front hubs that can generate power to recharge battery packs and then USB devices. The utility of this for us is low as we are not camping enough to need this especially as we are carrying a rechargable USB recharger from IMAX Power that can recharge our iPod Touches like 6 times on one charge.

A final cool thing of note are a couple of frames with builtin racks. These rear racks seem absolutely bulletproof. Apparently made by a German framebuilder.

Our strategy for lodging has been pretty simple. Mostly choose the best value in town that has availibility. Sometimes, like last night, it is a room in a hospedaje. These range from about $15 to $30 per person per night. Sometimes it is a cabaña and occassionally it is a fancy pants lodge. Our least favored choice is camping. Both times we camped so far were by choice and both spots offered dinner (as well as rooms). So, if you were taking the camping as emergency approach, you could save a great deal of space and weight if you are willing to forgo a cooked meal in an emergency and instead feast on chocolates, bread, etc. To me, this is a good tradeoff as you could get rid of the cook kit, stove, cleanup kit, and fuel. We've only used the stove for one meal so far. Continuing, we brought with a nice gravity water filter that we have yet to use. Instead, I would bring iodine or other tablets for emergency use. Looking forward on some of our future days and ride options, we probably only have one forced camping option and even that might be avoidable with a long day of cycling. More on this in another note.

Arn talks about plans (Wed2/17)

2010-02-21T18:54:00.000-08:00

We've reached the part of the journey where we are going to have to start making some difficult choices. Our next week is largely mapped out. Tomorrow we'll cycle a short distance to an Ecolodge in Queulet where we'll stay for two nights. After that it is three days of cycling (and primitive food and lodging) to Puerto Chacabuco - which is on a side road to the sea. From there, we have plans to do a very long one-day trip on a high speed catamaran to Parque Nacional Laguna San Rafael in order to see the glaciers. It is supposed to be an awesome sight so we are hoping for some good weather and riding as we are committed to a February 23rd trip.

It is after this boat trip that the choices become difficult. There are three possible plans:
A. Continue on the Carretera through Coyhaique and then around the west side of the 2nd largest lake in South America. This would put us in Cochrane after 8 more ride days (including a couple of interesting side trips). From there, we are probably 4 ride days to the end of the CA proper but a very rough crossing - trail, ferries, etc -continues into Argentina and Fitzroy.

B. Continue on the CA through Coyhaique and then south another day to the ferry on the big lake. This would put us in Chile Chico. From there we'd ride a day into Argentina and to the town of Perito Moreno (not to be confused with the famous glacier near El Calafate). We'd be back on Argentina Ruta 40 and would then hop a bus to Fitzroy (12 hours on bad road).

C. Hop a ferry over to Chiloé - the 2nd largest island on South America. From what folks have said it is altogether different than the rest of Chile and well worth visiting. From our southern arrival port, we'd ride to the north end of the island and then hop a short ferry towards Puerto Montt and continue cycling to Puerto Varas and Cochamó - a beautiful Yosemite-like valley highly recommended by some friends.

The "A" plan is, well, choice "A" but that will depend on weather and legs. Stay tuned!

FAQs & Rest Day in Puyuhuapi (Wed 2/17)

2010-02-21T18:51:00.000-08:00

Today is a much needed day of rest in Puyuhuapi. We headed into the Visitor's Center to check email. (They have free WiFi). As luck would have it, 4 cyclists rolled into the main square. It was Shauna and Jullian --- the Canadians we enjoyed beer with about 9 days ago in El Bolson. They were traveling with two other riders; a guy from Chile and a guy from Austria. They called themselves a "posse". When we last saw Shauna and Jullian, we had all just finished a lousy week of weather and traffic. Shauna was talking about the beach and I was talking about backpacks. Today, we laughed and joked about how awesome the last 8 days have been. Shauna and I shared our loathing of the "final insult" hill between Futaleufu and Villa Santa Lucia. She said she rode out in front of the the "posse", so they couldn't hear the language she used to express her feelings about the road surface. We swapped stories about who we had met on the road. The Austrian guy had camped one night with the crazy German (the guy riding 125 miles in a day). He had to help the German set up his tent. We gave them confirmed sightings of the German by the guys from Finland and the UK. The "posse" is "wild camping" --- finding spots along the road and making camp. So, while we talked, they laid out their tents to dry in the main square. After photos and a stop in the panaderia for lemon pie, the posse headed south. It is doubtful we will see them again as our ideas for the next week will take in some options that will put us behind the posse on the road. Arn thought Shauna and Jullian would roll through town today and he was right.

Since our day was pretty slow and quiet, I thought I would change it up a bit on the blog entry and post a list of FAQs (frequently asked questions). Sources for these questions include family, friends, people we have encountered in Chile and Argentina, and fellow cyclists also touring. And of course, I as the author, have written a few questions that should be asked by anyone considering this adventure.

Q: Where are you going?
A: In general, we are headed south. However, we are starting to generate westbound and northbound options. We have no set schedule or destination. We will go no further south than Villa O'Higgins where the Carretera Austral ends. Other than that, it is unknown. Our route is determined by the fun factor. Fun factor is a calculation based on weather, scenery, traffic, roads, and the 'off the bike experience'.

Q: How does this compare to the other cyclists you meet?
A: We are pretty much alone with this particular "plan". Most have a target --- Ushuia, Villa O'Higgins, etc.

Q: How are you figuring out where to ride?
A: We have maps and have formed loose ideas. In some places, it is easy as there is only one road. We are asking people along the way. Once we arrive in a place, we gather information about what lies ahead, look at maps, check the weather forecast, calculate distances, and consider the options for accomodations and food. We usually have a loose idea for the next couple of days. For the next day, we usually have an A, B, and C Plan.

Q: Is your "A Plan" usually what happens?
A: Sometimes, it all comes together and we have something better than the A Plan --- like finding a woman that sells awesome sandwiches from her kitchen. At other times, we end up with the H Plan which then ripples forward and changes the plans for the coming days.

Q: Isn´t this really different than how you guys usually travel?
A: Yes.

Q: How is it working?
A: So far, it is working. Arn would laugh at my "so far". But really, we have had no stress between us with this approach. If we had done our typical thing of making firm plans, we would have missed a few great opportunities and we would have screwed ourselves with the weather.

Q: Are you riding with a group?
A: Yes. I am riding with Arn and he is riding with me. And really, this is already a lot of opinions to consider when deciding where to go and what to do. We have been lucky and have enjoyed riding with other riders for several days. It has been great to meet so many people from all over the world.

Q: How far do you ride everyday?
A: We only know the answer to this question at the end of each ride. Seriously, sometimes stuff is a bit further than we expected. Sometimes it is shorter. There is no "typical day" as it just depends on what the options are in front of us.

Q: How fast do you ride?
A: Okay, the guy that got stuck on this question was enough to drive me nuts. Yes, he ticked me off. He wanted to compare his riding at home on a road bike (unloaded) and on pavement to our "pace". Here is the best math I can offer. Arn and I have compared our "equations" and we disagree by a bit. As the author, you are going to get my math. This is a multi-variable problem taking into consideraton the following: distance, wind, road conditions, load and type of bike, single day ride versus tour, climbing and calories burned. Here it is...if you take our ripio ride and you want to compare it to "road cycling", you need to increase the distance by 75% and double the climb. The ride time for me would be similar. (40 ripio miles loaded with 3200 feet of climbing equals 70 miles and 6400 feet of climbing on the road unloaded --- based on my ride time and calorie burn rates). Okay dude from some ski town in the USA --- crunch those numbers and get back to me. Bottom line, ripio riding while fully loaded is hard and in the words of one man from Buenes Aires ---"you must be a hard woman to ride here".

Q: "From the blog, it sounds like there is a lot of bad with the good. Is there enough good to make it worthwhile?"
A: Well, it depends when you asked this question. After a bad week of weather, nerves and tolerance were worn thin. The one with good feet had dreams of a backpack. Then, there was the day where the one with bad feet was nearly killed twice. While this individual had shed tears after trips over the handlebars on said individual's mountain bike, this person had never shed tears on a road ride. Unbeknownst (really how do you spell that word?) to the other party on this "tour", the person in question who was a) nearly killed and b) has bad feet --- choked up and shed tears. They were tears of relief to still be alive. So, the individual with bad feet was actually first to bring up the "is it time to pull the plug on this before we get killed" topic. The person with the good feet, suggested we take it one day at the time. The person with the bad feet thought, 'hmm, this is interesting as the good feet person tells people he is doing this because it was his wife's idea'. Man, can you keep up with the feet and bad ideas in this story?!?! And then, there were 8 days of stellar weather, scenery, no traffic --- good feet and bad feet agreed: if it could be like this all the time, we could do this for months and months and months. Of course, as I write this, good feet is sleeping, bad feet is typing, and it is pissing rain.

Q: Are you from Germany?
A: No, we are from the United States.

Q: How do the people in your country feel about your president?
A: "Do you want him? We will send him to you!" So far, no takers. We can't pawn him off on South America or Europe.

Q: You guys are traveling light! Do you have a tent and cook kit?
A: Yes, we have everything we need to camp. We prefer to stay indoors. We didn't want gear on the front of the bike as we wanted a front shock. And yes, we know a broken shock would mean the end of our trip. Everyone has something in their set up that could be the catastrophic break. Riding with the shock is sweet on ripio. Other than the crazy German and a woman from Australia that was only out for a few days, we are traveling lighter than everyone we have met so far.

Q: How have the people in my country treated you?
A: People have been very friendly in both Chile and Argentina. We have had great experiences off the bike. Most people have gone out of their way to extend hospitality and to do anything possible to support a touring cyclist. While most motorists extend support with a friendly wave or slowing down, we wish they all would.

Q: Which do you like better --- Chile or Argentina?
A: Depends -- who is asking the question? We have enjoyed both countries a lot. This is our second visit to Argentina and our forth visit to Chile. Secretly, there is just a sweet spot in my heart for the Chileans.

Q: It sounds like you have met people from all over the world. What is the language of choice?
A: If the people are from South America, then the language has been Spanish. For the rest, it has been English with the exception of Alex from Barcelona.

Q: You guys must be finding Internet cafes everywhere to be blogging. Yes?
A: No. I am actually writing the blog notes on my iPod Touch. When we have WiFi, I cut and paste the text to the blog. You should see my thumbs type on the Touch!!! This works well and allows me to write from anywhere we are --- sleeping in a tent at Lago Verde or in Estel and Hugo's extra room. We have visited the internet cafes to upload photos and reply to email a few times.

Q: I see you heart rate monitor watch. Are you wearing a heart rate monitor?
A: Yep. The HR monitor captures speed, distance and climbing. I like to wear the HR strap to see calories burned and current heart rate. At the start of every ride, I pay attention to the number --- my standing heart rate before riding. This number is very helpful. If the number is elevated, it usually means a) I am slightly dehydrated, b) I pushed gears too big yesterday and I have not fully recovered and I need to increase my cadence for today's ride OR c) I have ridden enough days in a row that I need a rest day. Also, I can get a rough cut at any fitness gain if my standing heart rate is dropping. For the last week, my standing heart rate has dropped day after day. I hit a new low for the trip two days ago -- 46 bpm. I would love to know my real resting heart rate that day (laying down in the AM).

Q: From you photos, it looks like someone was not wearing a helmet. true?
A: The only consistent helmet wearing countries are the US, UK and Germany.

NOTE - I will probably do another FAQ later in the trip, so stay tuned!

La Junta to Puyuhuapi (Tues 2/16)

2010-02-17T10:34:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 29 miles (all dirt)
- 1800 feet of climbing
- ALL ZEROS: roadkill, rain and wind
- Season = summer!

The plan was to meet Santiago at 9:30am to start riding. Arn and I had the typical Chilean breakfast: bread, jam, ham, cheese and instant coffee. I have a new name for the town of La Junta. I am going to remember it as "Cockroach Village". Again, as the girl looking for protein at breakfast, I have taken to eating a ham and cheese "sandwich". After we finished eating, I noticed a cockroach crawl out from under the remaining cheese on the plate. (Note to self: when we reach the next town --- we need to stay at someplace cleaner!!!)

As we loaded the bikes, a morning fog layer was lifting. The temps were cool. I started with a tank top (hopeful that things will warm up), wool t-shirt, heavy arm warmers, a long sleeve polypropylene shirt, a wind breaker, full fingered gloves, over-mittens, and cycling shorts. The town was covered in a hazy smog from all the wood burning stoves and fireplaces. We could smell the smoke in the streets.

We rejoined the Carretera and continued southward. Over the last couple of days, there was "chatter" about today -- this would be a short ride and would be "like a day off". While I didn't think it would feel that way, I was hopeful.

As we left town, there was a HUGE peak to the west. It was something akin to Rainier. Later on a map, I noticed that there is a huge volcano to the west of Cockroach Village (sorry, I meant to say La Junta). I am guessing we saw this volcanco.

With more blue skies, things warmed up quickly and the layers came off one at a time. After two hours, we took a break for cookies and chocolate. By now, it was full summer and I was once again riding the Carretera in a tank top! We met two young backpackers trying to hitch a ride south into the National Park. Standing around with the three of us and our bikes didn't seem to help their case, so they continued walking down the road and we enjoyed a break.

Our scenery continued to be excellent today. The road was frequently lined with white and purple foxglove flowers taller than me. We started to see huge, blooming fushia plants. The ferns increased in both number and size. It was a landscape that said --- "you really should be soaking wet in the rain to see such vegatation". So, it was not easy to forget just how sweet it was to have this on the warm sunshine!

We eventually entered the National Park. At this point, the road followed a lake and in the distance, we could see the sea (a huge fiord) and another massive peak (I think another volcano I saw on the map). Now, when I say the road "followed the lake", you probably get the image of road at lake level that is flat and straight. This is where you would be wrong. Here, the mountains seem to spring up and the remaining valley has been filled in with water. So, the road "along the lake" has really been carved into the mountain. In this case, it curved up and down and wound around here there and everywhere. While in your dreams you would have loved to sling the downhill speed of your bike up and over the next rise, it was impossible. It was big gear riding down and granny-ish gear riding up. In other words --- hill repeats! Or as I prefer to call it: death by a 1000 paper cuts!!! It was in this section that I heard Arn say, "My legs are definitely not great today". While I already knew it to be true for myself, Arn and Santiago agreed that this was not an easy "rest day" of riding.

During the "paper cut section", we met three riders headed the opposite way. Two were from Finland and one was from the UK. The Brit was actually riding a road bike with slightly wider wheels. One of the Fins was pulling a bob trailor. We shared all the standard info. All threes of us suggested they take a bus between El Bolson and Bariolche to avoid the death stretch. One of the Fins explained that they are bike messengers at home and they don't ride the "white line". They get out into the lane and "claim it". Now, between me and you -- I am married to a white line rider. I too think that this sets up the cyclist to get squeezed as the car doesn't move over. Riding down the west coast in the US, Arn typically rode in front on the white line and I took the lane. Once I found a place that I was okay with a passing car (ie not a blind corner), then I would pull out too. This typically resulted in the passing car slowing down before they reached us and crossing the center line to give us a better pass. Well, I tried this approch between Bariolche and El Bolson. I was run off the road by a bus!! So, we listened to the Fin, shared our experience, and wished him luck. I am guessing the Finland and American drivers are more a like and the Argentinians are the "one of these things is not like the others".

We reached the end of our "death by paper cuts" and were rewarded with a great view of the town of Puyuhuapi. The town sits at the base of the mountains and at the end of the fiord. The setting on the water with the mountains is fantastic. We pedaled past the visitor center --- it didn't open until 3pm. We rode to the hosteria that was recommended to us in Bariloche by a couple of American biologists that drove the Carretera. Well, we could only get single rooms (no doubles). Now, I was prepared to sleep in my own room alone if it meant no cockroachs. A girl has to have a few priorities and no roachs is one of them. Anyway, the woman recommended a different place, and after a bit of a hunt to find it, we lucked into a very sweet cabana. One bedroom has a queen sized bed that nearly fills the room. The other room has two sets of bunk beds. There is a shared bathroom and kitchen. So, Arn and I took the queen sized room and Santiago took a bunk in the other room. We joked that now he needed to find three other 'chicas' and he would have a sleepover party! Given his serious girlfriend in Spain, this would probably not have been a good idea!

Having arrived in time for lunch, we enjoyed fantastic roasted chicken and mashed potatoes. We even enjoyed a few minutes of the Olympics. The afternoon's entertainnent was finding and using the internet, a long discussion about the sex gender of the person working in the visitor center, a trip to the market for supplies, and looking over the maps and discussing options. A quick note on going to the market here. It is not like the US. There are a number of items that are kept behind the counter. You ask for each item individually. This included shampoo, eggs (which you exactly buy the number you want and they are not refrigerated), chocolate, cookies, jam, and butter. In the early evening, Arn and Santigo went for a walk to find a viewpoint that was rumored to exist near town. In the process, they met three more cyclists --- three Chileans. Theses guys are on a different kind of tour. It sounds like they don't start riding until late in the day -- 3pm! And, they are going about 20 miles a day. Perhaps, they could make it further of they started earlier!!

While Santiago is headed south tomorrow (rain or shine), we are taking a day off. And while he is set on getting to Villa O'Higgins, we are determined to be opportunists. So, we are studying the opportunites as they present themselves. More on this in a future post.

Dinner was baked salmon and sauteed vegtables. Funny, no one wanted more potatoes! Santiago had a slice of nut pie for dessert. Arn and I understood the choices to be nut or plum kuchen. Kuchen is a German pastry that loosely resembles an American pie. There were a number of German immigrants to this part of Chile. So, kuchen is pretty common. As we left the restaurant, I noticed that the second choice was not "plum", it was "cherry". Now, this was upsetting to my restaurant Spanish. I excell at food words and cherry kuchen would have been interesting to Arn and me. I confirmed it --- Arn understood it to be plum. Santiago said, "no, they use the same word for plum and cherry in these parts --- they don't have the word for cherry". Bummer. After hanging out and enjoying the heater in the cabana, we called it a night. It was another great day of riding and Puyuhuapi is a sweet little town.

Villa Santa Lucia to La Junta (Mon 2/15)

2010-02-17T10:32:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 44 miles (all dirt)
- 2500 feet of climbing
- roadkill: 1 rabbit
- precipitation = zero
- season = summer
- winds = zero

Well, well, well....we have ridden 529 miles and have climbed 30,500 feet to reach the Carretera Austral. Today's ride was our first day on the Carretera. Cutting to the chase, Arn described it as, "the best scenery ever on a bike".

Santigo, Arn and I woke up to a freezing cold cabana. Arn toughed the night out under the wool blankets on his bed. I slept in my sleeping bag and was much warmer. The cabana was not heated, not well insulated, and had a few gaps to the outdoors. Still, it was warmer than a tent! Arn headed off to the "panaderia" to buy bread. The woman was pulling bread out of the oven as he arrived. We enjoyed hard boiled eggs, warm bread, cheese and dulce de leche for breakfast. The coffee was instant, but that is coffee all over Chile.

Without a cloud in the sky and crisp temperatures, we headed south for our first taste of the Carretera Austral. The ripio was sweet. The views were smashing. The traffic was nil and the motorists we did see were reasonable. We actually saw a number of supply trucks.

Okay, I need to share a few bits of history about the Carretera Austral. The road was the idea of Pinochet. He built the road to protect the sovereignity of Southern Chile from Argentina. With the presence of a road, Pinochet wanted to encourage the creation of settlements in this part of the country. While most people remember the bad deeds of Pinochet, in Chile and especially in this part of the country, people remember the good things he did for the people. The road itself is an engineering feat snaking through mountains and valleys and navigating lakes.

As the day warmed up, we removed layer upon layers of clothes. Eventually, I enjoyed the summer weather in a tank top. I never expected to ride the Carretera in a tank top! The valleys were dotted with homesteads and farms. We passed a few places offering homemade bread and cheese for sale. We probably passed more cows on the road than cars. At one point, we had a very unexpected car --- it was a pick up truck with Washington State license plates. We recognized it too late to flag down the driver.

We passed a solo cyclist headed northbound. He was from Belguim. I think he smiled more than any cyclist we have met so far. We exchanged ideas, experiences and notes. Things like where to stay, where to eat, what can you get in the store, how far is it really between points A and B, ripio quality, rumors of pavement, rumors of big climbs, best scenery, weather and wind patterns, etc are the subject of every conversation. Shortly after passing the Belguim, Santiago, Arn and I took a lunch break: more bread, cheese, cookies, chocolate, and peanut butter (my stash is quickly dwindling). While sitting the sun and enjoying our break, three northbound riders passed us and they never said more than 'hola' and never stopped. It was strange behavior because everyone seems to be glad to meet other riders.

Our views continued to be stellar all day long...clusters of mountains that looked like something out of Yosemite or Torres del Paine. Everything was capped in snow and the largest peaks were wrapped in glaciers. Occassionally, Arn would start singing something about the Carretera Austral. Our eyes feasted all day long with awesome scenery. Arn declared it the new best day of the trip.

Eventually, we reached the town of La Junta. It is certainly bigger than where we were last night in Villa Santa Lucia, but it was still very small. There was a gas station and small grocery store. To put things in perspective, these small towns have NO bank. People have to drive anywhere from an hour to several hours to reach a bank or ATM.

The Belguim suggested a hosteria. We stopped to check it out. Santiago decided it would work for him. Arn declared he would kill himself -- banging his head into low ceilings and doorways. So, Arn and I found a place around the corner and we all met up later at the internet cafe. Of course, Santiago arrived explaining that he had already smashed his head once (he is actually slightly taller than Arn).

As we left the Internet cafe, we found three loaded bikes. One of the guys was with the bikes. They were a group of college students from Brazil and they were struggling with a busted rack. Arn retrieved our repair kit and gave them a couple of hose clamps to try and patch things back together. As Santiago, Arn and I headed off for dinner, we came upon two more riders. It was a couple from Greece. I said I had never met anyone from Greece traveling in South America. They guy was very funny and explained that in Greece, "they only let them leave two at the time". They were headed northbound and again, we exchanged the typical set of information and ideas.

Our dinner was in a tiny shack with three tables. There were two choices for dinner -- braised beef or beef braised. With beef ordered all around, I was the only one who noticed the cockroaches on the table. I covered them with the placemats and pretended they didn't exist.

After dinner, Arn and I picked up a small box of wine. We returned to hosteria and spent a couple of hours sitting in the living room and chatting with the people working at the hosteria. They each had different views and experiences of living along the Carretera. The man has only been working here for a month and his family is still living much further north in Chile in a large city. The woman has been here longer, but is not from this area. They described a place with many young girls that leave school to have babies. This cycle repeats and there are a lot of women and children with no men or fathers in the picture. As time went on, I grew sleepy and my "not so great Spansish" turned into no Spanish. We called it a night.

Futaleufu to Villa Santa Lucia (Sun 2/14)

2010-02-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 49 miles (all dirt)
- 3200 feet of climbing
- roadkill: 2 rabbits & 2 cars
- precipitation = zero
- winds = none to mild headwind
- road surface quality = @&$%#!!!!!

I know. There is new data in the roadkill count, but we thought they should be included. We passed two cars that were off the road and totaled. The first looked like a new SUV. Windows were shattered. Two wheels were bent straight outward from the car. And, the rear bumper was ripped off. The second car was an older sedan. It looked like it rolled, landed back on it's wheels, pointing back in the direction from which it had come. Now, how did these cars get to where they were? It is not hard to understand when I tell you a prime "feature" in today's experience, but this is getting head of the story.

We were rudely awoken very early this morning by a woodpecker. He was perched outside of our window, scratching on the glass, and banging away on the wood. Despite my banging on the window he continued with his wake up "call". It was hard to be annoyed because he was a beautiful bird AND he woke us up to completely sunny blue skies.

During breakfast, we talked about the weather, our A Plan for the day, and the forecast. We decided the right answer was to push south for the next three days and to not stop at the Bio Bio kayak and rafting camp. Should the forecast be correct, we can get to a reasonable town in three days and wait out a bad stretch of weather if needed. So, I first looked at breakfast as fuel for ~20 miles and then went back to fuel up for ~50 miles. But cereal and toast only goes so far.

After breakfast, we stopped at a mini-market of sorts to buy bread and cheese. The temps were crisp, but the sun was warm on our backs and there was NO wind. The setting of the Futaleufu River is very magical. It is a relatively narrow valley with high walls at times and beautiful mountains. This morning, we kept saying, " there wasn't this much snow last year". We also didn't remember all the lakes. It was a great treat to see everything from the seat of a bike. We heard symphonies of frogs near the road. We enjoyed the wildflowers and occassional peaks of the river.

We decided to take our first break as we passed the Bio Bio camp. It turns out that today was the first day of the season they didn't have a trip running. The guides were in town having taken the last group to the border very early this morning. So, we continued to the first bridge over the river (at the start of a section called "Bridge to Bridge"). Arn paddled it last year and wanted to see what it looked like at high water. From the bridge, we looked at Entrada rapid and ate alfajores (cookies). While we knew we were in for a long day, things were going well.

Our next landmark was the second bridge. This is the take out for the "Bridge to Bridge" run. We stopped on the bridge to "admire" some stout and scary eddy lines. However, this was not what I will remember about the bridge. The second bridge is where the ripio went to hell. The road grader had recently pushed the dirt around and it was miserable riding. Yeah, I know, "how bad was it"? Well, I had MANY hours to contemplate how I would describe this hellish surface. Here is how you can recreate the experience. First, cover a dirt road in 8 inches of baby powder. Next, drop bushels of rocks the size of lemons and limes. Then, get on your bike with a (not so) small child on your back and ride it! Now, when you finally get the hang of it, give the road a slant (bank the road around corners) and see if you can hang on without sliding into the ditch. To make things more "interesting", the nature of the suffering changed. To recreate this experience, start with an Olympic sized swimming pool. Fill it with golf balls. Again, get on your bike and ride from one end of the pool to the other. Should you not fall off, then you are ready for the section of the ride that has been labeled "the final insult" --- golf balls in the pool on a steep uphill grade.

This punishing surface went on forever. We began to talk about when we would have lunch (bread and cheese). With 30 minutes to go before our scheduled break, we reached the junction in the road. Our turn would be from the west southwest road through the Futaleufu River valley, to the road that would take us west northwest to join the Carretera Austral. At the junction, we found a woman selling sandwiches out of her house. Being the opportunists that we are, we stopped. She invited us into her dining room. Given what we looked like, I wouldn't have invited us into the garage -- never mind the dining room. She left us with two cold cokes while she went to get sandwiches. Next thing we knew, we heard the clatter of pans and the sound of something sizzling. She could have fried shoe leather and we would have gladly eaten it. She returned with two sandwiches each the size of my head! I am not kidding. They reminded me of a poboy sandwich in New Orleans. It was a homemade bread roll with lettuce, tomato (some of the best I've eaten), a hamburger, and roasted chicken! As the girl who has been on the hunt for protein for breakfast and lunch, I was convinced I had found my saviour! Arn declared he was going to eat the entire sandwich. He did. I gave it a good shot. Let's just say I prioritized and there was not a gram of meat left behind.

Refueled, we returned to "battle with the ripio". Our views were superb. The vegatation started to change. We began to see ferns along the road. The trees began to change. We continued to see lakes, rivers and streams. The mountains were topped with snow. As we pushed on, it was clear we were moving into temperate rainforest with lakes and mountains. I know this is lacking in creavity, but it looked like a scene from Jurrasic Park. I expected to see dinosaurs chomping on the trees. The road was lined with these plants that have tall stalks. Each stalk ends in a single leaf the size of a car door or car hood. Really, I think dinosaurs would have liked this stuff. We saw clusters of foxglove flowers in white and purple.

We passed a lone cyclist heading the opposite direction to ours. He was traveling light with a handlebar bag, a backpack, and a seat post rack carrying his tent. His plan was crazy. Today, he planned to ride nearly 90 miles from some hot springs near El Chitan to Futaleufu. Then tomorrow, he plans to retrace his steps back to the Carretera Austral and continue south to where we plan to be in two days! This is a 125 mile ride on dirt! Someone told him there was a nice place to stay in Futaleufu. And, he explained that he has a ticket for the ferry, much further south, on February 27th. So, he doesn't have time to waste. He was from Germany and we thought that might explain his advance purchase for the ferry. Every other rider plans to sort out ferries when they make it that far south.

The ripio battle continued. It was both mentally and physically grueling. With no way to go other than forward, we perservered. When things really suck on a bike (and let's face it -- in life, stuff just sucks sometimes), I play math games. I play the, "at this pace I will be there X more minutes". This game can be grinding on the brain because as you get tired you ride slower and the number of minutes increase. This game is a brain bender until you get close enough that the minutes are really starting to reduce. There is a pep talk that helps this game -- "come on, anyone can ride a bike for 180 minutes". Then, I play the "bottles of beer on wall" game. I calculate the remaining distance in tenths of a mile (15 miles equals 150). I take this number and start mentally singing, "150 bottle of beer on the wall, 150 bottles of beer, take one down, pass it around, 149 bottles of beer on the wall....". Now, this game is usually very good. You play for a while, look at the bike computer, and think "wow, only 135 bottles of beer to go". So, I played math games.

Then, we reached the "final insult" --- a long, steep, uphill grind through golf balls. At the bottom, we saw two large roadkill. It was the two cars in the ditch. Given how some people drive, it was really no surprise to see two cars rolled off the road by the golf balls. I can't remember the number of times we both nearly went to the ground trying to ride either baby powder or golf balls. I know we both had a few slips and managed to get a foot down to catch the bike before a crash. As we climbed up the golf ball ramp and I ranted, "There is no place where this crap is compacted". Soon, I was breathing too hard to ride and complain at the same time. So, I shut up and continued to take my punishment.

Eventually, we looked into the distance and saw a car traveling on a road perpendicular to our road. It was the Carretera Austral! We had arrived at the road we have talked about for nearly a year. At this point in the day, we were actually much more excited about the fact that this meant the day on the bike was over. At the road junction was the "town" of Villa Santa Lucia. "Town" is a hard word to apply to the place. We were not expecting much. The German cyclist said he couldn't even buy food in Villa Santa Lucia. Our goal was to find a place to sleep inside. We stopped at a hosteria -- full. We stopped at a hostel -- full. Luckily, the woman wanted to help. She sent us to the "supermarket" as they have a room for rent -- no answer and the store (about the size of a single car garage) was closed. We returned to the hostel and this time she sent us to the house where the lady makes bread and sells it from her kitchen. She wasn't home either. Again, we returned to the hostel and this time she sent us to the elementary school. Given that it was Sunday in the middle of the summer, we were not surprised to find no one at the school. One more time, we returned to the hostel. This time, the young woman went to a neighbor's house and found a man that rents a cabana. Lucky for us, it was available. He showed us around, plugged in the gas can to heat the water and to provide fuel the stove, gave us the key, and left us to get settled.

With everythig unloaded, I took first shower. At one point, there was a hint of warm water. And then, it was liquid ice. Really, any colder and the pipes might have froze. After showering, Arn took a walk to see if the store might be open. He returned with two sodas, butter and eggs. We warmed some bread and enjoyed bread with butter. I washed our clothes in the kitchen sink. Arn cooked dinner --- pasta with olive oil and a dried pesto mix.

Someone in the store explained that the wine in town is sold from someone's house. While I cleaned the dishes, Arn decided to walk around to see if he could pick off a stray WIFI signal and to find the "wine" house. I laughed -- if you could have seen this village of ~50 houses, you'd know WIFI wasn't happening. Still, info on the weather would have been helpful. About 15 minutes later, Arn returned with no WIFI and no wine, but he did have a fellow cyclist with him. He had found Santiago headed to the elementary school. You'll remember, Santiago is the guy from Barcelona that jumped out in the street in Futaleufu and asked, "Are you the two Americans from Seattle?" So, with an extra bedroom in the cabana, there was plenty of room for all.

With more determination, Arn and Santigo headed out to find beer or wine to go with this evenings festivities --- the celebration that we are all inside and not dealing with tents, camp stoves, and gas bottles (let me tell you --- burning unleaded gas to cook dinner is an extremely messy and dirty process). They returned with the conclusion: it is Sunday and no one sells beer or wine in Villa Santa Lucia on Sunday.

More photos!!!

2010-02-13T16:08:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to our photos. You will need to copy and paste. This is the same link as before, but Arn has added the last several AMAZING days. Unfortunately, photos and words don't do justice to the experience. We'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email!!! I think we could be headed into the stretch where we could be held up in a tent together....for days.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ArnSchaeffer/ChileAndArgentinaCycling2010#

Trevelin to Futaleufu (Sat 2/13)

2010-02-13T16:01:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 31 miles (23+ on dirt)
- 1100 feet of climbing
- roadkill: 1 bird & 3 rabbits (all blown to death by the wind)
- precipitation = ZERO
- season = summer!!
- wind = a total blaster of a head wind
- ripio quality = butt breaker

After last night's rain, we were hopeful but unsure if the forecast would prove correct. It did. The skies were blue with only a few clouds. While our room last night was very tight with two bikes and all our gear (I had to crawl out the bottom of the bed to avoid the bikes), our hosteria served up the best breakfast of the whole trip. My legs have been ready to declare a strike when presented with toast and sweets for breakfast. They have been in search of something with more holding power and it was served up today --- hardboiled eggs. Awesome.

We loaded up and headed off in the direction of the border with Chile. The temps were warm and Arn never even put on arm warmers today. Initially, we were headed south. When the road turned west, we knew a head wind was likely. Well, it didn't disappoint. It was a head wind. At first, the dirt road surface was pretty good and head wind wasn't too ugly. At some point, we crossed a stream and it really picked up. This is where Arn yelled, "Oh yeah, no more girly wind. It's a man's man wind". For me, I prefer girly wind. In fact, I think a sissy prissy girly wind is best. Now, to make things more "interesting", the road surface went to shit --- loose, washer board, and more loose. Last night's rain kept down the dust. Traffic was light. Traffic that passed from behind was very light and very courteous. The jerks were in the head on direction and most failed to realize the option of using a brake or just not standing on the gas.

As for the scenery, it was another feast for the eyes....wide valley (good fetch for the wind), stunning mountains, snow up high, winding river, ranches, the ocassional farm, and a few gauchos riding horses along the road. After 18 miles, we found a small store in the front of someone's farmhouse. We stopped for a drink and a few minutes out of the wind. What happened next was inspiration for becoming a vegaterian. The store was a small room with glass counters and cabinets and a wooden floor and ceiling. It reminded me of a place near my grandparents were my brother and I went as kids to buy nickel bubblegum cigars. There was a collection of old scales on the counter. In one corner, there were baskets with fresh bread and tortas fritas (fried dough). In the other corner, there was a butchered lamb hung to dry (I guess) and a saw. So, we selected a carbonated grapefruit flavored drink and three tortas fritas to share. As we enjoyed our break, a local man arrived to buy red wine and 4 kilos (8.8 pounds) of fresh lamb. Really, I wish I had video of the sight and sound of 8.8 pounds of lamb being sawed off (come on you know it --- she sawed right through bones). And then, the whole slab of lamb was hoisted onto two different sets of scales to calculate the weight and price. Tonight, I think I am looking for fish --- or anything that comes to the table without bones!

We hopped back on the bikes and continued to take our beating in the wind. At one point, I asked Arn, "You can only have one of the following and you have to choose one. You can either have no wind and this road surface. Or, you can have a great dirt road with this wind". I had been thinking about this for a while and didn't have a clear answer. My butt was killing me. It is called a "hardtail" mountain bike because you need a hardtail to ride it. Fully loaded, it is a real spanking! The wind dried out my nose and throat to the point that both felt like they were on fire. So, my theoretical question was a tough one. Arn couldn't decide. He said it was a very difficult choice.

Eventually, a car passed us and then stopped. It was the Israelis from last night. They piled out of their car offering drinks, apples and bananas. They were like a sag wagon of good cheer. We chatted for a bit and then all headed off to the border. Sure enough, they were in the customs line when we arrived. There seemed to be two different processes to leave Argentina. We completed the first and they declared we could leave because we were on bikes. Next, we reached the Chilean side. The constrast between the two is marked. Think a cluster exercise versus a neat line. Between the two stops, it took 30 minutes and we were back in Chile. While I love Argentina and I find the people easier to understand than in Chile, there is just something about Chile that runs deep in my heart. There was definitely a sense of "aaahhh" --- we are back.

The road leaving the border headed to Futaleufu was paved! No ripio! At first, neither of us commented. It was like, "Hey, if I say something about 'isn't this the best chip and seal road in the world', then it will return to ass smashing ripio". And by the way, with the tires we are running, chip and seal pavement feels like riding glass it is so smooth. Finally, Arn just had to break the silence. "When we cross that bridge over the stream, you know this is going to ripio". It didn't! In fact, it stayed as pavement until we reached town! Along the way, we passed this huge rock grinding operation. I think they are making the means for chip and seal. Okay, I get it. Places in the world should remain as they once were and dirt is better than pavement. Well, tell this to the people that live and breathe ripio dust. And if your butt felt like ours right now, you would vote to pave the road to hell and find a different kind of torture for the rest of time. Enough about butts, ripio and pavement.

As we come into the town of Futaleufu, this guy jumps out in the street and started yelling after us. So, we stopped. He ran up and said, "Hey, are you the two Americans from Seattle?" Didn't expect this one. He explained that he heard about us from the Swiss couple (we passed them head on several days ago) and then he heard about us again from Alex (rode with him a few days ago). So, he has been on the look out for us as we are headed the same way. His name is Santiago and he is from Barcelona. Santiago was headed off for an afternoon of rafting on the Futa. Now, we looked at the river in a flat section on our way into Chile. It is cooking --- bank full with some ripping eddy lines in the flat stretches. You couldn't pay this Chica to get anywhere near a raft and definitely not a kayak. As for the Chico, he is currently saying the same thing.

We scouted out a very nice place for the night. It feels like a log cabin with some very interesting fixtures. The overhead light is an upside down tin funnel with a light bulb. Sanded tree branches are mounted on the walls to hang towels and clothes. The bathroom sink is mounted in an old sewing machine with the manual treadle at the bottom (I hope that is what you call that thing). The other lights look like karosene latterns except with bulbs.

Our forecast continues to look good; however, we are headed into a zone known for bad weather. We met a guy from Argentina this afternoon. He spent 20 days where we are headed. It rained for 17 days. He spent 4 days in a row in his tent hoping it wouldn't leak. So, we are hoping to get lucky. Tomorrow, we plan to continue westward. We are going to stop at the Bio Bip camp were we stayed last year for a week of kayaking on the Futa. I have been put in charge of our "begging" plan. This is where we beg to stay two nights -- paying for a tent cabin (if available), food, and hot showers. We are both having fantasies of Cookie's cuisine. And, it would be great to see some familar faces from last year. If this doesn't pan out, there is a B Plan and C Plan. After this post, I will put up a link to our photos for the last several days. From here, we don't know when we will be back on the grid. So, let's hope for luck and if not, let's pray for a sense of humor.

Lago Verde to Trevelin (Fri 2/12)

2010-02-13T15:58:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 41 miles (28 on dirt)
- 2400 of climbing (most of it on dirt)
- roadkill = zero
- precipation = zero!!!!
- wind = light
- season = SUMMER!!!

We camped last night. This always means we wake up early. I came to around 7am and I think Arn had been up for a while reading. Since this is too early to think about moving (a bit cool for riding), I went back to sleep and Arn read. We crawled out to mostly sunny skies around 8am. With reasonable efficiency, we broke camp, packed up, and loaded the bikes. We arrived at the cafe in the campground a few minutes before 9am. While breakfast was supposed to start at 8am, they needed 5 more minutes. In South America time, this could be anything between 5 and 25 minutes. So, I ate a banana and a 75 calorie cereal bar (I am ready to declare these things completely void of any benefit to a cyclist. They have no lasting power and they taste like a tiny rice crispy bar). Arn chose to wait and see what breakfast options might appear along the road --- a strategy that only works for him. You really don't want to meet "Deborah Meltdown". She is a nasty woman capable of eating your head off in a single bite.

Our start out of camp was like "0 to 60" in under 10 seconds. It was very steep ripio riding with switchbacks up to the main road. Luckily, we knew it was going to be a short grind. After another short bit, we turned a corner to find jaw dropping mountains covered with glaciers. As we continued, the mountains picked up a red and orange color. Things grew increasingly drier. We discovered these huge orange wild flowers that looked like gerber daisies. While we were now headed out of the park, the scenery did not disappoint. For much of the ride, we followed the edge of a lake (this does NOT mean it was flat). We enjoyed warm sunshine and awesome views. The sky was bright blue, the lake was turquoise and aqua, and the mountains seemed to glow from within in shades of orange and red. It was another impressive display in the ruged and jaged nature of the Andes. It looked as if the peaks were pushed up only recently and time has yet to have the opportunity to round off the sharp edges and many spires.

Today's drivers were mostly from the head on direction and most were curtious. We still didn't see that many cars; a few more than yesterday perhaps. However, we met a few jerks on the road. I think people were signed up for a boat excursion in the park and they were running late. At mile 20, we reached pavement --- sweet asphalt. It was very pleasant. We exited the park and looked for a place to buy a cold drink. We found a house with a small store. Not seeing our first choice (Coke Zero) or our second choice (Diet Coke), we settled on two juice boxes (kid size) of tropical fruit juice. The first box went down so fast that we bought two more.

Riding away from the national park offered another change in scenery. The valley expanded wide with a meandering river all ringed in mountains. It reminded us of Wanaka in New Zealand or parts of Montana. Arn started singing some song by the Cars about summertime. He said, "When it's good here, it is really good. But when it's bad here, it really sucks". He's right and today was really good.

Now, everyday can't be perfect. Around mile 32, we returned to ripio. And, it was some of the lousiest ripio riding either of us has ever done. It was loose, followed by looser, followed by loosest. Is that even a word? To ride in it, felt like trying to find traction in a slurpy or in snow. The only thing harder than trying to scratch out traction for the uphill was trying not to slide out and crash on the downhill. At one point, we reached a small rise in the road and the views were 360 degrees of smashing scenery and perched in the meadow was a restaurant (file this tidbit away for later says she). After a few more ups and downs and one up that included me screaming at head on traffic trying to pass one another (their windows were down and the tone of my screaming would translate into any language).

Once in town, we had pizza, Coke Zero, and the Internet for lunch. We checked into our second choice place for night (you got it --- the A Plan was booked). We took showers, dropped off our laundry and walked around town until we found the bakery. Thanks to my brilliant Spanish, we had our second "bomb" treat --- cookie piled high with Dulce de leche dipped in chocolate. For a while, we sat in the park on the tetter-totters to hop onto the WI-FI from the pizza place were we ate lunch. Okay, we are bandwidth theives, but we are only guilty when caught. We saw two touring cyclists arrive at the visitor center. We walked over to say hello. They are the first traveling Chileans that we have met. They rode with Alex a few days ago (we rode with Alex yesterday). The Chileans are going as far as Futaleufu and then returning home (don't know the logistics of that plan). So perhaps we will see them again tomorrow. Today, they were driven in their search of showers and beds. They are also the first touring cyclists that seem to share our priorities --- indoor sleeping, hot showers, and food not cooked by a camp stove. There is a lot to be said for Chile.

Back in the hosteria, Arn met a guy, Lew, from Portland. He just finished a week long rafting trip on the Futaleufu (we kayaked the river last year). He told us tales of his week. The water levels were as high as 125,000 cfs. It is hard for us to comprehend as our trip last year was around 8,000 - 12,000 cfs. Tomorrow, we should enter the town of Futaleufu. So, in the coming days we will get to see the contrast in water levels as we ride through the valley of the Futa river.

Okay, back to today --- we invited Lew to join us for dinner at the restaurant up in the meadow (the one I scoped out during the ride). We enjoyed smoked meats, cheeses, breads, steaks, sweet potatoes, wine and chocolate. It was fantastic. We returned to the hosteria to find people sitting outside. Two couples were from Israel. Arn explained that he too is Jewish, but that his wife is not. I explained that "while I'm the shiksa, I know the difference between a mashugana and a mensche". They cracked up laughing. Another couple is traveling from Santiago with their 6 month old son (yes, he was still awake and very sweet at 11:30pm). We explained we are traveling by bike. They were equally impressed and convinced we are crazy. The foursome from Israel is traveling in our direction. We described our bikes and have asked for help should they see our thumbs pointed skyward.

As I finish writing this entry, it is after midnight and it is pissing rain outside. Now, my idea of summer is this --- goregous days and enough rain at night to keep the fire danger to a minimum. Do you think weather gods and I are thinking a like????

Cholila to Lago Verde (Thurs 2/11)

2010-02-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 29 miles (all ripio)
- 1900 ft of climbing
- precipitation = ZERO!!
- wind = very slight BREEZE!!!
- temps = I spent the whole day in shorts and a tank top!!!
- season = SUMMER!!!!!!!

Okay, Arn talked politics and the economy in Spanish with a man from Buenos Aires until much too late for me last night. So, I was sloooow to wake up. After a breakfast of toast, jam, and pound cake (plus the ham and cheese that I have resigned myself to as our only form of protein in the morning), we loaded up the bikes under sunny and warm skies!! We headed off to the grocery store to buy lunch. On the way, we met Alex from Barcelona. He is cycle touring solo and spent last night in the campground. Cholilo is such a small place that he was totally alone in the camping area. That might have been a bit spooky for me, but then I'm a city kid. So, the three of us headed off to buy lunch.

Today's ride was simply one of the best days EVER! It was fantasimorigoricalawesome!!! Really, the words do not yet exist to describe how out of the park this homerun experience was.

Everthing was ripio. Yes, there were a few loose and nasty sections, but for the most part it was a nice dirt surface -- well compacted and no washerboard. The traffic -- I should not even use the word 'traffic' in this post, was very light. I would say we saw 6-8 cars per hour!!! Clearly, today was too far away from anything and everything for the motorists to be interested. Most of the cars that passed moved very slowly. Head on traffic stopped for us to pass them. Wow!

Now, the views....mind popping mountains, rivers, lakes. The roadside was painted with blue, pink, and yellow wildflowers. You will just need to see the photos when we find a place to post photos again. And, I don't believe photos can capture the magic of today. Arn and Alex road together. They seemed to talk about everything -- in Spanish of course. Alex is a sculpture artist living in Lyon, France. While Arn practiced Spanish, I rode out in front enjoying the sound of only my wheels in the ripio and the birds --- no wind, no cars, no rain. The breeze was light and warm.

When we entered the National Park, several people were standing around. We stopped to pay the entrance fee. While Arn and Alex tended to the fees, I was acosted (completely friendly) by a group of Argentinians. They explained that they too are cyclists and that on the first day of their trip, one of the women fell and broke her ribs. The leader of their group gave everthing on my bike the once over. He even confirmed that my front spokes were loose (something we noticed a couple of days ago and tended to at the end of the day's ride).

Once in the park, we crossed paths with three other touring cyclists. It was three guys from Argentina. In the park, it felt like we were in our own private paradise. I don't have the language skills to convey the granduer of the experience. There are days in life where you know you have been given a rare gift and it is yours to treasure. This was today.

Now, while I was trying to talk bike parts with the people at the entrance to the park, Arn and Alex were gathering info about where to get lunch. They started to have choripan fantasies. Before arriving at lunch, we had a good uphill climb with a few switchbacks and huge vistas. By now, I had explained to Alex that Arn is a tiburon (shark in Spanish)...he is always in search of his next meal. So, I thoroughly enjoyed the climb while Arn and Alex described their respective food fantasies for lunch --- all the day down to the mustard versus ketchup.

While choripan was not an option, we enjoyed cheeseburgers, fries and a beer for lunch. We sat outside in the sunshine at the edge of Lago Verde. This was our stop for the night. Alex continued south. He is making his way to Esquel where he plans to get a bus to the coast. He Iis looking for warmer weather after a long week in the cold. So, we said our goodbyes and headed to our campsite.

After setting up camp, we took a two hour hike to see the alerces trees, the lake and the river. It was a beautiful walk and a nice chance to stretch out after so many hours on the bike. We saw one alerce tree and it looks just like a redwood.

Tomorrow, we will pack up and head to Trevelin. Our forecast looks good, so we are trying to make the best of our dry and sunny opportunities.

At some point in the day, Arn declared, "This is the best of the trip so far!" I agree. Today was awesome.

El Bolson to Cholila (Wed 2/10)

2010-02-10T14:39:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 55 miles (20 on ripio)
- 3100 feet of climbing
- met a couple of north bound cyclists from Switzerland
- precipition = ZERO!!!
- winds = mild to gusty at times and mostly at our back
- roadkill: zip, nada, zero
- passed location of Butch Cassidy's hideout

We woke up to partly sunny skies and a crisp temperature. I am guessing it was in the 40s. But hey, we could see this big glowing ball in the sky and we could see all the mountains around El Bolson.

So I am going to cut to the chase. The last week has had a lot of "this sucks". Today, EVERYTHING improved and it was awesome! And, I don't mean it was nice. I mean it was over the top, better than either of had imagined possible. Here are the highlights.

To escape the scary death riding on the highway, we took a round about route for 9 miles. Get this -- we had a paved shoulder to ride on and there was very little traffic. The mountains were fantastic. They were big, dominating, and backed up with even bigger snow capped mountains.

Continuing to enjoy the sunshine and with almost completely blue skies, we had to rejoin the scary death highway. It was a moment of shock and awe --- a paved shoulder almost 4 feet wide!! While the shoulder would ocassionally disappear or turn to ripio, it was a welcomed addition. Plus, the traffic south of El Bolson seems a bit less. As the miles went by, the traffic continued to descrease, our paved shoulder continued, and the mountains grew even more spectacular.

We passed the turn off for Lago Epuyén. While we had planned to stop here for the night, we decided to ride further. Covering more ground today would set us up better for the days ahead. We had ideas about lunch at Lago Epuyén but once we laid eyes on the turn off road, we decided against it. It was a straight downhill road to the town. While we like climbing, our ride included several multiple mile uphill grinds in the morning. Just past the turn off to town, we found a woman selling "pan casero" (homemade bread). We bought a loaf and continued onward.

Around mile 33, we left the pavement and started on the dirt. Several days ago, we met a woman from Alaska and she described this as the worst 20 miles of ripio in their trip. So, we were expecting a grind and a long afternoon. After a few miles, we pulled out to enjoy our lunch (homemade bread, peanut butter and homemade breadsticks). While the bread was great, it was our eyes that feasted. And they feasted all afternoon. I know you are going to think I am bullshitting you, but it just got better and better and better. It was like the Sound of Music on steriods. Yes, the ripio was a bit rough at times and loose at times and washerboard at times, but the sun was out, the wind was at our back, the traffic was low, and the views were outrageous. Arn repeated himself over and over all day long, "Now THIS is some gooood riding". And then there was, "This is in my top three days with the Ruta de Siete Lagos". For me, the mountains today have been the best scenery of the whole trip so far. It was like taking the Canadian Rockies crossed with the remoteness of the Himalayas (okay, I've never been there but in my mind's eye they are remote), and some wild jagged features like Torres del Paine in Chile. During the last few miles of the ride, we met two riders from Switzerland heading north bound. They declared this stretch of ripio worse than anything on the Carretera Austral. This was a good data point.

Our day ended in a VERY little town called Cholila. We found a hosteria in a lovely setting. The room is nothing special, but it is clean. Okay, I killed one cockroach in my bed, but I am not complaining after the day we enjoyed. (We are sleeping in his and her's twin beds). The cook has agreed to come and prepare dinner at 9pm. Tomorrow, we hope to ride to Lago Verde in Parque Nacional Los Alerces. Get this --- the park is in the direction of these awesome mountains. Here is hoping for clear skies tomorrow!!!

Photos!!!!

2010-02-09T14:09:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to our photos. You might need to copy and paste.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ArnSchaeffer/ChileAndArgentinaCycling2010#

A Day in El Bolson & Lago Puelo (Tues 2/9)

2010-02-09T14:06:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- hosteria breakfast of cookies & cakes
- lunch of churos filled with Dulce de leche
- 2 hour walk
- 30 minutes of bike maintenance of which 20 minutes were trying to straighten Deborah's warpped rotor

During the night, I, who sleeps like the dead, was woken up by howling winds and pounding rain. Our morning started with -- come on, you know where this is going --- rain! We finally made our way to an Internet cafe and Arn worked on loading our photos to the Internet. I will post a link when I have it.

After 90 minutes, we emerged from what felt like sucking the Internet through a straw to find sunny skies! This is shocking but true. We decided to find a bus and head out to the national park called, Lago Puelo. We enjoyed a couple of hours of walking in the park and taking in the views of the lake. The wind howled a bit, but the sun was out and it didn't rain. Don't laugh but we had moments of riding in the rain while we could still see our shadows.

Our weather forcast continues to look good for tomorrow and beyond. We are hoping that perhaps summer will arrive. We are also hoping that the traffic dies down. At some point, perhaps we will be too far south for all the people on holiday from Buenos Aires. So, our plan is to head out again tomorrow. We will be going to Lake Epuyen. It is also a national park. We wil in touch...from wherver we end up in the coming days. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Hugo & Estel's House to El Bolson (Mon 2/8)

2010-02-09T14:04:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 35 miles
- 1800 feet of climbing
- roadkill: 6 birds and 1 very large mammal that looks like it was roasted on the side of the road.

Well, we woke to cloudy and dark skies. While it seemed to have rained much of the night, for now it was dry -- for now. After a breakfast of homemade bread, we loaded up. Hugo and Estel's kitten seemed determined to go with us and repeatably climbed onto my rear tire.

With 35 miles to cover, we planned to arrive in El Bolson for lunch. Our ride started with two long climbs. After two hours, we covered 14 miles. Of course, there was one stop to put on rain jackets and shoes covers. Around mile 16, the road turned downhill and the wind arrived -- at our backs! Wahoo! It was a quick 20 miles into El Bolson.

We had two nasty car encounters. One guy passed us in the lane (with room to move over) and he was traveling in excess of 80mph. The second was a pickup truck that refused to let me ride through the rockfall on the road before he passed me. He drove through a pile of huge rocks. Several smashed his car and I could hear the sound of rocks slamming into metal. His car shot one rock, the size of my loaded pannier, sideways almost as a missle. Arn said it missed my back by two feet. A direct hit would have ended the trip with me seriously injurred or worse. The traffic today and yesterday has been serious class 5. If you asked the key question --- are we enjoying the riding, the answer is no. While the scenery is stunning and the road surface is nice, the traffic, the lack of a shoulder and the weather has sucked the joy out of it. Things must improve.

On our way into town, we found two touring cyclists. We stopped to talk. They are Canadians from Lake Louise. After checking into a very nice hosteria and taking showers, we enjoyed lunch and met the Canadians for a beer. We are headed the same way and hope to see them again. They've been riding south from Peru and Bolivia and the last week was their worst traffic and weather of the entire trip. It was actually very good to talk with other riders that share our feelings --- things must improve. If not, they are talking about a beach spot to crash and we are talking about backpacks.

Bariloche to Hugo & Estel's House (Sun 2/7)

2010-02-09T14:01:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 51 miles
- 3100 feet of climbing (on a road with a downhill bias)
- roadkill: 3 birds
- 1 kitten found crying
- 1 camera discovered (ours) with a dead battery

Many years ago, Arn and I attended a three day golf camp. I know, what does this have to do with a bike trip? Well, you´ll have to trust me on this one. After three very frustrating days in the golf camp, we played nine holes of golf. I saw no redeeming quality to the game and declared that returning the computer industry and haggling with the sale force managers over quota setting would be less frustrating. And then, on the 9th hole, I ended up with a bogie. I don´t even know what that means now, but I remember how it felt. It was the moment of "ahhh, now I see the possibility in this game". Well, our bike trip is starting to feel like that golf camp --- very frustrating. And our day ended with the "ahhh, now I see the possibility". The title of this post should tell you something..."Hugo & Estel´s House". But let´s start at the beginning.

With high hopes, we left Bariloche under broken clouds. It was unclear if things would improve or deteriorate. The ride out from town featured a short, granny gear, lung busting hill. It was a quick warm up on a cool morning. We finally reached our right hand turn onto the highway and expected to find a tail wind and a downhill bias. What we found instead was a massive headwind and the need to pedal on everything (no free downhill riding). Several miles in the distance, we could see the road bend to the south. It also appeared that the valley would narrow. Our hopes grew for a change in the wind. No luck. We turned south only to find the wind had changed --- directly out of the south. So, now we were facing a constant headwind out of the south when the dominate direction is for the wind to come out of the north.

After more than an hour and having traveled 11-ish miles, we heard the sound of a kitten crying. We looked into the pull out on our side of the road and discovered what looked like an 8 week old kitten. With a soft spot in our hearts for kitties, we pulled out and offered the kitten the only assistance we could --- a granola bar. She quickly starting gobbling it up while Arn pulled out the camera. Our batteries: DEAD! So, I thought this could be a good sign...the weather will imporve and then we will be kicking ourselves about a dead battery. Our scenery was pretty sweet. The mountains were stunning -- jagged, wild, remote, dominating and snow levels that looked too low for this time of year.

We continued to push a headwind until somewhere around mile 22. Once the wind backed off, the silence was a welcomed treat. The winds were incredibly loud and we couldn´t hear each other screaming. However, silence was not meant to be ours. By now, the traffic had increased dramatically. We never expected to find so much traffic on this road. While most people were friendly (waved, honked, or gave up a thumbs up), there were just enough assholes to ruin the beauty of an otherwise stunning location. Now, perhaps "assholes" might seem like a strong statement to you. I think not. Beyond the white line, there was no paved shoulder. At times, there was a descent dirt shoulder, but at others there was not. The trucks were usually very respectful and gave us a wide margin. The local buses were the worst. I was run off the road by a bus during this ride. They suck. We tried to just dip off into the ripio to avoid two things passing us at the same time. After my experience with the bus, we hit the ripio to avoid every bus --- even during the long straight aways when they had plenty of room to slide over for us.

At some point, it started to rain. I don't know at what point, I was in survival mode and don´t really remember. Perhaps it was around mile 25. In my mind, I was expecting to ride the full distance from Bariloche to El Bolson. Knowing our tolerance for misery, I figured we would gut out 80 miles fully loaded instead of spending the night camping with the weather growing more ugly. And it grew ugly. The winds returned. The temps felt like they were dropping or perhaps it was just the cold working it´s way in on the descents.

After 40 miles, we arrived at the turn off to the Manso River Valley. Earlier, we had agreed to assess our situation once we reached the Manso River. I felt that I already knew the answer -- we were going to gut it out to El Bolson. Well, once we reached the Manso (in the rain, the cold and the wind), we had a view down valley toward El Bolson. It was like something out of a freaking horror movie. We could see walls of rain, dropping clouds, increasingly darker and thicker clouds. The wind seemed violent. There was no discussion, it was time to call it a day and to get out of the weather. It was just before 1pm. We agreed, let´s see what we can find and anything to get us inside is better than our tent.

After about 1 mile on the Manso River dirt road, we found a small store. It said they served food. We quickly left the bikes and walked inside looking wet and haggered. Arn inquired about food and they offered a hot lunch of mashed potatoes and a version of fried chicken. We said yes. And then came this question that I will never forget. It was in Spanish and I understood it completely. This man asked, "What else do you need?" Arn explained that we really needed warm food and to be inside. He also explained that after eating, we needed to find someplace to try and get inside for the night and to get clean; that while we had camping gear, the skies looked dreadful. Without skipping a beat, he offered us a room in his house for the night. And thus began the "ahhh" in our day. We had met Hugo and Estel and they felt like heroes.

After a warm lunch, the rain stopped. We unloaded our gear and decided to ride the Manso River road for a while. We found a place in the campground to get a drink along the way. While enjoying our drink, we talked with a family from Buenos Aires. The husband cycled much of our route in January. Soon, we had out our maps and he helped us to understand what services we would find where and he described the conditions. He said he rode with a group of all guys -- "you must be a very tough woman to ride down here". He has that right.

We returned to Hugo and Estel's. We drank mate together and ate tortas fritas. Think of it as fried dough. Combined with dulce de leche, it makes a great donut! We took showers and got ourselves settled. Our room for the night was a bedroom reachable only by walking through Hugo and Estel's bedroom. It was probably 10x10. We set up a twin bed next to two twin mattresses stacked on the floor, drapped a sheet on top, and threw down our sleeping bags. It was guaranteed to be warmer and drier than a night in the tent. The house was heated by a wood stove two rooms away from ours, but it was still much warmer than outside.

We drank wine and ate dinner with our hosts. We talked about the government in Argentina and the US. We talked about engineering jobs and job prospects for young people. We heard about their children. We learned that they had only moved to the Manso River Valley eight months. They talked about the class system in Argentina and Chile. We learned that Hugo is from Argentina and Estel is from Chile. This explained why we had a harder time understanding Estel and she laughed when we said the Chileans eat their words. We talked about their ideas for growing their business and their budding relationship with a local rafting group. Hugo asked us to explain the American dream. While I could understand a lot of what was said, our experience this night is a testament to how well Arn has developed his Spanish skills. Like I said before, it was the "ahhh" in the day and it is an experience that will stay with us for a long, long time. I will remember the generousity and kindness of Hugo who asked, "what do you need".

Things must improve...Saturday (2/6)

2010-02-06T14:21:00.000-08:00

Rain. Cold. In a nutshell, this was today. We are in the equivalent of our Northern Hemisphere month of August and in a place that get the same amount of precipiation as the San Francisco Bay Area and it has rained all day. It is a constant steady rain growing heavier at times (like now as I write this message). The temperatures are currently colder than Seattle. Seattle is experiencing a very warm winter and the temps here are at least 10 degrees below normal. All in all, it is a serious buzz kill.

The forecast is uncertain. We still hope to sneak out of town tomorrow morning. The thought is to avoid traffic by existing Bariloche on a Sunday morning. If the weather cooperates, our preferred plan is to head south to the Manzo River valley. We will ride the dirt roads that follows the river and camp. Ideally, we would like to camp two nights and enjoy one day of riding a mountain bike trail (free of gear) before heading further south to the town of El Bolson on Tuesday. Really, if you could see what it is like outside the window, you would tell us to start building an ark. I seriously believe the ENTIRE summer´s worth of rain and has fallen today. Can you tell this is getting on my nerves?

Arn has a good outlook --- at least we are sitting out the rain in a nice town, with good food, a nice bed, and the internet. Hopefully, you will hear from us again on Tuesday or Wednesday from El Bolson. If you hear from us sooner, it means I´ve headed to the hardware store for ark building supplies. Or we could head out and get soaked completely before we get to El Bolson. Just remember what I said about "O" versus "o". I´m feeling a bit of "O". We´ve been told the saint of weather is referred to as Don Pedro. There is a dessert called, "Don Pedro". Perhaps we need to say a pray and order up a hot Don Pedro (ice cream, dulce de leche and raspberries).

Our Day in Bariloche (Fri 2/5)

2010-02-05T14:28:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 25 miles
- 2000 feet of climbing

As we strolled into breakfast at our hosteria, I recognized another couple in the dining room. They were in the same restaurant as us for dinner last night. And, they were wearing the same clothes they had on at dinner -- just like us. So, it is good to confirm that many other people are wearing the same things over and over and over again.

The weather improved today. It was not stellar, but it was markedly better. The sun came out and this makes everything feel much warmer. After breakfast, we headed out to enjoy a ride free from all the gear on the bikes. We rode up to the Cerro Cathedral ski area. The road to the base of the ski lift is a beautiful mountain road with sweeping wide turns, long open vistas, stunning mountains, and roadsides covered with wildflowers. The mountains are very different than where we have been. Things are much drier, rockier, and even more jagged. Once at the top of our climb, we descended a few miles on a dirt road and rejoined pavement. The trickier part of today´s ride was getting to and from the road up to the ski hill. It was another, "if you think paddling class 4 is more dangerous than this..." kind of road.

It was a good food day. Lunch was homemade gnochis stuffed with basil and cheese and pesto sauce for Arn and a tomato sauce for me. However, dinner was the highlight and will be remembered as one of our best meals in 2010. We enjoyed a 7 course tasting menu at a place called, "Butterfly". It has 1/2 the price of Herbfarm (in WA) and at least 5 times better. It was truly stunning. Arn has declared, "we must savory this because in a few days, our food situation is going to change dramatically and not for the better". So, we both crashed for the night with very happy stomachs!

Villa La Angostura to Bariloche (Thurs 2/4)

2010-02-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

Certainty is sometimes a nice thing. Today, we woke up with complete certainty in our decision to arrange a shuttle to Bariloche. The weather is still very cold, wet and windy. The bikes easily loaded into the back of the van. Using the carrying straps from our handlebar bags, we secured them in for the ride. We loaded the bags and we were off. Our driving route was the same as the riding route -- only warmer, drier, and faster! We pasted the German couple we have played leap frog with since Pucon. They did not look like happy campers. We didn´t think that ride looked like fun and they confirmed it. The traffic was pretty heavy and once the road turned toward Bariloche, it was a full on head wind. While we had hopes of an afternoon ride, the weather killed that idea.

After our quick shuttle, we locked up the bikes at the hosteria and dropped off our gear. Wearing more clothes than Seattle in January, we headed off to lunch at Morphy´s --- 2 churripan combos with Diet Cokes and fries. The guy behind the counter even remembered us from last year! So, with lunch at 3pm, we are clearly on Argentina time. Last night, we couldn´t get a dinner reservation until 9pm. This was not because they were busy. 9pm is the earliest they serve dinner.

So how bad is the weather in Bariloche? I would guess the wind to be 30mph+. The temps are harder to judge. To go outside, I´m wearing wool socks, hiking shoes, long pants, a long sleeve polypro (bought yesterday), a wool hoodie, rain jacket, neck gator, and gloves. I have started to think my cycling tights under my pants might be the right option if I have to really be outside for any length of time.

It is good weather for the internet and reading and not much else. We met a Brazilian woman in the hosteria. Her hiking plans were nixed because of too much snow and they had to turn back. Her pictures showed a complete winter landscape. It is really crazy! We trolled the shops and the bike store we frequented last year. We rode a number of days with a guy working in one of the local shops. As luck would have it, we stopped in BikeWay and found Rodrigo at work. He is in race shape and headed to Nationals and hopefully to the Worlds. So, it is probably better that we (read "me") are not trying to ride with him this year!

For dinner, we decided to visit Naan. It is a restaurant run by a couple out of their home. Their living room has been turned into the dining room and has beautiful views looking out over the lake and the city of Bariloche. Breaking from the pattern of beef, we decided to share fish and chicken. It was a good but not great dinner. Arn has made a reservation for our favorite place for tomorrow. Completely wiped out and tired from really doing a lot of nothing, we crashed right after dinner. Remember, we are on Argentina time and this was still after 11pm!

Our Day in Villa La Angostura (Wed 2/3)

2010-02-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

We woke this morning to pounding rain. The mountains were hidden behind low hanging clouds. Our first thoughts were, "thank god we are not out in that!" It was really ugly. So, we lounged in bed with his and her iTouches and read for a while. Eventually, we made our way to a buffet breakfast. Of course, we were the first to arrive in the dining room. Breakfast here is more of a sweet table --- assorted cookies and cakes with jam and of course dulce de leche.

Our hotel is very lovely and comfortable. It feels more like a small inn with an inviting living room offering grand views of the lake and surrounding mountains. It is a nice place to sit and watch the storm. As the morning progressed, the skies opened up to reveal a surprise in the mountains. You gotta think big to get this one --- first, there was a stellar rainbow over the lake. The real eye popper was in the mountains --- SNOW!! A lot of snow!!! The snow level begins about 1,500 feet above us. Back this downhill at roughly 3 degrees per every 1,000 feet and you can figure out our tempertures (definitely not above 40 degrees). It is totally crazy. While we think the roads we have covered in the last few days would be snow free, we are not so sure about the pass we crossed from Chile into Argentina.

With the belief that the taxis are operating today, we headed into town. Along the road, our taxi passed a touring cyclist. It was the Brit we met on Sunday in San Martin de Los Andes. He looked cold, wet and miserable with a loaded bike, pulling a trailer. We waited for him in town, but it became clear he must have pulled off into one of the hosterias or campgrounds along the road. Plus, it was cold and the rain had returned. We dodged the rain and complained about the cold as we returned to the hardware stores for a second size of hose clamps. Not tempting fate, we returned to our same pasta place for lunch. Arn enjoyed gnochi with basil, tomatoes, anchovies and olives. I had vension ravioli with tomato sauce.

So, there was no riding or even hiking to be had today. Winter in Seattle would be nicer than our current weather conditions. It is pretty miserable. It clears, it blows, it rains, it repeats. Today is our last night in this hotel, so a good question would be: what do we do from here? Okay, the boat option across the lake to Llao Llao does not exist. The ride into Bariloche is not on a great road (too much traffic). In the spirit of fun, we have booked a shuttle from Villa La Angostura to Bariloche. We get picked up tomorrow morning and wil be in Bariloche for lunch. Given the weather forecast, we booked three nights at a hosteria and will most likely add a forth. After lunch tomorrow, we may be able to get out for an afternoon ride -- unloaded! Sweet!! It also looks like we can possibly ride again on Friday -- unloaded!! Double sweet!! And then, it looks like we are going to need to build an arc for Saturday and Sunday! We are going to be inside with time on our hands. We will be online and should have Skype for making calls. Let us know --- we'd love to chat! Really, we are going to have lots of time!

Of course, we have extensive dining plans for Bariloche. They include Morfey's for churripan (chorizo & homemade bread) for lunch, Alberto's pasta for lunch, Naan for dinner, Butterfly for dinner (awesome tasting menu), and Alberto's steakhouse for dinner. Am I making you hungry? I should be!! This is the feast before the next leg of the journey. Starting Monday, our forecast looks stable and very favorable (no rain, lots of sunshine, and nice temps). In a nutshell, the plan is shuttle to Bariloche tomorrow, enjoy great food and a few unweighted rides as the weather permits, and on Monday head south toward El Bolson (exact details unknown until we scout them out from Bariloche). Anyone want to meet us for dinner in Bariloche??

A Few Words From Arn About Our Bikes (2/3)

2010-02-03T08:14:00.000-08:00

A couple of words about the bikes. All in all, so far, I am pleased with the setup. We've seen 3 people with busted racks (that needed welding). All of them were flimsier than the OMM racks that we are using. Most folks are using front/rear panniers plus some type of trunk bag or drybag. We talked to one guy that had non-Ortlieb panniers - big mistake as they gave out. We are on the light side as we have no front panniers and D has a trunk bag while I have a drybag. The Schwalbe Marathon Extremes are amazing tires - roll amazingly well and provide great comfort on the road and provide surprisingly good traction in the ripio. We haven't tried them in wet ripio yet and that may be where they have their worse time. The Ergon grips are awesome and I'm really glad we got the bar ends so we have another hand position. Between the tires, grips and panniers, ever other biker thinks we are German (which is a good default choice as they are the most prevalent other than the Argies).

Building up 36 spoke wheels on my bike was definitely the right decision. Every day after riding on the ripio I touch every bolt on the bike. Surprisingly, the only thing consistently loose is the front derrailer. Others bolts have required a tiny amount of tightening from time to time along with the spring tension (centering) of D's rear brake. Most people look at our setup with envy - mostly because it is light and they are riding rigid frames and don't have a sweet front shock! We've had a couple of very minor mechanical problems - two from shipping the bikes and one from my initial setup in Seattle (not enough spacers on the headset) and too much play. Not sure how I missed this but D noticed it yesterday and so after my stack was set, I gave her a spacer so we could set her stack. It was easy to stop in the bike shop and get another spacer when we rode by on the way out of San Martin. That said, bike parts here are difficult to find. You are punished for building up anything special. We are pretty generic but there are a couple of ways we could have difficult to correct failures if there is a problem. For example, because we have no brazeons for racks, we use the OMM racks and their attachment system (to rear brakes plus an extra long rear wheel skewer). The brake attachments would we relatively easy to replace. The skewer, you are f'd.

Hosteria 7 Lagos to Villa La Angostura (Tues 2/2)

2010-02-03T08:13:00.000-08:00

Stats:
- 17 miles
- 1600 feet of climbing
- roadkill = zip, zero, nada

Much to our surprise, we woke up to completely blue skies and no wind! The temps were chilly. Our wool Buffs and gloves were essential. It didn't rain during the night nor did the winds howl. So, it was a great treat to know that we would enjoy this morning's ride free of rain. After a frustrating breakfast experience that doesn't deserve description, we headed out around 9:30am.

The cool temps and a bit of overnight dew reduced the dust. Almost all the traffic is coming head on from Villa La Angostura. We rarely had a car pass in our direction. Again, we met other touring cyclists and we met our first fellow countrymen -- from Alaska. We have been surprised by the number of people riding south to north. Haven't they read the blogs about the dominate wind directions?!

We were treated to more great views --- mountains, lakes, flowers. There were several pull outs along the road and we stopped for photos. We met people traveling from Germany and Buenes Aires. While the adults were fascinated with our bikes and gear, the kids have been most interested in the rear view mirrors attached to our sunglasses. We put the glasses on the their faces. Then a parent stands behind and waves. You can see the instant they understand what the mirror does.

It was a pretty leisurely ride. We arrived at our hotel (Sol Arrayan) around noon. After quick showers, we headed into town to find lunch. We enjoyed our best lunch of the trip so far --- black raviolis filled with eggplant and a tomato sauce (for me) and pesto sauce (for Arn). Afterwards, we stopped in a bakery for what we thought was a macaroon dipped in chocolate. Turned out it was a shortbread cookie piled high with Dulce de leche and dipped in choclate. We both agreed it is not often you bite into something expecting something good only to get something totally differently and much better than expected!

In the afternoon, we hit the bike shops and found the chain lube we need. We took care of getting our laundry done. We also stopped in the hardware store for hose clamps. It turns out they are a good repair kit item should a rack break. We also toured the grocery store to see what new and different provisions we might find. On the walk back to the hotel, the winds were ripping and howling and the clouds were rolling in fast.

We hopped a cab to dinner around 8:30pm. It was starting to rain lightly. We enjoyed great steaks and grilled vegtables. During dinner, the heavens opened and it poured. After dinner, our hotel had to pick us up. The cabs have gone back on strike. Evidentally, a cab driver was "kind of murdered" a couple of days ago. "Kind of" seems to mean "a crime of passion and no one is saying anything". The cabs are striking because they want the authorites to get to the bottom of it. The woman in the restauarant seemed very nervous to tell us about it until we told her we are from the U.S. She seemed to figure that we are used to people getting killed everyday, so no problem -- one "kind of murder" wouldn't scare us off. Oh well. We explained a bit about the media machine in the U.S.

Bottom line, it was another good day.