Well 2010 has been the year to travel and to not update your blog as often as you should.

As a parting gift for the year here is a quick summary of the fantastic year that was 2010:

Traveled well over 26141.025 nautical miles or 48413.159 kilometres.

Visited 9 different counties.

So this blog isn’t up to date…we do apologise but we’ve been busy travelling ten’s of thousands of kilometres. We should be able to update it more often now however. Excited, i am!

It’s May 22nd 2010, Autumn in the southern hemisphere and a spectacular one at that. We have just left the coast of Chile and are heading across the mighty Andes mountain range once more to the wine capital of Argentina Mendoza.

Unfortunately with us, are hundreds upon hundreds of buses coming both ways to and from Chile and Argentina. When travelling,  you easily lose track of public holidays especially Chilean and Argentinian public holidays. Both Chile and Argentina share a public holiday, we believe it to be their national day and  (like Australia Day without Yothu Yindi and John Farnham). Making it a long 4 day party. It seems, to us that everyone in Chile goes to Argentina and everyone in Argentina heads to Chile.

We departed at 6pm scheduled to cross the border into Argentina and arrive by about midnight. At midnight we are stuck in a large queue of buses, not the first and it wont be the last, waiting to cross the border high in the Andes. I’m further stuck in a small semi-cama seat (a seat reclines as much as a K.D Lang did – don’t get it? well you know who the Beatles are? Ah just Google it.), Jess is asleep and god thank the creators of the Playstation and Fifa 2010 because at least i had entertainment. We eventually get out of the bus with the 40 other chickens, dogs, babies and occasionally a toothless adult and line up in a queue for immigration and customs. I must tell you, the Argentinians and Chileans are extremely efficient, there is one bloke for Chile who stamps you to leave and right next to him is the Argentinian authority who lets you in. The whole process takes under a minute, except the queue which takes a couple of hours and several group bribes (throwing coins into a cup to get to the front of the line quicker).

Finally we get through and roll into Mendoza in the early dark hours of the morning. Arriving at our hostel, which is incredibly expensive at least $50 a night each for a private room due to the holiday. The place is old, dusty but it will do. I’m knackered and the PlayStation died a long while ago, i need sleep.

Please click the following link to read more:

*Warning this post contains lots of images*

It’s early May 2010 say around the 10th May 2010 actually. We’re in Pucon, Chile, which is 10 hours or so south of Santiago and pushed against the Andes.

We are arriving from a lovely little ski town San Martin De Los Andes by a 4 hour bus ride. Why do bus rides seem to have the same affect on time as doctors surgery’s etc. Anyway, Pucon is a lovely little town on a lake, which is great because it’s part of the lake district…be a bit rubbish if it wasnt, and nestled amongst the hills of the Andes. There’s heaps to do in Pucon, trekking, whitewater rafting, mountain biking, climbing the volcano, hot springs etc. Lots of tasty food and places to have a few quiet ales but your here for the great outdoors.

After arriving in Pucon we drop our bags off at the Hostel Edigio and grab something to eat. We are stoked, scrambled eggs!!

5 hours later.

I don’t feel so good. It’s 6:30pm and we’re trying on the equipment for our trip up the Volcano. The trip is all organised by Borris, the bullet dodger, as in Borris the sneaky f@#$ing Russian, who is the hostel concierge if you will. All set, packed, geared up and ready. Dinner time, we find out it is the owners birthday and her husband as packed on a massive BBQ for us. We sit and eat giant cuts of steak and drink a delightful merlot. During dinner, i start to feel worse…

Pucon Ya Face:

Beautiful:

The top tip of the tip top Volcano we want to climb:

The Puerto Moreno Glacier, El Calafate, Argentina in April, 2010. In the foreground you can see the terminal moraines and beech forrest, in the mid-ground the mightily beautiful Puerto Moreno Glacier and the endless snow capped peaks in the background. If you look close enough in the foreground you can see the station where the climbers stop to put on their crampons, to the lower right a picnic table on the glacier and in the middle of the picture you can make out a group of climbers advancing their way up the icy jagged peaks.

Howdy Folks,

That’s right we’ve been in Vancouver a whole 3 weeks now! Yes, the blog posts of the rest of Chile and Peru are still in writing i’m sure over the next few months we’ll get around to them.

What have we been doing? Exploring and of course, applying for jobs, jobs and more jobs. The job hunting is going ok, last week was particularly busy with interviews and phone interviews. I think in total we had about 8 between us and are now waiting to hear back or get an update. Keep your fingers crossed for us. If anyone has any contacts up here in Canada we’d greatly appreciate if you passed our details on, even if it was just to meet them and take them out for a beer or coffee.

Vancouver is a very beautiful city, the tall glass skyscrapers refelect the greens and blues of the forrests, mountains and water. We’ve been checking out the different areas such as coal harbour, yaletown, north vancouver, gastown etc. There always seems to be some festival or something on. For instance, we woke up one Saturday to music and drums getting louder and louder…turns out there was a Phillipeno parade meandering its way down our street.

To Jess’ great surprise and delight, we found out her favourite band Karnivool were going to be playing at The Venue in Vancouver for $15. Karnivool are a Perth band with a solid following down under but as we found out the rest of the world hasnt found out how great they are. Or they just agree with my summation being that they sound like a cat drowing amongst several garbage trucks. Fortunatley their live show was fantastic for Jesse and the Venue had a bar so i was happy. I even attempted to sing along which was easy when every word is a high pitched meow of varying lengths.

Street concert on the way to watch Karnivool

The Venue – Vancouver Downtown