This time we’re taking you back to May 2010 and to a desert in northern Chile.

We leave Pisco Elqui taking a morning bus ride through the valley back towards the coast. After a couple of hours we arrive the lively fishing town La Serena on the northern coast of Chile.
I think up a hilarious and catchy, or as just puts it super annoying, song called “HEY LA Serena” sung to the tune of Macarena it really only has three words and a prelude of pretending to speak Spanish and anyone can join in. Basically it goes:
Takeabus tothecoast of northern chile
Haveabigheadache cozyoudrinktomuch pisco
HEEEEEEY! LA SERENA!!!
Thankfully one homeless guy thought it was pretty good, he and his toothless grin joined in before falling over.

Anyway, our stay in La Serena is short as we are making our way up the coast to San Pedro de Atacama. So we spend a brief dazed moment at 7am walking around La Serena. Even at this early hour there are people getting about their daily business and painting graffiti on the steep streets that lead down the hill to the harbor. But we have no more time to explore, we board our bus to Calama for our 14 hour ride.

The scenery flies past.

Some of the scenery

By the time we arrive at Calama it’s night time. Calama bus station is small, crowded and dirty. We push through the mob to get our bags and find the next bus to take us to San Pedro. All goes well and we’re on our way for the final leg of our trip.

We sing – “I just spent 16 hours in a f__king bus!” clap-clap.. clap-clap. Sung to the tune of 6 months in a leaky boat by Split Enz.
We get off the bus in San Pedro de Atacama, into the dust bowl of a station. I suppose they don’t bitumen the roads here because it just gets covered in sand nor do they install street lights. So our travel tired bodies trump down the dusty sand roads to find our hostel/B&B. This is harder than you think at night time in a strange place with only the occasional moon and one street light to guide you. I now completely understand how Jesus ended up in a barn.

The streets in the moonlight look peaceful, clean and are lined with the 10ft brick walls that surround the properties here. Probably to keep the street light out I think. We finally find the place after stopping and asking a few stray dogs, all named Baxter because they speak Spanish(Anchorman reference), and helpful locals. Hostel Elim is brilliant, lovely clean and warm. Warm?!? you say, yes warm, at night the desert is below zero.

Hostel Elim and the high brick walls

Jess on sandy streets of San Pedro de Atacama

We wake to the warm sun, beaming through the window, get changed, have breakfast and go for a stroll around the dusty streets. The place resembles something out of Mad Max crossed with Tatooine. The buildings are made from thick clay bricks with flat roofs and the entrances are stepped down from street level. All to ensure that people my height bump their heads into the doorway as they walk in or to ensure the place is as cool as possible or for the amusement of the local shopkeeper who laughs at the stupid tall pale faces bumping their heads. At least I have all my teeth I say to the shop keeper who speaks perfectly good English and charges us a small fortune for Panadol to soothe my sore head.

One shop selling sandboarding tours

Streets of San Pedro

The streets are busy with tourists and lined with restaurants and tour companies all enticing you to visit. Towards lunchtime it’s time to get out of the hot sun so we duck into one of the many café’s. This one advertised smoothies, so naturally wanting to continue my tasting of banana liquardo’s around South America, it was chosen. In through the door and out into semi-covered courtyard. Lunch is super tasty and the banana smoothies are close to the best so far.
San Pedro is well known for its geysers. The afternoon is spent scoping out the tour companies for a trip to the geysers and strolling through the town and its markets.

The markets are colorful and rather quiet with all stores selling practically the same brightly coloured fabrics and other clothing items along with cocoa leaves. Cocoa leaves? We soon discover why, by about 3pm we are shattered and head back home for a sleep. San Pedro is located 2407  metres above sea level and us flat-landers have come straight up from the coast into the altitude causing us to become tired very easily. They suggest chewing cocoa leaves to help increase circulation and assist with the acclimatization. Instead we just pull up a hammock in the shade of a tree and a refreshing beer.
Dinner time rolls around so we head to the outdoor restaurant Adobe. A large dimly lit courtyard with tables set around a large fire-pit. Bellies full, it’s time for bed as we need to rise early 4am for our trip to the geysers.

4am! I don’t mind it myself. Jess on the other hand doesn’t operate until 9am even with coffee. We stand on the curb, outside the hostel waiting for our bus. It’s late, it’s cold.
Finally a packed mini-bus arrives and we board it with all the other half-asleep people rugged up in winter clothes. No one says much, except the occasional “is he always like this” to Jess about my singing, whistling, tapping, talking etc. “Just stare out the window” Jess sternly tells me. I stare out the window, it stares back. It wins.

The bus climbs out of the desert into the hills and down into the crater. We arrive at the geysers, it’s too dark to see anything except a bit of steam rising in front of some headlights so we wait for the sun to rise.

Nothing to see here

It’s only -18 and we’re all standing outside waiting for the guide to setup coffee and cake for breakfast. My hands feel like they’re about to fall off and on fire at the same time. I’m dancing around doing my finest impression of an African Tribal dance. The coffee is warm but hard to hold and the cake froze instantly.

The guide and the geysers

One of the geysers

We’re directed over to a place where you can swim in the hot springs, it’s still -10 or so and they’re nothing compared to springs in Pucon so we pass and instead take the time to wander the geyser fields.

Some didnt pass on the opportunity for a wash

Geyser fields

There a Jess in there…somewhere

The naughty corner

As the sun rises the temperature does as well, dramatically, in the space of an hour or so the temp goes from -10 to + 20. We know this thanks to the running count provided by some nerd in our group with a thermometer.
Back aboard the bus, we’re off to our next stop. A small one street town, the purpose of which is strictly to sell tourists shabbily made junk, charge for toilet use and tasty llama meat kebabs. We find this a lot around South America, the tour bus pulls up in a shanty town to almost guilt the tourists into buying something to support the locals and just adds to the reasons of why we dislike going on organized tours as opposed to the self-guided type of adventure.

Jess checking out the local town lake

Llama kebab

Rock man

The town in all it’s glory

After the kebabs we race another tour group to a small canyon full of cacti. It’s a short hike/walk through the large cacti and down into the canyon which isn’t all that impressive.

Goal! Dockers up by 3

Cacti

Canyon

As we reach the bus, a girl from the other group races off to use the bathroom. In the middle of this cacti desert scene are two open air porcelain toilets. They look extremely out of place. The wooden door swings shut, we board the bus, it starts moving. I notice the guide cracking up with laughter. He explains that the toilets were dumped there and aren’t connect to anything not even a hole, she might as well be behind a bush. Plus, he continues, there’s no front to them and they face the highway.
The bus pulls away onto the highway, sitting there pants around the ankles with a surprised look on her face, she gives the bus a wave as the driver toots its horn.

The next day we wake late and head out for brunch. Funnily enough back to the same café, it was that good. We walk in and to our surprise, sitting at a long table in the middle of the courtyard is Jane and Scott who we met in Pucon a month or so before! What the hell!?! Ok, so Jane and Scott were travelling the other way (anti-clockwise) around South America, we figured we wouldn’t bump into them again but in a small dusty desert town, in a tiny café, miles away from anywhere we do exactly that. We sit, catch up and share stories. Then meet up later for dinner. They tell us of their time in Buenos Aries, the northern part of Argentina which we didn’t get to and the rest of their awesome round the world year long trip. We share plans, there is talk of Arica, Arequipa, Bolivia and Cusco who knows. Again we part ways and wish each other well on the other side of the gringo stump.

The next morning we’re back on the f__king bus, off to the city of Arica home of the famous surf break El Gringo.

Related posts:

1. Vancouver – Week 2-3
2. Wildly Dramatic
3. There’s no emu’s in Pichilemu

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.

Spent over 136 hours travelling on international or intercity bus rides.

Spent close to the same amount of time trying to figure out where we were and where we need to be in 5 minutes time.

11 journeys on a plane, 1 with a gaffer taped emergency exit door.

4 trips via dinghy, boat or ferry.

Visited 1 wonder of the new world.

Click below to keep reading….

Bathed in 3 volcanic hot springs.

Ate a number of things that we were told were food but later discovered weren’t.

Drank 200+ liquardo de banana’s

Surfed 7 world class surf breaks with mostly penguins or seals as company.

Walked 25km+ through 2 roadblocks consisting of rocks, trees, small animals and large gatherings of enraged locals.

Was visited by or visited the local hospital twice.

One vein sclerosed by incorrectly administered medicine.

Climbed one active volcano.

Drank far too many local alcoholic drinks and regretted it doubly so the next morning.

Trekked through the lung of the Earth.

Swum in the mighty Amazon river with the locals and pink dolphins.

Discovered that everything you see on TV about Americans is true and is contained within the state of Texas.

4 bicycle rides that made the Tour de France look like child’s play.

Slept in one dome

Laughed inappropriately at this mural in a monastery:

“Ohh waiter a bottle of your finest wine please”

Moved to Vancouver, drank far too many pints of beer with the friendliest random British couple from Calgary then found ourselves moving to Calgary two days later.

Vancouver:

Calgary:

Saw John Butler play the most amazing concert in Calgary.

Met a countless number of amazing, friendly, welcoming and giving people. And

Most importantly the phrase Not Too Shabby is international and understood in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Canadian, several Amazonian dialects and some parts of America.

After all the travelling we’ve done, places we’ve visited, cultures we’ve shocked and people we’ve met we can truly say that the negative things you hear, read or see are such a small minority it’s a wonder why they get so much attention. This place is filled brim full of the most spectacular places, creatures and people all waiting to be experienced.

To you all, a very merry Christmas!
Much Love

Hutch

P.S For those with a Flickr account you can add us as a friend and see all our photos, for those without well you’ll have to wait for us to update our blog, sorry.

Related posts:

1. Vancouver – Week 2-3
2. San Martin De Los Undies
3. Snowboard Diary – 20th November 2010

Location: Sunshine Village
Reported Base: 72cm
New Snow: 41cm

Woohoo first day for the season and Sunshine has only been open 1 day. We’re up early, 6am, wanting to beat the masses. After 1.5 hours of driving in the freezing dark we arrive amongst the first handful of cars there. Only -22! Ccccccold! Up the gondola and greeted by a the strawberry chair open early. 1 run and the wawa is open, still very few people. Next chair to open is Standish up for a few runs and chopped up powder spots.

Wow am i bad! Still trying to get my snow legs back. The conditions are bumpy, still some rocks and tree tops poking through the snow. The masses arrive at 10:30-11am, nice sleep in everyone? So lunch is a good idea. What an expensive unwelcoming spot the pub is, rude and $14 for 6 wedges! Outrageous!

After lunch the queue for Standish is long, cant be bothered waiting so we head down the hill to the Wolverine chair. Shame Goats eye isnt open but still there’s no one down here. Well groomed open runs excellent to get some practice in but a bit boring after a while.

The afternoon is spent mostly around Wolverine and the top of Standish before taking the run to the car park.

Another 10cm and it will be good. Sorry no photos my camera is broken instead here’s one of from our walk through Glenmore Park:

Later

Hutch

Related posts:

1. Snowboarding Diary 26th February 2011
2. Snowboarding Diary – 21st January 2011
3. San Martin De Los Undies

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

Karnivool performing at The Venue

Karnivool lead singer Kenny

Kenny 2

Vancouver being quite hippy-ish should have good markets. It didnt let us down when we discovered the Granville Islands Markets. Think a bigger, cleaner more organised version of Freo markets right on the harbour.  Jess was more than stoked to potter around the markets. And once again for me Vancouver stepped it up, this time in the markets providing the Granville Island Brewery, a small version of little creatures which has some fine drops of beer.

Granville Markets Vancouver

Mmmm berriiess

Jesse @ Granville Island Brewery

Dooooowwwn heeaarrrrrted

Mmmmmm beeerrrrrr *drools*

Whilst we sipped our refreshing beverages, we noticed an older lady sitting by herself. Jess decided she needed a friend and went abducted her to join us. Jerry 80, heads down to the markets every week to grab her shopping and have a beer or a wine. She sat and talked, and talked and talked to us to the point where my attention turned to the wood on the table. Just kidding, Jerry was lovely and she appreciated us younger folk coming and talking to her. Bonus points i reckon.

It is summer time here, it gets to around 28 degrees which feels closer to 40 as the houses are built to keep you warm not cool. No fans or air-con here or anywhere except department stores and no seas breeze. Luckily, Vancouver is positioned a stones throw away from some fantastic national parks and mountains. One particularly warm Sunday we boarded the sea bus and ventured across to North Vancouver to the Lynn Valley.

View from the sea bus looking back at Vancouver skyline and cruise ships

Vancouver skyline

Seagull mascot, Jess was trrified

North Vancouver Quay markets

North Vancouver Quay markets

Business talk

The whole journey took us maybe 30-45mins before we were at the entrance to the Lynn Valley, home to the 30ft pool, a natural swimming hole and stream.

Lynn Valley Suspension Bridge – the suspense was intense!

Walking through the pine forrest

Lynn Park Canyon and up the river.

The 30 foot pool and yes the water did look like this. Speaking of the water, it was amazingly cold! Fresh from the mountain tops of imagine. Most people just stand knee deep to cool off then go find a rock to lie in the warm sun. Or downstream they sit in the rushing water half in half out.

People jumping in from different cliffs around the po0l

Knee bathing

Panaroma of the pool

The pool is fresh water so if you get thristy just take a drink. That is if there isnt a small child or dog peeing in it nearby.

This guy forgot his parachute

People even do it without legs

Panaroma taken down stream

Well thats about all the photos we have of our adventure’s around Vancouver. Hopefull this week brings us some exciting news like a job or lotto winnings.

We hope all is well with you wherever you are.
Cheers
Hutch

Related posts:

1. Vancouver – Week 1
2. Deserted – San Pedro de Atacama
3. Mendo-zzzzzzzzz-a

G’day Everybody,

Most people doing the clockwise trip of South America travel to Pucon, Chile from Bariloche. Most people take a leisurely overnight bus for the 10 or 12 odd hour trip through the Andes. Most people. Not us. Nope, 10+ hours on a bus at this point in our trip was fairly frightening for me at least. 10 hours couped up in a small seat without food and with the person in front reclining their seat all the way no matter how much i press my knees into the back of the seat. Terrifying!

Instead i consult a snowboarding mate i met on the Internet. Yup you’ve got to love the world wide web. He tells us of a quaint little town much better than Bariloche, only 6 hours from Bariloche and has a short route to Pucon. Brilliant! The places name, San Martin De Los Andes.
San Martin De Who?
Yup San Martin for short.

Pretty Trees

And scary graffiti

San Martin De Los Andes is a small pretty little ski town. The lonely planet has a paragraph or two about it but essentially it is a ski centric swiss type village with great food and scenery. According to the lonely planet it’s frequented by the elite of Argentinian society for their ski holidays. Unfortunately for us it’s not the ski season, so no spotting the likes of Evita or other celebrities. Oh and the fact she’s dead would of also made it a tad difficult.

We arrive mid-morning from Bariloche and struggle to find a taxi or any transport other than feet to get us to our accommodation. It seems the off-season is pretty quiet here. After a half hour or so we manage to arrange a taxi and venture the whole 500m up the road. Doh!

Our B&B, Las Lucarnas, was amazing. It arrived in the same fashion as large mountain might arrive however it’s timing was impeccable.  It was just the time in the trip where we were getting tired of hundreds of people cramming the shared kitchen, lounge and bedrooms. Tired of the nostril stinging bleach all hostels seem to use. Las Lucarnas was clean, cosy, friendly and as Jess said it had the comfiest nicest sheets ever! We even wrote a review about it, it was that good: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g312843-d1572908-r63336003-Hosteria_Las_Lucarnas-San_Martin_de_los_Andes_Province_of_Neuquen_Patagonia.html

Besides the B&B, San Martin is a gorgeous place, nestled in a small bay on a river surrounded by beautiful forest’s scaling the mountainside.

Without the ski season there isn’t much that goes on in San Martin, lots of walking, relaxing and mountain biking. Of course, we chose mountain biking. Suckers for punishment after the our De Bariloche. We packed a picnic, hired some bikes and started off up the hill. The hill makes Perth’s hills look like Sand Dunes and we spent most of the time on gravel roads walking our bikes up the steep incline. I was excited though, thinking if it’s this steep up it will be this steep coming back down and on gravel woohooo. And it was sort of, the path winds it’s way slowly back down through the forest, past a bunch of cows who munched grass and moo’ed as we zipped by. But then it ends abruptly onto a major highway, certainly a break tester. We meandered our way down the highway, occasionally being blown off it by massive lorries. We perched up on a cliff overlooking the town and had our lunch before cycling back to bed.

Jess in autumn colours

Taking your horse for a walk

Vew from lunch

San Martin was a lovely place and was certainly better than the city that is Bariloche. It’s small cosy with a lot of character, i just wish we timed this trip to coincide with the snow.

Cheers
Hutch

Related posts:

1. Hutchae in Bariloche
2. Accommodation Top Eleven – Review
3. Mendo-zzzzzzzzz-a

We were excited to arrive to El Calafate in Southern Patagonia and be greeted with a very picturesque village with amazing autumn colours, and the mountains reflecting in a flamingo laden lake.  Since all the hostels in the town were so expensive we decided to “posh pack” and upgrade to the most popular spot on trip advisor. After a bumpy ride out of town on a dirt road we arrived to a lovely little hotel right on the lake. We had wine and canapés overlooking the stunning views on arrival which worried us….. Had we miss read the price tag or something? The room was fantastic and I was very excited at the prospect of a bath and a hair dryer (it doesn’t take much). It allowed us time to get organised for what everyone comes to El Calafate to do and that’s the glacier.

We booked the tour for 2 days’ time to maximise the weather conditions which was treating us well for that time of the year.  We felt very prepared for the hike through the forest and strapping on some crampons to hike the glacier. This confidence was primarily due to the fact we had just watched “Man Vs Wild in Patagonia” just weeks before we left Australia. “Man Vs Wild” is a program hosted by Bear Grylls (yes his name is Bear) in which he strands himself in remote locations to demonstrate localized survival techniques. The episode documents his efforts to survive and find   way back to civilization, usually requiring an overnight shelter of some kind.  He served three years with the Special Air Service, a special forces unit of the British army, was the youngest Brit to climb Everest, first to circumnavigate around the UK on a jet ski (why would you want to do that anyway and how is that an achievement???) blah blah blah. What they don’t tell you in the promo is that he does the same techniques every episode just in a different location and involves stating the bleeding obvious, ie Don’t swim with man eating sharks….they might eat you if you look tasty etc. The worst part is I have to endure it every Monday night as it is Plums favourite program.

Anyway I digress……….

We woke early for our expedition to the glacier. Having prepared thoroughly the night before with provision, clothing and Bear Grylls still fresh in our mind we embarked in to the transit van that would drop us deep into the wild……Well actually it dropped us off to another bigger bus that would THEN drop us off into to wild. We decided to befriend a British couple who laughed at the ridiculous amount of rations they had packed. They seemed like a worthy ally if the worst would happened. We had to wait 15 minutes at one of the stops for four Spanish princesses to board the bus still doing their hair and makeup. They continued to do this for the next half hour, instead of mentally preparing for the physical onslaught that would ensue. We decided they would be a worthy candidate to eat if the need arose….although probably stringy.

We boarded a ferry which would take us over to base camp (where the toilets were for wee breaks). For the first time we caught a glimpse of the challenge in front of us, the amazing Puerto Merino Glacier, eerily  glowing blue in the morning sun.  The wind was fierce on the water and we were glad we had brought the extra empty water bottle just in case we needed to pee and it could be streamed into said bottle to keep us warm at night like a hot water bottle, if needed, in our make shift shelter (as seen in Man vs Wild in Patagonia {MVWIP}).

We descended into the forest following a well-positioned path. We felt nervous as it was going away from the water source and further up into the woods. Bear always says when you are lost to trek down hill and follow the water source, it will always lead you back to civilization and help (as seen in MVWIP). We resisted the urge to climb a tree and get a better idea of where we were going and simply follow the path and the guide (MVWIP).

We could hear the mighty crashing sound of the glacier in the background cracking like a shot gun in the distance. The enormity of the natural wonder became apparent as we snuck up the side of the sleeping beast and strapped on some crampons (well actually the guide did, better to be safe).  We started to gingerly walk the slippery slopes in the manner required to avoid injury (guide showed us this not MVWIP). Then suddenly we were faced with our first crevasse. I had always thought if you had fallen down a crevasse you would be a goner. I was so glad that Bear had (in MVWIP) lowered himself into a crevasse to simulate how indeed you would be royally f*#ked if you found yourself in one.  I didn’t feel like simulating this and we moved on.   We climbed relentlessly for what seemed like centuries but surprisingly it was only an hour and a half. From this point we landed at a make shift shelter in the front of the glacier which was actually a bar from which we had whiskey on ice (funnily enough) and a chocolate (thankfully we didn’t have eat glacier plankton  as seen on MVWIP). We were relieved to have successfully conquered the first hundredth of the glacier without casualty.

We decided to bask in our glory over a couple of giant bottles of beer and a nap on the way home.

But in all seriousness now, we had a fantastic time trekking the glacier and generally enjoying the amazing scenery. We were lucky to see many chunks of ice calving of the glacier and even got some footage on camera. We could watch it for hours (it becomes a little obsessive to be honest). I hope you enjoy the photos: they tell the real story.

Much love all!
Jesse Belle

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1. Just arrived in El Calafate, t…
2. Hutchae in Bariloche
3. Vancouver – Week 1