We had booked our flight from Santiago to Caracas (via Bogota) for March 3rd but the earthquake had slightly damaged the airport in Santiago so anything or nothing could happen with our flight. Once again everyone had a different opinion on whether we’d be able to leave or not.

The airline, Avianca, said the flight would definitely leave on Wednesday morning. Which was very reassuring even though the operator on the phone was in Bogota and didn’t know much about the situation on the ground in Santiago. Our Chilean friends said that the airport wouldn’t re-open until the coming Monday so we should just concentrate on getting our ticket changed for next week. The internet was suspiciously quiet on all accounts; no one posted anything about flights leaving or how much the airport was actually damaged.

So we spent a few days in Santiago in limbo. We got some work done and did some sight-seeing but unfortunately many museums were closed.

Although there was some slight damage visible in parts of the city, most people went about their business as usual: going to work, eating at restaurants and shopping. Our friend Lola gave us an excellent city tour and took us up to the San Cristobal mountain for some beautiful views of the city and a cup of ‘mote con huesillo’. A very excentric Chilean drink/food that combines ice-cold fruit sirup with wheat grains and a dried peach. Really, you have to try it to understand it.

Sorry, very much not in focus...

In any case, on Tuesday afternoon Avianca called us to say that yes, the flight was definitely on for the next day (yay!) however because the airport buildings were still closed, we had to arrive at 3am at the Avianca office in Santiago where we’d be put onto busses to be taken to the airport as a group. Of course there was a small organizational problem at the Avianca office that morning with everyone scrambling to be the first on the bus, lest they leave anyone behind. But eventually we all made it to the airport where check-in was handled in some very tasteful, white fabric, party tents. They even had a make-shift customs desk and a portable x-ray scanner. The wait before the flight was probably the worst of it all because the waiting area was packed with tired and grumpy people and a cold draft was coming in through the gaps at the bottom of the tent. But we were just grateful to be there and on our way.

When we got off the plane in Bogota, a crowd of people clapped and cheered for us in the arrivals area; there was free coffee, arequipe and bottles of Colombiana: a disgustingly addictive soda that tastes like a mix of Red Bull and Seven-Up. What a wonderfully warm welcome!

Thank you everyone for your comments and thoughts! We arrived safely in Santiago this afternoon after only a couple of detours on the highway. The roads from Santa Cruz to Santiago were mostly fine in fact. We saw a couple of bridges that had collapsed but most affected the highway leading south so we were lucky.

Once we hit the highway at San Fernando we also found an open gas station (very important since we only had about a third of a tank) so we managed to get to Santiago in just 4 hours, which considering the circumstances is probably a pretty good time!

One of the main problems was the lack of information. We didn’t know whether the roads would be open since everyone gave us a different accounts of what they’d heard, no one knew whether there’d be gas available on the road or even if Santiago still existed. A few people made the situation out to be much worse than it really was and possibly for some it was since there were people living in tents and collecting money and anything else available for funerals, repairs, food and other basic necessities. But this was also one of the reasons why we decided to leave: there wasn’t much we could do to help physically. Instead of taking up valuable resources like food and water, we preferred to leave our cash with Anne at the hotel to distribute in town as she saw fit.

When the papers from Santiago made it through this morning to Santa Cruz we decided that we’d also be able to make it no matter how long it took so we packed our little Suzuki to the gills (including a couple on their honeymoon who decided last minute that touring the wine country wasn’t such a great idea these days after all) and we made it to Veronica’s house in time for lunch and some excellent home-made pisco sours. So yes, we’re more than okay and now we’re just hoping that they re-open the airport in time for us to fly to Caracas in three days.

We would have probably stayed quite comfortably at our hotel as well – our hosts Anne and Eduardo did everything they could to accomodate everyone. They even cooked a first-class barbeque last night for all the hotel guests because obviously there were no restaurants open anywhere. It ended up being a wonderful evening with everyone pitching in (Conor got blisters from cutting potatoes), sitting around a long table in the yard with candle light and bottles of wine. We can only recommend the TerraViña, be it in time of crisis or for a lovely holiday to explore the Colchagua valley and its vineyards.

We can’t wait to see you all again – some of you very soon – but until then, thanks again for your messages, emails, comments and care. Sending you all lots of love from Chile!

The wind gusts, rivers flow, lava erupts and the earth slides. Our planet is composed of enormous plates that float on molten magma. In places they pull apart, creating new earth (the mid-atlantic ridge). In others they slide past each other, creating fissures (the St Andreas fault). And in some places they collide, creating mountains and building pressure (the Andes mountain range). Once the pressure becomes too much to bear, the plates move and the earth shakes – last night so did our furniture.

At 3:38 am this morning we woke up to the wardrobe inching its way across our floor with its doors flapping and banging. The ceiling fan above our bed was violently shaking back and forth and it sounded like a giant freight train was passing just outside our window. The lamps toppled over, picture frames fell from the walls and our bed just wouldn’t stop shaking. In fact nothing stopped shaking – for almost three minutes our hotel swayed back and forth like a schooner caught in a squall. Needless to say, we were shaking as well.

The damage assessment this morning revealed that we had been very fortunate. Our room looked like Keith Richards had stopped by for a party yet nothing was broken (including the wine bottles we bought yesterday). The hotel itself, which has only been open three weeks, held up well too. A few shingles fell from the roof and the pool lost a few hundred litres of water, a flowerpot fell and there are a few cracks here and there. Okay, and one wall fell.

But no one was sleeping in that room so it hardly counts.

There are rumours of toppled wine tanks and loose barrels in the wineries that we cannot confirm however we did walk into town this morning, Santa Cruz a 140km south of Santiago, where the main church and the town hall have been badly damaged and some buildings collapsed completely.

As far as we can tell most seem to have been offices, bars and a sushi restaurant so hopefully without any casualties. There are a lot of adobe buildings in the area which according to reports didn’t hold up and there have been deaths but we haven’t seen this ourselves. Some of the bridges and roads are damaged and have been closed but we will try and make our way up to Santiago tomorrow anyway, road conditions and gasoline availability permitting. We have friends there and as wonderful as our rag tag team of survivors here at the hotel is, it will be good to see some familiar faces. Even though our hostess has been incredibly accomodating (baking fresh bread) as well as interesting (she’s the South America correspondent to the Danish magazine Politiken).

In case you’re wondering how we posted this in a place without electricty or water, one of our fellow guests, a Chilean architect, has a mobile modem and graciously lent it to us. It was the least she could do after telling Conor immediately after the quake that new buildings were built with modern anti-earthquake technology but that the second quake, for there always is one, would be stronger.

As we’re writing this there are still tremors happening every 10-15 minutes. Some are softer and some make the lamps sway and the flowerpots tremble. Last night the Nazca plate moved eight metres and it’ll take some time to settle down again. It’s eerie and unsettling each time the plates re-adjust and I don’t blame Rocco, the dog, for taking off like a crazy hound every time another aftershock passes. The dog, the birds and the low rumbling noise are all excellent indicators of imminent shaking. Our world is always in motion, sometimes and some places drastically so.

Our plan in Chile is to travel north by car. Having the freedom of our own transportation we decided to leave lodging to fate. We would see unexpected things and stop where we saw fit. Each intersection was a choice to be decided on the spot.

The morning started out well, we ended up in the city of Frutillar and like many others of the towns in the southern region it had a German colonial background. We had a surprising Chilean fish lunch at the “Guten Appetit”. Then we visited the German museum in town, which had reconstruction of the old colonial buildings and relics that had been saved from the 1800’s. The most interesting relics where those dedicated to farm work as they where quite advanced for the times and far reaches of southern Chile.

As evening approached we ended up in the town of Valdivia. On the road in we spotted the tourist office and what better place to get information on lodging. As I walked in and exchanged pleasantries with the tourist information lady, Nora picked up the first brochure she liked and declared we would be staying there. The tourist lady agreed it was a great place and marked the location on the map and off we set. She did not happen to mention that the surrounding communities were in town for a vote. As we approached the hotel the street leading to it was blocked by a police officer. We decided some pedestrian fair might be going on, so we would approach from the east, blocked. North also blocked. Not feeling good about the chances for a westerly approached I suggested the hotel down the road. However, once Germans make up their mind they are a determined bunch. So we decided to ask the police officer for guidance, “None can enter”. “But sir, I am headed for a hotel at the corner”. “Sorry, this street is closed”. Pulling out the map that the tourist lady had marked I waved it at him, “But I am sleeping here tonight” while stabbing a finger at the map I implored. I had no plans to let him know that I actually had no reservation or knew what the hotel looked like. In fact by this point we didn’t even know the name. Taking the map from me he softened, “You have a map? Why didn’t you say so, clearly this is the street marked on the map, please proceed”. Excited we drove around the blockade while the officer radioed in our arrival to his fellows down the road. We parked as soon as we ran into another police car with a group of officers glaring in our direction and decided to walk the rest of the way. Even walking they approached us and queried about our presence. Being a quick learner I reached for the map at which point they became jovial and pointed us in the right direction. On the way to the hotel we passed another twenty fellow officers and 5 armored vans. Having found our hotel right across the street from the building that the officers where guarding we gathered it was not a street fair, but must be someone important visiting. We asked for a room and the hotel manager decided to show us one while he blamed the trouble outside on the acronyms, with no meaning to us, on the front page of the paper that was lying on his desk. Along with the tour of the hotel we got an explanation that the police was there due to a demonstration, based on a vote currently going on that should be over in a next few hours. After we agreed to the room and price he mentioned that he hoped the vote would turn out to be no. I asked why that would be a good outcome, and with a worried look he said, “It would mean no tear gas”. Turns out by random chance and not pre-booking we were going to sleep in the closest hotel to the demonstrations against a new proposed water drainage pipe and hydro-electric dam. If the plan was approved the environmentalist apparently have a habit of getting rallied and this reflected in the 100 armed cops outside. Trusting in chance so far we left our belongings and headed out to the street vendors for dinner and beer. If there was going to be tear gas then I wanted a beer.

In Bariloche the one recommended tour is the “Circuito Chico”. Most do it by mini van tour or personal car, but the more athletic option is to bike it. We headed out of town in the local bus to the bike rental closest to the circuit (could exaggerate the athleticism by renting a bike in town). Having rented two bikes we headed out toward the panoramic view point that the guide assured us should not be missed.

From here you can see the fancy hotel Llao Llao. Apparently everything around here revolves around the Llao Llao, one of the earliest tourist attractions. One of the leading hotels of the world. Saying the name gives the speaker away as Argentinian or South American thanks to the double Ls.

Although not on the main route we visited the Colonia Suiza for lunch. We expected to find wurst and other Swiss cuisine (Rosti or Rivella perhaps), but the choices were empanadas or alfajoles.

Back on the main path we rode the afternoon away and visited both a hidden lake and a replicate Roman bridge. By four we decided to treat ourselves at the Llao Llao for some tea and spectacular views. The tea not only came with cakes but also display by local birds of prey used to feeding on the leftovers.

The hotel, the fake Roman bridge (later discovered there were several others) and the nearby chapel were all built by Bustillo, a famous Argentinean architect. A nice hotel but nothing worth traveling there for unless of course you are an avid golf player as the course surrounding it did look quite tempting on this particular sunny day.

Having returned the bikes we got a voucher for some free beers down the road and took the express bus (we were the last ones to fit in, so he decided to not stop for any other bus stops). Bariloche is quite an enjoyable city if you happen to have good fortune with weather.

Today marks exactly one year since we left our lovely little apartment in Barcelona and started travelling. We didn’t know if it would work out for this long, combining work and travel, left to our own devices 24/7 and sometimes without much of a plan. But it’s been absolutely wonderful and it’ll probably be much tougher to stop than we anticipated.

We’re in Chile now, crossed over via the lakes from Bariloche to Puerto Montt (a trip that’s slightly overrated and vastly overpriced), and are slowly making our way up to Santiago. We hope to visit some vineyards, maybe the thermal waters at Pucon and then enjoy the big city life in the capital. More details to follow!

Tonight we’re staying in Valdivia, a nice little town on the pacific coast. Our hotel is right across from a government building and there’s a big demonstration going on about a vote that’s taking place tonight. The streets are closed off, police in riot gear is everywhere and they’re expecting tear gas later. So if you don’t hear from us in a few days, you know what happened…

In the meantime though, keep on reading. We hope you enjoy our ramblings.

Sometimes St. Peter is just not fair. The two days we spent in El Calafate and at the Perito Moreno glacier were incredibly sunny and beautiful. Not a single cloud to be seen in the skies. Then our drive over to El Chalten on Tuesday was like a giant postcard viewing of Patagonia: deep blue skies, glistening sun and incredible views of Mount Fitz Roy and the Cerro Torre. The whole parque glaciar was completely free of clouds, which happens very rarely.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Taking advantage of the good weather, we drove to the Lago del Desierto in the afternoon which is at a dead-end road in a valley leading straight into Chile. (Up until a few decades ago Argentina and Chile still had skirmishes in this region about the exact location of the border. In 1965 a Chilean gendarme even died when an Argentinean patrol came across him and a few of his subordinates near El Chalten. Or as the Argentineans put it in the commemorative plaque: “…dejando de existir poco después…” meaning literally “…he stopped existing shortly after that…”.)

Nowadays though these border disputes seem to have been laid to rest as the tourists have taken full control of the area. El Chalten, which was only built in 1985 as a police outpost, has exploded in the past two decades and with every year it seems another hostel and another restaurant pops up. (We know this not only from the people in town but also thanks to our guide books which are both from 2004 and have only about a third of the places listed that exist nowadays. The prices are also not reliable anymore – everything has at least trippled in the last 6 years.) Luckily the beauty of the area hasn’t diminished:

After the Laguna del Desierto (seen above) we hiked up to the Huemul glacier, one of many in the surrounding mountains. The sun was almost blinding up there with the lake and ice on top:

We could even see the Cerro Torre and the Fitz Roy again from there, it truly was a picture-book day:

So really, we shouldn’t have been surprised that St. Peter had other plans for the next day. On Wednesday morning we woke up early to grey clouds and cold winds. But we tried to put a good spin on things: at least it wasn’t raining and the clouds were pretty high so we might still get a good view. We were hiking to the Laguna de Los Tres, a lake at the base of Fitz Roy and so named in honor of the three French men who climbed the mountain for the first time in the 1952.

It all started well enough and we even appreciated the clouds a little because it meant that the sun wasn’t beating down on us. But just as we had finished the first part of the hike (the easy part which goes through woods and along mostly level terrain) and came out into the river bed to start the much tougher climb on the other side, rain drops began splattering onto the rocks around us. From that point on until we reached our hostel again a few hours later, the rain never got worse than a strong drizzle but it didn’t let up once. Which means this is the view we got at the top of the Laguna de los Tres:

But sometimes you need a crappy day like that to make you appreciate the beautiful ones even more. It took us three hours to reach the Laguna de los Tres and only two to make it back to town, thanks to the brisk pace set by our iPods. Back in El Chalten we rewarded ourselves with a waffle topped with calafate jam at La Wafleria and mint hot chocolate. The best cure for rainy days and blistered feet.

Probably the trickiest part about maintaining a travel blog is that when you’re out having fun and doing things, your’e not at the computer blogging about those things. And later on when you’re back home because it’s late or the weather is bad, you’re usually too tired to write about all the fun things you did that day. Yes, I’m really moaning about having too much fun and too little time to tell you all about it. But tonight you’re in luck – it’s not too late yet and the weather is grim so we’re staying in to tell you all about our latest adventures.

On Monday we spent the day at the Perito Moreno glacier, one of many here in southern Patagonia but what’s special about the Perito Moreno is that it’s a stable glacier, meaning it’s not shrinking. It’s not growing either but it does do a memorable trick where every once in a while the tip of the glacier grows a few metres to meet the shore of the peninsula in front of it. This dams the lake on the other side and causes the water to rise, sometimes up to 24 metres. When the pressure on the dam becomes too big, the connection ruptures in a spectacular crash, levelling the water out again. There’s no schedule for this event, it can happen once a year or once a decade. The only thing they know is that when the water first starts to break through the connection (as water is want to do, it begins tunneling its way through the bottom of the ice) it takes about 24 hours for the rupture to happen. So if you’re ever visiting while the glacier has connected to the peninsula and you see a little cave forming at the bottom of the connection, do stay for another day for what will sure be a spectacular show.

We didn’t get so lucky since the glacier isn’t anywhere near connecting to the peninsula these days. But we did see some pretty big chunks fall off and even small, tennisball size ice clumps create a satisfying WOOMP when they hit the water. How can it be stable when it’s falling apart at the seams like that? Because the glacier moves forward up to 1.5 metres per day.

Click on this image as well as the header image at the top to see a large version of the picture.

Because we happend to be at the glacier on the birthday of the Lago Argentino (the lake into which the Perito Moreno feeds) our visit coincided with a visit from ‘La Cristina’, or as she’s known to anyone outside of the country, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, President of Argentina. She was here to baptize some new walkway that had been built around the shore of the peninsula and she brought a whole lot of union guys with loud drums and big banners. We’re obviously not very atune to the workings of Argentine politics since we had to ask one of the guys if they were for or against the government. (His answer: “With. There’s no other option.”) We could have scrambled for a spot in the crowd to hear her speak but politicians really are a dime a dozen compared to stable glaciers. Thankfully her short appearance at the visitor center/snack bar meant that we had some of the walkways all to ourselves for a short while and could eat our lunch watching the big hunk of ice without any other tourists getting into our view.

After lunch and extensive ice hunk watching, we proceeded to the other attraction of the day – walking on the glacier. Because I was afraid to freeze to death, we opted for the shorter version of the walk, about 1 1/2 hours long. There’s also a 5 hour one where you get better crampons and maybe even an ice axe. But I take full responsibility for getting us into the senior tour. It was quite pretty to see the glacier up close, especially to see all the different shades of blue and how they intensify in little cracks the deeper it gets.

But as pretty as the tour was, the highlight was probably at the end when we got some whisky served over – what else – glacier ice. Definitely did the trick to warm our feet and hearts.

(Travel spoils you that way – 2 years ago neither one of us would have touched the whisky and instead taken a glass of glacier water but since we drove through Scotland and sampled various whiskys directly at the source, we definitely appreciated The Famous Grouse we were served.)

The difference between Patagonia and Buenos Aires is almost too much. We’re less than 2000km from the capital but we might as well be on another continent. There are few paved roads, even fewer towns, the color scheme is brown/grey with lots of blue for the giant sky that opens up above and there are way more animals around than people.

Today we drove around Isla Valdes, a peninsula famous for its wildlife, off the coast of Puerto Madryn. Depending on the season you can see sealions, sea elephants, penguins and orcas. If you’re really lucky you can even see an orca eat a sea lion but that didn’t happen today unfortunately. (They only kill about 8% of the sea lion population a year, in the grand scheme of the ecosystem, that’s not very much.) But what is very impressive is that the orcas have come up with a special hunting technique here at Isla Valdes. They intentionally let themselves wash up on the beach, grab a sea lion pup and then wiggle their way back into the water with the waves. Basically, they beach themselves on purpose and then hope to make it back into the sea in time before their bodies give out under their own pressure. That’s a lot of dedication just for a meal!

Apparently this happens on average once every three days during the season, which is on right now, but the orcas weren’t hungry today apparently so instead we got to see the sea lion pups happily frolicking in the waves. Notice the two big daddies, one on the very right of the frame and one in the middle of his harem. Those two seem to be rivals because they kept growling at each other and mock charging later on.

Let’s go in for a close-up here of the pups so you can really see them klutzing around in the waves:

(Sorry for the cloudy quality, it’s taken through binoculars.)

There were several different groups of sea lions on the beach, all separated by a bit of space and usually gathered around one or two huge males with big manes basking in the sun. Apart from the whole ‘orca might come for lunch and have your baby’ thing, this really seems quite a peaceful and pleasant life.

We also saw penguins and some very far away sea elephants (which might also have been sea lions or really just fat blobs on the sand, hard to tell from that distance…)

In between animals there was lots of nothing, followed by more nothing and long stretches of road. We covered almost 200km today, once around the peninsula, but we probably saw fewer than 20 cars. And most of those were the same people over and over again because obviously the tourists are all on the same route. At one particular long stretch of road we stopped for a while and took some silly pictures. Not a single car passed us the entire time we were there. Which is why we could do this without even having to check whether there was someone coming down the road:

Today we’re driving back down to Trelew to visit the paleontological museum and to have tea in Gaiman (remember the whole Welsh heritage thing we mentioned in the last post?). We’ll spend one night in Trelew and then fly down to El Calafate, to do some hiking and possibly some serious freezing. Will let you know how that goes.

Yes, you read that right, our time in Buenos Aires is up. But we just go here! We haven’t even gone to La Pharmacie yet to try their provoleta con verdura a la parilla and I want to go back to Morelia for another pizza fix (pizza from the grill, ultra thin and loaded with toppings). Let alone all the museums and shops and barrios that we haven’t visited yet. There’s no two ways about it – we just have to come back. Especially since most of last week we’ve had torrential rains and we couldn’t do much in the way of touristing. But when the rain let up for a day we did manage to go to Tigre, a small town about 30km north of Buenos Aires, built on the Paraná delta.
Because it sits smack in the middle of the delta, boat is the best form of transportation in the area. The popular thing to do is to buy a ticket for a boat ride from one of the restaurants which means the regular taxi boat will take you to the restaurant (for a hefty surcharge), drop you off for lunch and then pick you up again a couple of hours later. Since there really isn’t much else to do in Tigre, this is how most tourists spend their day in Tigre.

We chose the Gato Blanco restaurant because it was far down the river and we wanted to see as much as possible. Most houses along the way were just regular small holiday shacks but some people really let their creativity run wild, especially on their jetties. This one housed a very normal looking home in the back but it’s all about the first impression. Just look at that tower!

We also passed the local supermarket:

And finally made it to the Gato Blanco for lunch. Really a very pleasant spot and full of pensioners which is always a good sign in a restaurant. (This has been scientifically proven by us after many years of study – the number of customers over the age of 70 is directly proportional to the quality of the food.)

After we’d been dropped off again in Tigre town, we took a stroll along the river:

The monument to the heroic rowers with the Marina Regatta rowing club in the back. Can you tell rowing’s a big deal in this town?

And ended up at the (apparently) only other tourist attraction, the grandly titled Naval Museum of the Nation. There was a big jumble of exhibits in the museum ranging from maritime oil paintings to modern fighter planes and a baby whale preserved in a jar. Also, a giant tide computing machine:

But now our time is really up in Bs As and our trails are leading south. First stop: Isla Valdes, a little peninsula off the north-eastern coast of Patagonia about 1000km south of Buenos Aires. We’ll spend a couple of days there to see some wildlife and have some proper scones and tea. (The area was settled by the Welsh in the late 1800’s and nowadays there are still plenty of tea shops around, serving cucumber sandwiches, scones and Earl Grey tea.) After that we’re going even further south to El Calafate and surroundings so stay tuned for news from Patagonia!

Brad on our walk over to inspect the viaduct from a closer vantage point.

Up close, the viaduct has that old and gloomy feel that only concrete can convey. We decided to head under it and past it to the hills beyond so that we could get a look at the tracks and what the view might be like from the actual train.

After hopping from rock to rock and slogging through wet grass we reached a small but high enough hill to appreciate the entire Scotish country side. Brad wanted to go higher, trying to match some hikers on the opposite hill (pictured in the image bellow) trying to find a route all the way to the top. But given that the Scottish weather is always inviting one to be indoors having a nice cup of warm chocolate by a fire, we opted for that outcome instead.

So many train journeys so little time. There are a number of other train journeys we’ve had the pleasure of being on. Thanks to my mother we got to go on both the Oslo – Bergen railway and the Flåm Railroad. Both are through spectacular Norwegian country side and Bergen itself is a nice destiantion to end up in. The journey to Bergen is through the Hardanger plateau with 200 tunnels, 300 bridges and huge amounts of water changing state – frozen to liquid or vice versa.

The Flåm railroad is quick in comparison with a short 20 kilometer ride but follows the only way down the mountain, that of the water.

The Bernina Express in Switzerland has very little express in it as its name might intimate but the gorgeous countryside keeps your eyes busy.

These are some more journeys I hope to take:

• Cusco to Puno (Peru)
• Hiram Bingham (Cusco to Machu Picchu)
• Rocky Mountaineer (Canada)
• Canadian (Toronto to Vancouver in several days)
• Ghan (Australia, a recent track)
• Shangri-la Express (China)
• Pride of Africa or Royal Scotsman (for it’s luxury)
• The Voyage of Vientiane (Thailand-Laos-Vietnam)
• Los Mochis to Chihuahua (Mexico)
• Maglev Train (Shanghai Airport)

We need to go visit Scotland again for the Hebrides, I am sure while we are there we could find the time to actually take the train over the viaduct. It’ll be great to enjoy the view with a coffee in hand instead of standing on a moist and slippery hill.

Our time in Buenos Aires is almost coming to an end and we’re starting to enter panic mode: there’s so much we haven’t seen yet! We try to squeeze as much as possible into our remaining days but there is simply too much to do. Apparently once you enter panic mode like that, your judgement gets somewhat impaired as well. That’s the only way I can explain how we ended up at ‘Caminito’, a little road that passes throug the La Boca quarter and which is well worth a miss if you ever come to Buenos Aires. To give you an idea: imagine, if you will, the lower part of the Ramblas in Barcelona. Already full of tourist touts and restaurant owners who try to lure you to one of their overpriced tables. Now multiply their persistance by 10, divide the area in half, add garish colors, suffocating heat and you have an idea of what the Caminito is like on a good day. (On a bad day one of the pickpockets makes off with your wallet.)

The La Boca area is one of the poorer neighbourhoods of the city and usually not a very touristy quarter but the residents of the Caminito started painting their houses back in the 1950’s to spruce things up and now they host mainly tourist restaurants, tango shows and mediocre street painters. We sped through the area trying to rid ourselves of tango posers, waiters and painters and when we came out on the other side we immediately started looking for a taxi. There was really nothing fun about the place, it just seemed like one giant tourist trap, painted in primary colors to hide the dirt.

Also, creepy note on the photos – there’s a papier-maché doll looking from a window or balcony in all the pictures below. What’s up with that?!

Caminito was definitely a bust but to balance it out we had a very pleasant experience in a place that we expected to be much worse: a tango show.

There are so many different tango tours advertised for tourists that you just have to assume it’s going to be sleazy and disappointing. But our visit wouldn’t have been complete without it, would it? So Conor did some research on the different shows and finally settled on the Piazzolla Theater. We weren’t allowed to take pictures during the show but their website has a good selection so you can get an idea of what it’s like. The theater isn’t very big so when the music starts to play it really takes over the whole place and pulls you into the show. I had expected a guy with an accordion and some shady dancing but what we got looked more like a full blown off-broadway production with an 8-piece band, 6 dancers and 2 singers. There was dancing (du’h), singing, music and mixes of all of the above. Even though everything was extremely stylized we still enjoyed it very much and walked home humming Carlos Gardel tunes.

Another ‘very Bs As’ experience – and a good one – was our visit to a puerta cerrada restaurant, literally a closed-door restaurant. Although restaurant is a bit of a misnomer because you’re actually going to someone’s house. We found a couple of listings for different puerta cerrada restaurants in the local Time Out guide so we picked one with an Asian flavour, Cocina Sunae, and made a reservation. Once your reservation is approved – since it’s someone’s house there are usually only a few spots available – you’re provided with the address and directions on how to get there. We felt very hush-hush and exclusive but in the end it’s really just a restaurant. A small and secluded one but nevertheless a restaurant. Sure, there was a TV in the corner and some toys stuffed behind a curtain but there were also 5 tables (2 for larger parties, 1 for four and 2 for two), a wine list (scribbled on a napkin) and two waitresses. But the food was very good and its Asian twist provided a welcome relief – spices, mint, lemongrass! – from the usual meat and potato options on offer.

Yesterday we visited three museums in a row, just because we can. (And because the cleaning lady came and we didn’t want to bother her in the apartment while she was doing her thing.) We started at MALBA, the Museum of Latin American Art, where we saw an extensive Warhol exhibition. That was probably worth the price of admission alone but the rest of the museum was very interesting as well. My favourite was by a local artist, Pablo Reinoso, called Enredamaderas. A wooden bench that takes on a life of its own and winds its way through the different floors of the museum, bursting out of walls and snaking around columns.

Following the MALBA it was time for lunch so we headed to the National Museum of Decorative Arts, MNAD. We had heard about their good restaurant and we weren’t disappointed: even though we sat right by the Avenida Libertador, one of the biggest and busiest avenues in the city, it was a relaxing and peaceful lunch. And very tasty as well.

The MNAD is housed in a former private residence although palace is probably a more apt word. The house is enormous especially since it was built for a family of four. But it lends itself very well to being a museum. The decorative arts didn’t really captivate us all that much but in the basement they had an exhibition about the posters of Pierre Mendell which was wonderful. Beautiful, simple designs often with a cheeky undertone.

Postcards of some of the posters. The first one is for a German sailing event, the second for Swiss book design and the last two are for the Bavarian opera house's productions of L'Orfeo and Don Giovanni.

Since the MNAD is just down the street from the Museum of Architecture, MARQ, we headed there next. (Gotta love all those acronyms…)
Because we didn’t have any change for the entrance fee, the receptionist waved us through. Argentineans really are very nice people and not just because they let us into their museums for free. Everyone we’ve met so far in Buenos Aires has been helpful, friendly and usually very happy even though there is a constant lament about ‘la Cristina’, i.e. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the president. But when they hear we’ve just come from Venezuela they start laughing because they know that while things are bad here, they are not THAT bad. They usually go on saying that Venezuelans and Argentineans are brothers in arms and have to bear the same cross but I think deep down they’re patting themselves on the back for their good fortune.

After dealing with some work unpleasantness, we’ve finally gotten into tourist mode and started seeing the city beyond our little area of San Telmo. Yesterday we took a tour on the Buenos Aires Bus which in the end turned out to show us much of what we’d already seen by ourselves in previous days but it was still fun to see things from a bit higher up and hear a little history on the side.

Two red heads on a bus. Yes, we forgot our hats...

We also went to the Japanese garden where we heard a lecture on Bonsai trees. At first we treated the whole thing as more of a joke but once the representative of the Buenos Aires Bonsai club (I kid you not!) started talking and showed us how to re-pot a bonsai, in this case a small ficus, it actually got very interesting and we learned quite a bit about plants in general and very small trees in particular.

A few days ago we also went to pay hommage to the most famous grave in the city, that of Eva Duarte de Perón aka Evita. Her remains are buried at the Recoleta cemetery, one of the oldest and most exclusive cemeteries in the city. They weren’t always there, in fact they only arrived back in Buenos Aires, after an extended stay in Italy and Spain, in the 70’s. If you want to read all the sordid details about that story, go ahead.

Our research into Argentinean beef has also continued with a visit to Cabaña Las Lilas, a steak restaurant owned by a ranch. (So convenient!) The meat was as good as we had hoped if not better. A little morbid perhaps – the steaks come out with a little plastic cow stuck in them that tell you how it’s cooked, i.e. “I’m medium!” Looks cute but just a tad disturbing…

Don’t worry, we haven’t been sucked into a giant black hole on our trip down south. We’ve just been trying to get our bearings in this new city as well as getting some much-needed work done. But we’ve vowed to become better tourists in the next 3 weeks.

The area we’re staying in is called San Telmo, also known as the antique quarter because there are so many antique shops lining its old-fashioned cobbled streets. But there are also a lot of bars, galleries and restaurants so some call it the Greenwich Village of Buenos Aires. Whatever name you want to call it, it’s a great place to stay.
Our apartment is very modern with lots of concrete, glass and steel. Not quite our style but it’s sunny and has a wonderful rooftop terrace with a barbecue. Our neighbour has a little kiddie pool on his terrace. At first we snickered at that but with the temperatures steadily rising these days, we’re plotting ways of jumping the fence and taking a quick dip.

Yesterday we wandered down a few blocks towards calle Defensa where the weekly street fair was in full swing. This turns almost the entire street into an artisan/flea market with vendors offering everything from knitted Barbie dresses (with human size versions to match) to the obligatory mate containers in all shapes, sizes and materials. One guy was selling flowers from the back of his bike. Or maybe he was just taking his plants for a ride.

At the plaza Dorrego, the epicenter of the San Telmo street fair, we had the equivalent of an Argentinean ploughman’s lunch.

Speaking of food, I’m sure you’re all dying to hear whether the meat is really as succulent as everyone says it is. So far our verdict is, yes and no. We’ve been to a restaurant recommended by a friend as well as a guidebook and the meat was fine but nothing to write home about. Then we had some Venezuelan friends over for a barbecue on our terrace and that meat was excellent. (Hmm, that makes it sound like we ate our friends. It was beef on the barbecue, I promise!) Which explains our ‘yes and no’ verdict: Restaurant 0 – Carrefour 1. We shall continue our research on this topic though and will report back with further findings.

We’ve also wandered around Puerto Madero a bit, the youngest quarter of Buenos Aires. It’s the old port of the city that has been reformed in the past 20 years with spacious lofts and trendy restaurants. Calatrava built one of the bridges connecting the mainland with the port side, which looks especially nice at night:

Happy new year everyone! It’s about time we get our paws on the road again. Today we’re off to Argentina where we’ll spend a month in Buenos Aires before we head south into Patagonia. Plans are still a bit vague at this point as to what will happen after we leave Buenos Aires in February but it’ll probably involve Isla Valdez, El Calafate and the glaciers, Bariloche, crossing the lakes into Chile and then going up to Mendoza and Santiago. As always, any and all tips on where to go and what to do are welcome, so keep ‘em coming! (We also promise to finally include comments. That’s our resolution for 2010.)

Posts have been scant in the past few days because we’re in Caracas, spending the holidays with Conor’s family. Of course there’s a lot to say about Caracas and Venezuela, not even touching on the political situation, but since this is Conor’s home and I’ve been here several times before as well, it doesn’t feel new or exciting enough to write about. We’re essentially on vacation these days.

Ever since we landed in Caracas a week ago, things have been both slow and fast. Slow in the sense that our usual tourist routine has been completely reversed and we spend long hours just relaxing at home, watching movies, reading and hanging out with friends. Fast because Conor’s sister had a baby just over a week ago and obviously that’s brought a whole lot of extra activity into the house and our lives. Little Mila is absurdly adorable and behaves like a model baby: she sleeps, eats and poops. If there is any crying, her parents are very good at shielding the rest of the house.

Tonight is Christmas Eve and even though it doesn’t feel very Christmassy yet, especially since it’s 30˚C and sunny outside, the decorations are ready, the roast is in the oven and everything is set for the festivities tonight. Just like at my house, presents are given on the 24th at night. Conor’s mum would like it to be at midnight but since there are small kids in the house, this will probably happen BEFORE dinner… After the inevitable wrapping paper orgy, we’ll have a scrumptious meal of pernil (a pork leg roasted in the oven), ensalada de gallina (chicken salad) and roast potatoes followed by a mess of chocolate-oatmeal cookies that I made this morning (they’re very tasty but a disaster to look at).

Over the past few days we’ve been decorating the house to get it ready for the holidays. The Christmas tree is a real pine and spreads a wonderful scent around the house. There’s also an extensive nativity scene which includes a waterfall and lake made of blue plastic wrap and lemon shaped fairy-lights. Conor and I brought some papel picado from Mexico which we’ve strung up all over the house and there are mountains of presents under the tree just waiting to be opened tonight.

This picture is a much more accurate example of what is really going on, especially with Catire the cat reclining in the manger:

In that spirit, merry Christmas everyone! (Or happy hanukkah, jolly festivus, whatever it is you’re celebrating these days. Even if it’s just a weekend off.)

We have been collecting a series of desktop pictures for our computers in order to remember the trip. We thought we’d share 24 of the best ones, so that you can enjoy Mexico on your desktop. Clicking on the images leads to a high resolution widescreen version of the image that you can drag to your computer to use as a background.

Yesterday we went to see one of the engineering wonders of the world – the Panama canal. The Miraflores Locks are right outside Panama City so we could see the action up-close and personal.

Like everything in Panama City, it started with a little bargaining. Taxis in the city don’t have meters and while there is an official map indicating how much your trip should cost, very few drivers know and/or care about that. So you usually just tell the driver where you want to go and he’ll give you a price. If it’s too high, which it invariably is, you counter with something more reasonable, etc. Eventually you’ll meet somewhere in the middle about 2 dollars higher than what the official price would actually be. In the case of going to the Miraflores locks, the problem is that it’s a little outside of the city in an isolated spot, i.e. the taxis can pretty much charge whatever they want to get you there and away again since they are the only form of transport available. We found a driver who was willing to take us for $6 so we counted ourselves lucky and got into his truck. (Of course it was adorned with the local requirements: Panamanian flag stuck to the windshield and car-freshener tree dangling from the rear-view mirror.)

Once at the locks, we walked through the museum which is not as extensive or informative as the Museo del Canal in the old part of the city but it’s where most of the tourists get their info anyway because unlike the museo del canal, the explanations are in Spanish and English. So we learned how the French started the original dig for the canal, then handed it over to the Americans who did a super job and everyone was happy to give the canal away again to the Panamanians in 1999! Needless to say there was a bit of info missing here but it was interesting enough. Anyway, we had come for the ships and the canal! And we were not disappointed when around noon the ‘Asian Chorus’ started to make its way towards us to pass through the Miraflores locks. The ‘Asian Chorus’ is a cargo ship about 200m long which means it’s not the biggest ship that crosses through the canal but it’s still very impressive when it comes into the tiny little lane right in front of your eyes. ‘Asian Chorus’ is as wide as a Panama canal ship can get, 32m. Here it is, being bullied into the east lane by a tug boat. (Oh, and see that tiny little speck on the left-side of the lane? That’s a row boat which will go out to meet the ship so they can throw a tow line. I would not want to be the guy in that row boat.)

Speaking of sizes: the Panamanian government and the canal authorities are in talks to expand the canal with additional locks which would a) allow more daily traffic (currently 39 ships) and b) let wider ships pass through. This is obviously of great importance since at the moment all traffic is limited to a certain size ship. The largest possible ship to pass through the canal is called a Panamax and has become one of several standard ship-sizes. (The others are, unsurprisingly, Suez-max and Malacca Max.) Here’s a graph of the different size ships:

Once the ship enters this particular lock and the doors are closed on both sides, it takes about 8 minutes for 96 million liters of water to flow out and for the ship to sink about 8m. (Here is a strangely hypnotic time-lapse video someone created with screenshots taken from the Panama canal webcam.)

This is one of several locomotives used to stabilize the ship inside the lane.

These two locomotives at the back act as brakes and can bring the ship to a full stop in no time.

All in all the Miraflores locks lower or raise ships about 16m, depending on the tides. Southbound ships are off into the Pacific from here while northbound ships have two more locks to navigate as well as Gatun Lake and Gaillard Cut (Corte Culebra) before they reach the Caribbean sea.

But the coolest thing of all is the title of this blog post: “a man, a plan, a canal = Panama” is a palindrome, meaning it reads the same backwards and forwards. So clever…

Yesterday we caught a bus, walked across a bridge and suddenly found ourselves in a whole different country. That’s how easy it is to get to Panama from Costa Rica. (Although if you could take a boat it’d be even easier and faster.) The bridge isn’t quite what you’d expect of an international border but the adventure is all there:

Once we got our passports signed by the Tico authorities, we walked across, got a stamp from the Panamanians and we were all set. Easy peasy lemon squeazy. (We could have also just walked across the bridge; no one stops you on either side. But then that leads to uncomfortable questions once you try to board an airplane in Panama City.)

I gotta admit, I was pretty excited to leave Costa Rica. (Woops, did I just write that?) For some reason I feel evil talking badly about this little country that tries so hard and is so pretty. But it really didn’t do it for me. Most important of all, the weather is …uhm… difficult. The rain was to be expected and wasn’t too bad actually. It usually came in quick, strong showers. But the dampness that came with it was just too much. Starting in Dominical, our clothes were in a permanent state of semi-moist that of course brought with it a sensational smell of old, wet towel. Then we spent four days in Drake where the humidity was so high that my hair started curling and my shoes grew fungus. Costa Rica pretty much lost me after that.

But even ignoring the weather (that’s not the Ticos fault after all) there isn’t much that’s making me think I want to go back there anytime soon. Maybe we just travelled the wrong way around – going from Mexico to Costa Rica is like going from Italy to Luxembourg. We missed the food, the culture, the outgoing and interesting people. Even the music and the noise! The Ticos are very polite but everything, absolutely everything in the country is catered towards tourism. You can’t throw a dog (of which there is an overabundance) without hitting a canopy, ATV or horseback riding tour. While this is fun for a week or two, it gets very boring after that.
Surfing was the saving grace. The waves in Santa Teresa were excellent and we could have easily spent another week or two there. I would even consider going back although maybe not until they finish the tarred road (at the moment it’s all dirt road and the dust that gets thrown up by each passing ATV, car, bus and lorry is just incredible).

Leaving Costa Rica behind though, literally, let’s talk about Bocas del Toro where the music is on, the people are fun and nary an ATV tour in sight.

We accidentally took a tour to Bocas del Drago today with a Panamanian couple. Originally we just wanted to amble around town, see if we could find a book store and maybe take the bus over to Bocas del Drago which is on the other side of Isla Colon. (Bocas del Toro is an archipelago and Isla Colon is the main island.) But then one of the tour guides heard us talking about Bocas del Drago and made us such an appealing deal that we went for it. He took us to see Punta Caracol, a hotel built completely on stilts:

Starfish beach, which really earned its name:

And then on to Bocas del Drago which turned out to be just a regular beach. Nice but nothing too special. On our way back we rescued a shipwrecked American couple who were floundering around in a wannabe sail boat (it was really more of a row boat with a mast glued on). Their rudder had broken and apparently they were ready to tear each others’ heads off. We could have just thrown them some of our life jackets but I think they would have failed to see the humour: