Hey everyone! Greetings from Chile, South America! We’re finally out of the wilderness after spending the past few weeks trekking, camping and boating through the Patagonia region of southern Argentina and Chile.
When we last left off we were finishing our stay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Other than spending a lot of time on the beach, we spent one day taking a bus tour of the city. We got to see many great sights including the Merecana futbol stadium (the world’s largest stadium) and the Corcovado statue of Christ overlooking the city (see travel pictures). The view from above overlooking the city, ocean and mountains is absolutely amazing. We took the ND flag out for a picture at the Corcovado and were soon surrounded by people wanting to know what country the flag was from. It was bloody amusing. We also met two Slovanian women on the bus that we spent part of the day hanging out with. Rob kept accidently asking the girls questions about Slovakia instead of Slovenia and each time they got more and more upset at him. They were quite an angry pair (we can say that because we didn’t give them our web sight address).
Our last night in Rio, Rob and Chris asked around for the hottest club and decided to hit the town. After spending a couple of weeks in South America we realized that things don´t get going until late, so we showed up at the club around 11pm and we were the first people there. And of course the bouncer made us wait in line for a few minutes like the place was packed. The club eventually got very crowded at around 1am, and after a lot of drinking and dancing, we stumbled home in time to leave the hotel at 6am to catch our flight.
During the past few weeks in South America, we’ve been slowly struggling with our Spanish and learning words the hard way, especially Chris. One night in Argentina, Chris decided to expand his horizons and try a new local beer. After a few sips he turned to Bill and asked if the word ´sin´ means with or without? Later we noticed a large amount of beer dumped in the sink. After taking a quick look at Chris´s Liberty Beer, we noticed the phrase ´sin alcohol´ (without alcohol) in small print at the bottom of the label. The best part about it is that Chris tried to be inconspicuous with the whole matter...quietly dumping The beer to save face. Although Liberty is by far our least favorite beer, we’ve still included the label on our beers of the world link for sentimental purposes. Chris is SLOWLY making progress as to the meaning of the words ´con´ versus ´sin´, but every couple of days or so, it comes back to get him. For instance, we rented bikes one day in Rio and rode up and down the beaches for several hours. At the first water break, Chris grabbed for his water bottle and it surprisingly hissed at him as he opened it. Once again a victim of ´con´ versus ´sin´. In large letters at the bottom of the water label it states ´con´ gas. At this point in the trip, Chris has made the mistake so many times he’s starting to like water with gas and beer without alcohol. Chris is really coming around though...why just yesterday we asked him if he know what 'Yo Quiero taco Bell'
meant and he came back with 'something...something...Taco Bell'?. He also casually worked the phrase 'mi casa you casa' which we were very amused to hear. These are just a couple of examples of how he has really improved his spanish.
Our latest spanish lesson came one night in Rio when we decided to hit one of the popular Brazilian style restaurants where they keep bringing different types of meat to your table. Our first meat was corazon de pollo. Bill and Rob can translate some terms quickly, but others take a fair amount of time to process. We knew that it had something to do with the chicken. After trying a piece, we recognized several disgusting arteries in each of the chunks of meat. This discovery jarred Bill and Rob´s plethora of spanish vocabulary into motion. What does ´corazon´ mean? Must be a part of the chicken.....oh no....cabeza is head. Bill finally came up with it. ´Corazon´ is the heart. When doing food translations now, we make sure that we understand every word before digging in. Like we said, we’re learning the hard way......
After our stay in Rio we flew to Rio Gallegos in southern Argentina. We stepped off the plane in our shorts and t shirts and experienced our first sub 80 degree weather since the top of Kilimanjaro. It was in the low 40´s – at least it began to feel a little more like the Christmas season. We spent the next couple of days in the town of El Califate and took a day trip to see the Moreno Glacier, an absolutely amazing sight. We did some trekking in the morning and spent the afternoon just sitting and watching the glacier. Every few minutes you would hear what sounded like a gun shot blast and would see chunks of the glacier breaking off into the water. According to our guide, the glacier moves 1.5 meters each day.
The next day, we hopped on a bus to Torres del Paine National Park in Southern Chile. On the bus, we ran into a girl from the U.K. named Suki (short for Susanna). She decided to join us for our several day hike through the park. We lucked out with good weather and saw all of the parks major sites in three days. Suki filled the role of group translator, picture taker, and cook quite well. We thank her for her efforts. In the park, we also ran into three Notre Dame MBA students who had just finished up a semester abroad in Santiago. We spent an evening with them drinking boxed wine and discussing the finest university on the planet.
On the last day, Chris heard that there was a trail which led down to a spot where people can actually walk onto the glacier. It was getting fairly close to dark, but Chris convinced Rob to head out and try to find it. After hiking for an hour on a trail, we were dumped out about 0.5 mile short of the glacier down by the lake. A very steep rock mountain stood between us and the glacier. Instead of going back the way we came, we decided to make our own trail up the mountain......not a smart move. We followed a stream up the side of the rock formation, but it kept getting steeper and steeper. After another hour of hiking straight up, we were too far along to turn back before dark, but we knew a major trail existed high above us along the ridge of the mountain. A half hour later, we found the trail and returned back to the hostel just before dark. Hiking off-trail for several hours and almost running out of daylight gave us a bit of a scare, but also led us to a point where we had a spectacular vantage point over the glacier at sunset. Even so, I think we´ll be staying on the trails from now on.......
According to the Lonely Planet Guide book that we use, one of the best things to do in South America is to ride on a Navimag freight ship up the Western Coast of Chile through the fjords and narrow channels. For $200-US, we were put on a boat with close to 100 other backpackers, 300 cows and 500 sheep.....a real ´Carnival´ Cruise. The Lonely Planet book failed to mention the additional animal travelers and the 12 foot swells that you experience during a portion of the cruise. Let´s just say that between the smell of our furry companions and the rocking of the boat, several people spent a good portion of the 4 day trip near the comode. All three of us made it through without incident and when the fog lifted on the 4th day, the views from the boat were great. We met another two Notre Dame students on the boat and spent a good portion of the trip hanging out with them. Let´s face it, the Irish are everywhere. I don´t know if the trip was one of the ´best things´ to do in South America, but it definitely was a very unique experience.
After getting off the boat in Puerto Monte, Chile, we quickly connected with a bus to Bariloche, Argentina. Because of the circular pattern of our trip, this was our 4th entry into Argentina in 3 weeks. We were a little nervous that the immigration police might think we were running some kind of funny business with so many border crossings, but we made it in and out without too much hassle. Bariloche is a quaint ski town located on a lake in the eastern slopes of the Andes in Western Argentina. The scenery was spectacular.
Bill returned to Chile a day later (12-23)to meet up with a friend that was flying in (Melanie Parker). We are excited that Melanie will be traveling with us through Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. Rob and Chris met up with Bill and Melanie in Puerto Varas Chile for a nice Christmas. It was raining cats and dogs on Christmas day which was a first for us. It was also the first time many of us had been away from home for the holidays. We cooked a feast for Christmas dinner.
We had an interesting experience on Christmas eve. We went to the church in Puerto Varas for mass. We were told that it started at 10pm, so we got there about 9:55 to find the church full of people watching a Christmas play that was being put on by the kids of the perish. The play concluded at about 10:30 and the priest came in a typical Catholic precession and then went back out moments later in a similar procession. The next time he came in he had the baby Jesus figurine from the nativity set. Everyone in the church proceeded to go up to the alter and kiss the baby. This took about 45 minutes. We were looking at each other wondering what was going on. It was now 11:15 and the mass had not even begun. The mass finally got rolling and they were singing Christmas carols (in Spanish). We recognized the music, but very few of the words. We did recognize phrases like rumpa-pum-pum. We beltd out those parts with our best choir voices. We got up for communion at about 12:30 and a bunch of Chileans took our seats, so we had to stand for the rest of the mass. Mass finished up about 1:15 am and when we exited, we discovered that it was raining like crazy. Rob's Polar Fleece jacket did not shed the water very well and is still drying. We all agreed that 3hrs 15 minutes might be the longest mass in history. We are going to check with The Guiness Book. Needless to say, it was a record Christmas mass for the memory book.
We are now in a small town in Chile called Pucon. Pucon is an adventure city at the base of a volcano. It is a fantastic city, but it continues to rain. Our Gortex is coming in handy for the first time on the trip. Tomorrow we are going to climb the volcano which is still active, so it could be interesting.
We are headed up to Santiago for New Years Eve. We are really looking foward to the holiday, but unfortunately we have a flight to Bolivia on New Year's Day at 7am. Since it is an international flight, we have to be there two hours early...OUCH!
Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season.
-Bill, Chris, Rob, and Melanie
