Aqaba, Jordan

I was up with my alarm yet again (what kind of vacation is this?) for a 2nd day of diving. Heather decided to spend the day relaxing around the hotel rather than snorkeling.  However she joined me on the short walk to the dive centre so we could book the overnight excursion to Wadi Rum from a travel agency next door.

There were only three of us diving today. The Norwegian guy wanted to see the tank (an army tank scuttled in about 5m of water, perfect for a safety stop), so we went to that site for our first dive. The sun was out today, and visibility is pretty amazing. Maybe that's why the Red Sea is so highly rated for diving.

Froze in the wind in between the dives. Just as I stopped shivering, we were back the water for the 2nd dive, this one at Japanese Garden. It was okay.

Got back home and warmed up with a hot shower. According to the Norwegian guy (he had all kinds of dive paraphernalia), the water was 23C, the coldest I've dived.

Heather and I walked around the souq, souvenir hunting. We found a shop selling the antique coffee grinders!  The price was much lower than we expected, and so didn't even bargain. It was the one-sided bartering like in the Monty Python movie, with the vendor arguing both sides.  Heather also bought some jewelry.

Bought our bus ticket to Amman for Christmas Day, from where we'll take a taxi to Madaba.

Had a drink at the infinity pool at our hotel watching the sunset over Egypt or Israel (I'm not sure exactly where the border lies) (Saudi Arabia is 14km south from us as well).

We had dinner at Ali Baba's again. We had two mains and a couple appetizers, everything was amazing again. Split a bottle of Jordanian red.

...

Slept in (!) for the first time this trip. We just had to be ready for 1pm for our Wadi Rum excursion. Caught the tail end of breakfast, packed up and checked out. With the souvenirs and our boots in plastic bags (so we could put them on quickly in Wadi Rum) we looked distinctly like non-Hilton guests.

Had lunch in the souq, and would have timed it perfectly to be ready at 1pm except we forgot about the free tea at the end of the meal (it would be insulting to turn down) and so we were a few minutes late.

The weather was perfect for visiting Wadi Rum -- about 18C, sunny, and no wind to kick up dust storms.

We switched from a taxi to a 4WD in Wadi Rum (a Toyota, the favoured vehicle everywhere I've been on excursions because of its maintainability).  Drove around the desert landscape (wadi means valley in Arabic, and rum is moon, so literally translates to Valley of the Moon). Took pics at all the appropriate places. It was cool, but I wouldn't rate it in the top 5 things to see in Jordan. I thought the landscape around Petra was more interesting.

Our camp was great, a tent with actual beds and comfortable mattresses!  We were the only two tourists (the camp can hold up to 100 people in tents) so had the owner's attention all night. Had an excellent dinner, and chatted about travel. Heather and I crashed around 9pm. The owner pulled out his laptop and surfed using a USB stick. As he said, welcome to 2013.  (Although, we did read on our iPad / iPhone before falling asleep).

We woke up a couple times in the night from the call to prayers. The Imams had excellent voices and the sound carried well in the desert. What didn't add to it was the howling of dogs off-key.

We got up at 6am to watch the sunrise. We were both comfy warm in our sleeping bags and a couple blankets (much warmer than our night in Karak!) but froze once we got up. It might have been 3C.

The sun was just starting to hide the stars. It was a great view to the horizon. Watched the sky change, at one point we could see rays from the sun like how a kid draws the sun. Finally we felt some warmth after an hour or so.

We had an excellent traditional breakfast. Learnt we were supposed to dip the pita in olive oil and then in the spice mixture. (We had had the spice mixture before, but didn't know what to do with it).

To emphasize that times have changed, the camp owner asked if we could give him a good rating on tripadvisor.

Our driver picked us up at 9am as arranged, and we returned to the Hilton.  It was odd, with our backpacks and dusty clothes and looking like we just spent a night in the desert, to be greeted with a Welcome back, sir at the Hilton.

Cleaned up and went for lunch at Al Shami. It was excellent grilled food, done perfectly.

Bought a duffle bag to carry our souvenirs (we don't normally buy so many things this early in a trip, but we don't think we'll get Bedouin stuff up north). At least we'll look more respectable leaving the Hilton tomorrow.

Now we're relaxing at the infinity pool again. We're yet again back to Ali Baba's for our Christmas Eve dinner.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Aqaba, Jordan

It's a short 90 minute drive from Wadi Musa to Aqaba.  Heather and I fell asleep in the car for most of it.  We had decided not to include a day trip stop to Wadi Rum (of Lawrence of Arabia fame), even though it's along the way.

We checked into the Double Tree Hilton, for 89JD a night.  We're finding there's not much mid-range accommodation in Jordan.  Our criteria for hotels includes heat in the room, hot showers, and a comfortable bed.  The mid-range hotels (for what exists) don't meet all of those, so we may end up in higher end hotels for the rest of the trip.

Our room is pretty nice, with the hottest shower we've had on the trip so far (out of four places we've stayed).  It's the first shower we didn't have on full heat.  We also got a complimentary cookie when we checked in :)

Because we had taken a private car, we still had most of the day to tour around Aqaba.  Walked through the souq, which here is just the busy commercial area, and not like the souqs in Morocco.  Saw some cool antiques that we liked, especially some antique Bedouin coffee grinders.  Unfortunately these weren't for sale in the store we saw them in, but just "museum" pieces.  We think they were for sale, because they had Visa signs all around.  Anyways we're on a hunt for another one that is for sale.

We dropped by Dive Aqaba (I'm doing a couple days of diving with them).  Got some restaurant recommendations (one down side of staying at a Hilton is that they don't really know what we're looking for in travel -- we'd much rather find a street stall serving falafel than a fancy restaurant).  We had dinner at a seafood place called Al Moubrak.  It was good, but not great.  We stepped into a dessert place for something small, and they gave us samples which was all we really wanted.  But the samples were amazing so we bought a small platter of desserts for JD2.  Now we have enough desserts to last us a week.

...

Had to set my alarm yet again to get up for diving.  The breakfast at the Hilton was excellent.

We walked over to Dive Aqaba, just around the corner (the Hilton is very conveniently located in Aqaba).  Signed some disclaimers, got fitted for wet suits.  Heather was planning to snorkel, and I was diving.  They gave me two wet suits (a first for me) and dive boots.

The dive site was about 30 minutes out from the dive shop.  There was a couple from South Africa on the boat (he was diving, she was pregnant so was just snorkeling, so it worked out well with Heather diving too), and a family of three, learning to dive.

The first dive was just over coral.  I was a bit disappointed by the coral, it was mostly dead and not very many fishies.  Also the water felt darned cold, far colder than the advertised 24C.  We think it was maybe 20C.  The sun had disappeared behind clouds when we came up, so we were shivering for a while before heating up.  We were hoping for lunch before the second dive, but it was just a 45 minute break and then back into the cold.

The second dive was cool, it was a wreck dive through a tanker that had been scuttled.  We dove under the wreck (25m) and then through the ship, through some rather small areas.  I think the divemaster was using the first dive to gauge the South African's and my abilities, because it was a bit technical and I don't think everyone goes through the ship.  Anyways it was way cool.

In busy season I can imagine that the wreck is covered with divers, but with tourism down so much, there was just one other dive shop at the wreck.

Lunch was onboard during the slow ride back, and was excellent.  Although, I find anything excellent after diving.

The dive excursion took up most of the day -- by the time we showered and changed, it was already 5pm.

The South Africans were cool to talk with, they are similar in travel style to us.  They highly recommended Wadi Rum, so we've decided to give it a go.  We looked around for tour agencies in the tourist area, but didn't see any -- I think they're all affiliated with hotels. We're going to check out a cheaper hotel for the tour, because we don't want to book through the Hilton :)

Had dinner at Ali Babas, it was the best meal we've had on the trip so far.  We split a number of appetizers and a main (sayadieh - a local specialty of fish layered onto rice with tomato, onion and pepper sauce), and we liked every dish.  We want to go back for the sayadieh, because by the time we got to it we were full from the other dishes.  Heather tried a local Cabernet Sauvignon that went well with dinner.

From the looks of it we might be spending Christmas on a bus back to Amman.  Oh well, everyday is like Christmas when we're on vacation :)  Also realized today was the day the world was supposed to end.

I'm reading a book called Redshirts by John Scalzi that Craig recommended.  It's written from the perspective of the ensigns that get killed off in Star Trek episodes.  It's rather funny.

Well we're off for a herbal tea and some Jordanian sweets.

Petra Day 2, Jordan

We were up again early for breakfast at 7am and at the entrance gate to Petra by 8am. We walked through the 1.2km long Siq (it's still one of the highlights of Petra, even though this was the 5th time through). There seemed to be less tourists today, at times we were all alone. Took some more pictures at the Treasury, and then through the Street of Facades and on towards the Monastery.

We passed by a excavation in progress, and wandered up the stairs to see what it was about. It turned out to be an amazing roman ruin, built in AD 106. Most of the site is still half-buried in sand -- excavation only started in 1993. Toppled pillars lie like fallen dominoes in the sand. It's really odd to be walking over rock pieces that are pieces of ruins 2000 years old. We hadn't done much pre-reading about Petra, so this was a cool bonus.

We reached the start of the trail to the Monastery, just past the Crown Plaza restaurant (?!). It was a 45 minute climb up an easy to follow trail, with more than 800 ancient steps along the old processional route. Finally we reached the top. It took a couple seconds to realize the Monastery was around the rocks to the right -- after the reaching the end of the trail, the first thing you see is a big sign in the distance that says "VIEW".

The Monastery is huge (45m high, 50m wide). It's my favourite in Petra. I actually had no idea that there was more to Petra beyond the Treasury, but it's way more than that. The Treasury is probably only in the top 5 things to see in Petra -- the Siq, the Monastery, roman ruins, Street of Facades and Royal Tombs are equally or more impressive.

We were the only tourists at the Monastery when we arrived. We climbed a facing rock formation to sit and relax and take in the view. We laughed as tourists slowly dribbled in, and did the same thing we did -- look at the view sign, and only moments later see the Monastery and then gasp in awe.

After our little break, we continued onto the VIEW sign to get a better viewpoint. We then trekked back to the Crown Plaza restaurant, and decided to have the buffet lunch. I was starved after all the exercise and poor dinner the night before.

We carried on back, and took a detour over a hill around the back of the roman ruins. There were great panoramic views of the Royal Tombs in the distance. We walked back along the hilltop, and saw more Nabatean caves and facades, that were tourist-free (even while the crowds filled up the main path below). Just like the day before, it was as if we had our own private tour of Petra. And it wasn't even that far off the beaten path. Using a Toronto comparison, it would be like everyone was walking down Adelaide and we decided to check out Richmond.

Back at the hotel, we cleaned up and then headed for dinner. We went to the Cave Bar in the Crown Plaza, which is built into a 2000-year-old Nabatean tomb. When we first saw the Cave Bar, we thought it was cheesy that they made the bar look like a fake tomb. It was only at lunch that we realized that it was a real tomb -- so we had to have a beer there. Because of the buffet lunch, we weren't too hungry and so just had some appetizers and called it tapas. (Oh yah, a couple pints of Tuborg).

The weather was excellent over the two days -- it was sunny and about 16C. We couldn't imagine doing all that trekking and climbing in the summer heat. Yet another reason to come in off-season!

Petra Day 1, Jordan

We were down for breakfast at 7am to get an early start with Petra.  We bought a 3-day pass for 60 JD. I thought we'd be Petra'd-out after two days, but we weren't sure if my ankle would need a break.  The 2-day pass was 55 JD so the extra day was just a 5 JD insurance.

We took our time going down the Siq. Because we'd already seen the Treasury last night I wasn't in a big rush     

There weren't too many other tourists. The situation in Syria has caused a huge decline in tourism here, even though its a different country. I used to think traveling in shoulder season was the best way to travel; now it seems to be going to a country adjacent to a troubled country.

All the shadows of rock formations we had seen on the night trek were now in full life. It's so surreal it almost looks fake, like a Disney impression of Petra. Except it's real.

We spent a few minutes at the Treasury. There were more workers than tourists at the site. The whole of Petra is kept impeccably clean.

We have been pleasantly surprised at the lack of aggressive sales pitches from guides. Just saying No Thanks once is enough, and they wish you on your way. Much different than any other country I've been too!

We followed the suggested walking tour in the Lonely Planet. After the Treasury is the Street of Façades, where the Nabateans cut 20m high façades into the rock around 2000 years ago. Petra has survived earthquakes because it's not built, but carved out of solid rock. Everything is one piece.

We had the street to ourselves - there were no other tourists in sight.

Next on the LP walk was a climb up to the High Place of Sacrifice. I thought it would just be a short climb, but it actually goes all the way to the top of the 200m rock formations. There were amazing views of the surroundings.

By the time we descended, it was close to noon, and the tour bus tourists had arrived. We waited for tourist free pics of the 8,500 seat Theatre. We had to keep remembering that everything was carved, and not built.

We walked up to the Royal Tombs across from the Theatre. By this time we were getting hungry and tired. Had a box lunch from a restaurant facing the Royal Tombs, which was pretty good (pita bread, cheese, tomato, cucumber, orange and cookies) for 6JD. There are also excellent toilets inside Petra -- much better than we had expected.

Rejuvenated, we headed back to the Royal Tombs along a path we had observed from our lunch seats. It ran above and behind the ground level row of tombs. We had this to ourselves - it's hidden from a casual view (especially if you're checking out the Theatre). It was amazing, with great views looking down on the Street of Façades.

We debated doing some more sightseeing but it had been a long day and we didn't want to push my ankle. So we headed back to the Treasury, took some more pics, and then walked back through the Siq to our hotel. 

We showered and headed out for dinner.  It was a choice between identical mediocre restaurants and we didn't choose well. Went to the Mövenpick for a celebratory beer. 

Petra Night, Jordan

We went on the Petra by Night tour tonight. It was amazing! The 1.2km Siq (the canyon that is the entrance to Petra) is lined with candles. There's enough light to see the canyon walls (200m high) all the way to the top, where the sky is lit by thousands of stars. The walk down the Siq is almost as impressive as seeing the Treasury. The Treasury is lit by hundreds of candles. There's a musical performance (flute, and some stringed instrument). The 150 or so tourists are seated in the floorspace. The acoustics are pretty good. I'm sure it's a much different experience from the day (we'll find out tomorrow!)

I managed to get a decent pic even with the low light (see the Photo Album link under Jordan in the right sidebar). The performer asked every to take a pic at the same time. I took a long exposure pic, and all the flashes that went off lit up my pic :)

We have an early start tomorrow to catch the early sun, so we're off to bed.

Wadi Musa, Jordan

This trip we've taken our iPad along. One benefit is the ability to download pics from my camera, edit them and then upload to Picasa. So I can create our vacation album on the go! I'm using Photogene to edit the pics and Web Albums to manage uploading. I'm quite happy with both apps.

I also finally made the header pic random, using a php script running on AWS. If you refresh the page you should see a new pic.

Wadi Musa, Jordan

We took a private car to Karak, about 90 minutes south from Amman. As with almost all private cars we've taken on trips, it was an older Mercedes, but still in great shape.

Our driver explained the road we were taking was historically the route to Mecca for Muslims from the region and Eastern Europe. (In fact the road goes all the way to Sanaa, Yemen, which is on our list of places to see).

We stopped at a touristy roadside place for lunch (the "Petra Tourist Restaurant"), and arrived at Karak around 2pm. We looked at a couple hotels, and settled on the Karak Guest House, right beside the entrance to the castle.

Karak Castle is the main attraction in Karak, a sprawling castle in varying states of disrepair. After paying the JD1 entrance fee, and politely declining a couple guides, we spent the next three hours exploring the linked tunnels and vaulted rooms, some buried deep into the hillside. It was pretty cool. It wasn't as well preserved as castle in Tomar, but still fun to explore.

After we wandered down the main street, and saw lots of trades at work in their shops: someone working a loom (a loomer?), butchers, someone working with animal pelts (a pelter?). I bought a scarf cause it's getting cold at night (3C).

Had dinner at Kir Heres restaurant, which was really good. I really liked the fried haloomi.

We were back at the hotel by 7:30pm. I was exhausted, apparently not over jet lag, and was asleep by 8:30pm. Unfortunately I was also up at 2am and couldn't fall back asleep.

Heather was also up pretty early. The mattresses weren't the most comfortable, and it was really cold in the room, so we decided to get up and were ready to look for breakfast by 7am.

We found a local eatery and sat down for an excellent Jordanian breakfast of hummus, omelette, salad and deep fried eggplant and falafel, with a mint tea to drink. It only cost 6JD ($8 CAD) too!

We had originally scheduled a driver for 11am, but since we were up so early changed it to 9:30am. First was a stop at Shobak, another Crusader castle ruin. It's in more of a ruined state than Karak - the attraction of Shobak is its location perched on the top of a steep hill.

Next we were on to Wadi Musa to see Petra! It was less than an hour drive from Shobak.

We checked into the Petra Moon Hotel. It was one of the few places we had reserved ahead, because we weren't sure how busy Petra would be at this time if year.

There's a night walk to Petra along the Siq (that's the crescent moon in Raiders of the Lost Ark) three nights a week, fortunately tonight's one of them. So we'll be seeing Petra (or at least the Treasury) in a few hours!

Amman, Jordan

This was the most rushed we've been to leave on a trip.  Heather had an appointment at 10am with her back specialist to see if she could get clearance to dive.  Heather has a couple partially ruptured disks in her back and the water pressure from diving can be very dangerous to ruptured disks. Unfortunately the advice was that the risk is too great, so diving is off the list. That took a couple hours out of the morning, which left us rushed to leave.  Poor Craig, who drove us to the airport, had to wait 40 minutes for us while we finished packing.

The Air France flight was full to Paris. The line up to check in had a lot of people but it moved fairly quickly, it only took us about 20 minutes to get through to the gate.

I had made sandwiches for dinner, which we ate before boarding. That was a mistake because Air France had pretty decent food, and lots of it.

There was also too much on-board entertainment -- it almost seemed like the seven hour flight wouldn't be enough time to read our books, watch movies, listen to new CDs and read the in-flight magazine. I watched The Bourne Legacy (pretty good) and Prometheus (not so good).

We arrived at 7am in Paris. The wine and cognac with dinner had left me a little worse for the wear. As we deplaned, I heard someone call my name, which I ignored because I wasn't expecting anyone to know me in Charles de Gaulle. But it turned out my cousin Tyron had been on the same flight, he on his way to Mumbai!  We chatted for a bit. His connecting flight left shortly so we parted after getting through security.

Heather and I had six hours to wait. After freshening up (a bit more planning required post 911 to take airplane sized toothpaste, mouthwash and contact solution), we found some really comfortable lounge seats at the very ends of the terminal. They're hidden from view until you're right up on them, so most passengers weren't aware they were there. We napped for a bit.

The flight to Amman was on a smaller A320 and the seats were more squished. We slept on-and-off on the 4.5 hour flight, in between eating another good meal from Air France. There was a bit of turbulence, but nothing too bad.

On arrival in Amman, we easily withdrew Jordanian Dinars (JD) from an ATM, paid our 20JD fee for the visa, and got our passports stamped. The immigration officials were very friendly, only asking which hotel we were staying at in Jordan (and also where I was from originally, out of curiosity).

Next was picking up our  luggage which was already off the conveyor so Heather didn't have time to get worried (she has a long history of lost luggage). I had arranged with the hotel for a pickup from the airport, but we didn't see anyone with our names so we took a taxi from outside the terminal. Heather and I are now 0-4 for airport pickups on our last four trips.

We reached the hotel around 9pm, about 20 hours door-to-door from home. We're staying at the Hishamm hotel, a self-described "boutique style" hotel. As a boutique hotel, it has the requisite popular bar and restaurant on the ground floor. We cleaned up and went downstairs for dinner. The food was yummy (although the Arabic food was listed on the back pages, behind the western food). We also had a local draft beer, which at 7JD was the same price as the main.   Smoking is allowed in bars and restaurants, to which we'll need to adjust. It's hard to believe it wasn't that long ago that that was the norm in Toronto.

We crashed pretty quickly after dinner in a very comfortable king sized bed.

This morning I was up at 5am, which isn't too bad for jet lag. The room is pretty quiet so I could just barely hear the call to prayers. Heather noticed a sticker on the ceiling which we couldn't figure out until Heather noticed it pointed the direction to Mecca.

Today we're headed south to see a couple ruins along the way to Petra.

Toronto, Canada

We arrived back in Toronto earlier this week.  All our souvenirs made it back too.  I thought winter would be over by the time we got back, but oh well.  We were very lucky with the weather over the six weeks, it didn't rain at all (drizzled a couple days, but not enough to get wet).

Here's our favourite pics:

2011 South America - favourites

Also here's my attempt at being artistic:

2011 South America - artistic

Santiago, Chile

We're at the airport in Santiago waiting to fly home after six weeks in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.

We spent the last few days of our trip in Santiago.  We flew through here twice on the trip, spending a night each time.  I've also flown out of Santiago on previous trips, but never really spent much time seeing the city.  This was finally our chance to see Santiago.

We flew to Santiago from La Paz on April 7th.  The flight stopped down at Arica and Antofagasta.  In Arica we had to deplane, claim our baggage and clear Chilean customs, then reboard the flight.  The customs people asked us to open up the extra souvenir bag, which messed up my careful packing job.  Fortunately everything made it to Santiago.  The stopover in Antofagasta was supposed to be 35 minutes; but then the Chilean air force had some planes take off, which shut down airspace to commercial flights.  This delayed our new flight crew coming in, and so we ended up spending three hours in the airport in Antofagasta.

We arrived in La Paz around 7pm.  Heather's backpack was the first to arrive on the conveyor belt, before she had time to even think about worrying about it.  Our other two bags arrived within the first five as well -- we were loaded up on the cart and out the airport in about two minutes after getting to the conveyor belt.  The restaurants in our area of Santiago close around 11pm, so we were cutting it close to get to the hotel, clean up and get to a restaurant.  We ended up at Ostras Squella, a seafood restaurant we ate at the 2nd time through Santiago.

The next morning we talked with Dennis, owner of Casa Bonita (our hotel) for sugggestions about what to do with our time in Santiago.  We arranged for a wine tour for the day of our flight home, as the flight was at night and it left us the full day in Santiago.

Friday we spent walking around the highlights of downtown Santiago.  Santiago is a city of neighbourhoods, each with its own character.  We stopped in at the market for lunch, I was expecting a low-key place with mom-and-pop places serving fresh seafood.  Instead it was a  very popular place for tourists and business folks to have long lunches with wine and dessert.  We tried the king crab, one of the specialties at Donde Agusto.  It was amazing.  It came out freshly steamed to our table.  Our waiter then expertly cut and served us the crab, so we didn't get messy trying to eat it.  It came with a heated olive oil and garlic dipping sauce.  There were also some other sides (fries and a mixed salad if I recall) that we didn't eat, because we were so focused on the yummy crab.  Mmm good.

After lunch we wandered through Barrio Bellavista, an artsy area with a lot of university students, mostly drinking cheap draft beer on patio bars.  Bought ice cream at Emporio La Rosa, and ate it while strolling through Parque Forestal.  Took a trip up the funicular to the top of Cerro San Cristobal for very smoggy views of Santiago.

We walked home down Av O'Higgins, the main street of Santiago, and were amazed at the number of pedestrians.  The other visits through Santiago had been on Sundays, and it's much busier on weekdays (as you'd likely expect).

Later that evening, we had dinner at Las Vacas Gordas.  We had lunch there our first day on the trip, which was amazing.  I had been thinking about eating here again the whole trip.  We arrived at 8:30pm, thinking we would be early and beat the crowds.  However it was already packed, and we added our names to the waiting list.  About 30 minutes later we were seated, which gave us enough time to try to remember the cut of wagyu we had the first time.  We both ordered the same meal (one of the few times we've done so), and then feasted on way too much perfectly grilled meat.  It was one of the best eating days ever.

Saturday we saw a couple art galleries.  Had lunch at Opera Cafe, which shares the kitchen with the acclaimed restaurant of the same name.  We had the chef's choice for sandwich, smoked salmon, arugula, avocado and some other toppings on a long thin baguette -- it was really good.  We had planned to have dinner at Tales, but it was closed because of work on the water main in the area.  So instead we took a taxi to Barrio Lastarria and ate at Patagonia Restaurant.  Both our dishes were excellent, which was four straight amazing lunches and dinners over the last couple days.  The wineries are also running a promotion at this time of year at many of the restaurants in Santiago.  If you order one of the promoted wines, you get a 2nd bottle for free to take home.

Santiago mostly shuts down on Sundays, so we had planned our day around the few places open on Sundays.  We stopped in at Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, which was one of the best contemporary art museums we saw on this trip.  Next was Palacio Cousino, unfortunately it was closed for renovations. We spent the afternoon browsing through Pueblito Los Dominicos, a small village of craft shops, with really good quality (and somewhat higher prices than La Paz).  It reminded me of the Distillery in Toronto, where there's a concentration of higher-end arts and crafts stores, and little bakeries and coffee shops.  We bought a few more souvenirs, then headed back to the hotel to pack up.  We went back to Barrio Lastarria for dinner, hoping to find other restaurants open, but only Patagonia appealed to us so we ate there again.  Unfortunately our streak of amazing meals ended, we shared the cheese and deli platter for two, which sounded good on the menu, but was very disappointing.

Our last day we spent on an organized tour of a couple wineries, Vina Cousino Macul, and Vina Aquitania.  Vina Cousino Macul is one of the oldest and larger wineries.  The tour of the winery was more museum-like, as a lot of the wine-making equipment was no longer in use, replaced by automation and high-tech containers.  It was still cool to see though.  They also had a cellar with bottles dating back to the 1930's -- again, just for display as the corks weren't designed to last that long, so all the wine would have soured.

Vina Aquitania is a smaller boutique winery, just inside Santiago city limits.  It was surrounded by subdivisions -- I guess Santiago is no different from any other city, growing out.  The view were nice, though, with the city core in the smoggy distance on one side, and the mountainside on the other.  They also had the better ambience for wine-tasting at the end of the tour -- outside, under a walnut tree, with an oak barrel as a table and right beside the vineyards.

We arrived back at the hotel around 3pm, cleaned up and then went to Tales for a late afternoon meal.  The setting was great -- overlooking Calle Concha y Toro, a beautiful little cobblestoned street with art deco and beaux arts mansions.  The food was also great, a nice way to end the trip.  The Lonely Planet says one of the best ways to experience Santiago is through the food and drink, and we gave it our best shot.

We took a taxi for the four blocks from our hotel to the airport bus stop, with the extra bags for souvenirs we were less mobile.  We had 10kg more weight in baggage than the start of our trip, according to the airport scales, but still under our limit.  After checking in we settled into the wait for our flight, and getting home!

La Paz, Bolivia

We've spent three days in La Paz, with the main goal of souvenir shopping.  (La Paz is the best city in South America for souvenirs). We just bought a large sports bag in the Mercado Negro to pack them up for out flights.  Right now we're sitting in the 3rd floor lounge at our hotel (Hotel Rosario), with a great view of the city and Mt Illimani (6402m).

La Paz is one of the more amazing cities to see.  It sits in a crevice in the Altiplano, a city of a million people up and down all around.  In the middle, where we are now, all you can see are buildings climbing up the sides at extreme angles near the top, almost like you're in the middle of a sphere with the city wrapped completely around you.

Unfortunately we didn't get a view of La Paz on our flight from Sucre.  We could see the road winding through the mountains, and were glad we took a 45 minute flight rather than a 12 hour bus ride.

I had arranged for the hotel to send someone to pick us up at the airport, but there was no one there, so after waiting for 30 minutes we took a taxi.  (There was another couple at the airport in the same position, different hotel).

We're staying at Hotel Rosario, close to the main tourist shopping areas.  The hotel room is good, the service is amazing.  The front desk staff have been great at recommending restaurants, making reservations, etc.  When we get taxis, they flag them down and then record the taxi driver's name and taxi number to prevent any problems.

We spent our first two days shopping along Calle Linares and Sagárnaga.  Most of the stores sold the same clothing, jewelry and stone carvings. But every here and there was a store with cool stuff, antiques such as walking sticks, wooden stirrups, weights; or unique jewelry; or traditional masks. We bought quite a bit (thus the need for the extra bag to get them home).

There weren't many artists' stalls.  We stopped in at the three we saw.  We particularly liked one painter, Gustavo Apazo, from whom we bought a oil-on-canvas.  Today we visited the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, which has an exhibit on the top floor with local artists' works for sale, and saw some of Gustavo Apazo's paintings!  We actually recognized his style, and then saw his signature.  The prices in the gallery were much higher than what we paid at his workshop, so we were glad we stumbled across his stall.

We've been having the set menus for lunch, which have been okay. Breakfasts have been great at the hotel -- tasty fresh fruit, amazing bread, eggs to order.  For dinner, we've been trying out the fancier restaurants, a taxi ride across town to Sopocachi (a much hipper area than where we're staying).  Eating at the best restaurants in La Paz, including a bottle of wine, and tip, comes to about $40 - $60, so we figured why not.

We ate our our hotel the first night, we had just arrived and hadn't yet got a feel for the city.  Plus our hotel restaurant is listed as one of the top in La Paz.  We weren't too impressed -- Heather's trout (from nearby Lake Titicaca) was overdone and dry; my lasagna was okay.

The second night we ate at El Arriero, an Argentinian steak house, which was excellent.  Both our steaks came medium rare as requested (tres-cuatros in spanish), the wine was great, and the service was good.  It was one of our favourite meals in Bolivia.

Last night we tried out a french restaurant, La Comédie.  Our taxi driver couldn't find the place, I had to show him the LP map on my iPhone (we downloaded the La Paz chapter).  The atmosphere was great, but the food was not that good.  My lamb shank was so dry I had trouble cutting a bite, and Heather's duck was competing with my lamb for toughness, and salty.  They appeared to substitute quantity for quality -- I had three (!) lamb shanks on my plate, Heather had two (!) duck breasts. Maybe we ordered the wrong stuff, but both were listed as chef specialities.

Tonight we're trying out Pronto Dalicatessen, rated #1 in La Paz by tripadvisor (although not so much a foodie site as chowhound).

Today we did some touristing, haivng been shopped-out over the past two days.  First went to the Contemporary Art Gallery, as mentioned above. It's in a gorgeous old house on El Prado (the main street that runs down the middle of La Paz). It reminded us of the occasional grand old house on Jarvis or Sherbourne.

Next we walked up to Plaza Murillo, which is surrounded by the main government buildings and the cathedral. We saw the sights just in time before being booted out by the police, who were closing down the plaza in advance of a demonstration (which are almost a daily occurrence here -- this is the 2nd we've seen). Later as we ate lunch, we saw the demonstration by miners carried live on the local TV station. It was odd to hear the bangs of dynamite (we thought it was firecrackers) on tv, then the echo in real life.  There was no danger, as we were away from the action.

Yesterday in the market, I almost got peed on by a little boy. We were walking along in the busy street, I was taking in the scene, when Heather blurted at me to look out.  The little boy was peeing in the street, I had just enough reaction time to step over and not get hit. The local lady behind us couldn't stop laughing. A couple people behind us who didn't notice walked right through. Too bad for them.

Well we're off to get ready for dinner. Tomorrow we fly to Santiago, our last stop on our little trip.

Sucre, Bolivia

We fly to La Paz this afternoon, so we´re just waiting at our hotel in Sucre (Su Merced) with a couple hours to laze about.

We spent almost three full days in Sucre.  We saw most of the highlights, including all the major museums, art galleries and churches.  The centre is littered with museums and galleries, half of them not listed in the guide books, of which we stopped into a few.  One of the more interesting non-listed museums was the militiary museum.  It had lots of antique large cannons and guns, which neither of us had seen in real life before.

The weather in Sucre was very comfortable.  theweathernetwork.com had us thinking it was going to rain the whole time, but so far so good and no rain.  The temperature has been around 18C with cloudy periods.  At night it gets a bit chilly but we just needed our jackets.

Yesterday afternoon we were done with touristing and shopping, and so had a beer at the Plaza Restaurant, on the 2nd floor overlooking Plaza 25 de Mayo, and caught up on our reading.  It was a very relaxing place to spend an afternoon.

We found an excellent restaurant for dinner the first night, Tentanciones.  They had homemade tagliatelle with mushrooms, one of the best pasta dishes we´ve had.  We followed that with a cheese and meat platter.  The cheeses all came from Bolivia, I didn´t know they produced such a variety of cheeses.  The tagliatelle was so good we returned for lunch a couple days later and I ordered it again.

Aside from the lunch at Tentanciones, for lunches we´ve started having the ´menu´, which is a set menu of soup, main and dessert, usually under $5.  The soups are generally excellent, and it´s a good amount of food (nutritious too).  The set lunch at La Casona was only 25 Bs, about $3.50 (Heather had the set lunch -- I had a meat craving and so had the asado, which was pretty good for outside of Argentina).  We had it with a glass of house red (about $1).

The 2nd night we ate at La Taverne, a french restaurant inside Alliance Francais. The atmosphere was great, but we were disappointed with the food which was a bit bland. 

Last night we had dinner at El Huerto, a little out of the centro, so we took a taxi (10 Bs).  We were the only ones there at 8pm, and only one other couple showed up at 9pm.  We weren´t sure if this was normal, or maybe they were busy at other times of the day of week.  They were a tapas restaurant (which took us a bit of asking to figure out).  The kitchen was excellent, we particularly enjoyed the chicken brochettes and the panko shrimps.

Our hotel in La Paz offered airport pick-up for about the same price as a taxi, so we´ll have someone greeting us when we arrive after our 45 minute flight.  Whenever I´ve done this in the past my name has always been messed up so it will be interesting to see how they spell D´Souza.  Hopefully the driver will stop at the top of the altiplano before we descend into La Paz, so that I can take a picture.

Sucre, Bolivia

Some more pics.  The last trip I had my SD card corrupted when I connected it to a computer, so the only pics I´m uploading are ones taken from the iPhone, cause I can upload those over wifi.  I haven´t figured out a way to link to picasa when posting to my blog from the iPhone, so I only post pictures when I have access to a computer.



Laguna Verde with Volcan Licancabur, from the Uyuni tour



Inside Cristal Semana (a salt hotel) near Salar de Uyuni

Cathedral in Salta

Sucre, Bolivia

We took a shared taxi from Potosí to Sucre.  It costs 200 Bs for the whole taxi (about $30 for the 2.5 hour ride). There was another guy in the hotel who was going to the airport in Sucre so just the three of us split it (normally there's four to a shared taxi).  The shared taxi was much more convenient (door-to-door in both cities), more comfortable and faster.

We arrived in Sucre around noon.  I had been checking the forecast on theweathernetwork.com and it had showed rain every day for the past month.  However it was a nice sunny day, 20C, when we arrived.

We checked into Hostal de Su Merced, which Heather had found rated #1 for Potosí on tripadvisor.  Just in case we hadn't seen it there, the hotel had a plaque in the lobby announcing their tripadvisor rating.

It was still relatively early in the day, we didn't lose a day to travel.

Sucre is a very affluent city (also the political capital of Bolivia).  The centro is almost completely restored, one of the nicest colonial cities I've seen.  Every building is white with terra-cotta roof tiles.

Lunch was great, we had the set menu at La Posada, soup, chicken with a mustard sauce, and ice cream for dessert, for 35 Bs ($5) each.

We visited Templo Nuestra Señora de la Merced, a church just across the street from our hotel.  The outside is plain, but inside almost everything is gold-plated.  The church was in disrepair but still looked amazing. We climbed to the roof for great views of the city.  It wasn't as tiring as climbing in Potosí, now that we're only at 2750m.

Forgot to mention, we got our running shoes cleaned in Potosí. There's shoe shine people all about (as in most places in the world). Most of them also clean your shoes if they're not polish-able.  So now we're walking around with our shoes looking like a million bucks.

Heather and I are just relaxing on the rooftop terrace at the hotel, waiting for the sun to set.  Then we're off for dinner.

Potosí, Bolivia

Potosí is a nice little city with a buzz to it, we liked it so spent an extra day here.  At 4060m it's also one of the highest cities in the world.

The bus ride from Uyuni to Potosí took about six hours. The road is mostly paved, which made for a pretty smooth ride. It was also scenic, although having just finished the Uyuni tour, we were a bit blasé about it.

We stayed at Hotel Cima Argentum, a little out of the centre, but one of the nicest places we've stayed at this trip. We had reserved a double, but they were full so bumped us up to a suite for no extra charge.  

The staff were very helpful and friendly.  They took in our laundry even though we were a little over the deadline, no problems.  (it was pretty cheap too, less than $1 for jeans, and about 50¢ for tshirts)

We relaxed and cleaned up (very nice shower, good pressure and lots of hot water).  We decided to walk into the centro, about a 15 minute walk.  The streets were crowded with people and cars and minibuses. A little hectic but nice buzz.

We ate at El Mesón, I had trout and Heather had llama skewers with pineapple and rice, both were excellent.

The next morning we were up early because we wanted to catch the 9am tour at Casa Nacional de Moneda (National Mint).  Breakfast at the hotel was great (including freshly squeezed juice, eggs and great bread -- Bolivia has really good bakeries).

The National Mint tour was pretty extensive. They had mule-driven wooden cogs that were used to flatten silver ingots, old coins dating back to the 1700s, minting equipment through the centuries.  It was cool.

We toured the Cathedral, in which we climbed the bell tower for great views of the city and of Cerro Rico, the "rich hill" full of silver.  In the 1500s, Potosí was one of the wealthiest cities in the world because of the silver mined from Cerro Rico.

We tried unsuccessfully to find silver and tin souvenirs, but apparently they sell them in La Paz.  

We weren't up for anything big for dinner, so went to 4060 for pizza and beers.  (It took me a while to figure out that the name of the bar was its height above sea level). The bar was packed, we were lucky to get a table.  The pizza was actually quite good. The beer, Potosina, was okay.

The next day we continued our hunt or souvenirs, and did find a couple places selling antique stuff. We bought a silver-plated walking stick, and a nested weighting set (I think made from copper). We bargained down to about 75% of the original asking prices, I don't think they overquote too much here.

An oddity of Potosí is the number of dogs running around the street in nice sweaters.  Some of them don't even look like they have owners, but they do have nice threads.

We didn't visit the mines, a common tourist activity.  I had seen them the last time I was here, and they're quite dangerous. 

The last night in Potosí we ate at El Fogón, one of the few misses for food on our trip. At least the wine (Campos de Solana malbec from Tarija) was good, i was surprised that we were able to finish the bottle at this altitude. 

Salar de Uyuni tour Day 4, Bolivia

The salt hotel was pretty comfortable to stay in.  There were only two other groups of people, a couple from Buenos Aires, and a family of five, so the hotel was creepily empty at times. 

Almost everything that could be made from blocks, was made of salt.  The bed platform, side tables, non-load-bearing walls, floor, all from salt.  We were warm at night so I guess salt blocks also have good insulating properties. 

Our driver picked us up at 9am, and we were off for the final day of the tour.

Rainy season is in Jan-Feb, and so at this time of year, the salar is covered with water, around 10cm depth when we visited.  We drove out slowly, for about 30 minutes at 5 km/h (to minimize salt water splashing under the vehicle).  We drove past workers collecting the salt.  Some were making conical piles about 1m high, which allowed the salt to dry out.  Others were shoveling the dried-out salt into trucks, which is then taken to refineries.  

The salar reminded us of lakes after winter, when the surface is melting but there's still ice underneath. However there was no worries about falling through -- under the water is 1.5m of solid salt, 12,106 sq km big.

A lot of other tourists walked through the salt water in their bare feet, but we didn't feel the need.

After lunch, we drove to the Train Cemetery just outside Uyuni.  There's dozens of rusting old steam locomotives and other train cars, just sitting in the middle of sand.  It's a b/w photography dreamscape.  I took a whole bunch of pictures, in the hope that a couple may actually look good.  I don't have a good eye yet for b/w pictures.

Our driver dropped us off at our hotel in Uyuni, Los Girasoles Hotel. The 4-day tour seemed much longer than the 5-day W trek, maybe because the scenery changed so quickly.

We walked around town, with not much to do except find a place for dinner. All the tourist places have the same menu of pizza, llama burgers and pasta.  We had resigned ourselves to attempting pizza again, until we walked by a restaurant with rotisserie chicken (the range was outside on th sidewalk).  It was pretty good, served with decent enough fries.  

After we went to a bar and celebrated with a Potosina, a local beer.  We haven't had any alcohol since we've been in Bolivia, to help adjust to the altitude.  At 3669m, Uyuni is lower than the 4200m+ of the tour.  Our remaining cities in Bolivia are Potosí (4070m), Sucre (2750m) and La Paz (3660m), before we return to closer to sea level in Santiago. 

Salar de Uyuni tour Day 3, Bolivia

We had pancakes for breakfast, with dulce de leche (a cross between condensed milk and caramel), and were on the road by 7:30am.

The first stop was Árbol de Piedra, a tree-shaped stone in Desierto Sioli.  It's a mandatory photo stop, which most people post to Flickr.

Because it's near the end of rainy season, the normal route wasn't accessible.  We drove by a couple amazing lagunas instead. 

The first was Laguna Cañapa.  The surface was completely still, and formed a perfect reflection of the surrounding snow-capped mountains.

Next was Laguna Hedionda, which had a couple thousand flamingoes, which didn't run / fly away at the first sight of humans.  It was signposted as to how close you were allowed, which is maybe why.  We sat and took dozens of pictures of flamingoes with the Andes in the background.

The rest of the day was driving to Uyuni.  We stopped at a few towns:  Alota, a farming community surrounded by colourful fields of quinoa; Culpina K, a mining town with a plaza filled with iron works; and San Cristobal with a beautiful 350-year old church.

We also saw active Volcán Ollagüe, and drove through a giant area filled with rock formations as far as we could see.  In another area, we drove through a sandy desert at 4500m.  It's an odd sight to see snow-capped tips of 5000m mountains just peeking above the horizon. The whole day was filled with surreal images.

Tonight we are staying at Hotel Cristal Semaña, built almost entirely from salt, just off Salar de Uyuni.  We just watched the sunset over the Salar from the 2nd floor dining area.

Salar de Uyuni tour Day 1-2, Bolivia

We started the tour (also called the Southwest Circuit) in Tupiza, doing it the reverse of most tours (which start in Uyuni).  We arrived from Argentina and are headed north, so it made more sense logistically, but also gets us to the sites at different times from the bulk of tours.

We met our driver and cook, and headed out in our Toyota Land Cruiser.  The first day was a lot of driving, with the main attractions the following days.

The scenery was amazing, with lava formations, eroded sand cliffs, abandoned Spanish villages, quinoa fields, llamas, sheep and donkeys.  We reached a maximum altitude of 4855m.  I got a bit sick, but I think more from heat stroke, as I was sitting on the sunny side most of the afternoon.

The driver and cook were great at paying attention to our health, and were very concerned that I might have altitude sickness. 

We stayed the night at Quetena Chico (4200m), in a very basic hospedaje.  We were the only tourists (tours that start in Tupiza do more of the southwest), so raided the extra beds in our dorm room for blankets.

We were in bed by 9pm, and slept all the way through till 6:30am.  The altitude was exhausting!

Day 2 started with us in much better health (and so spirits).  It was a short (90 minute) drive to Termas de Polques, hot springs (30C) that now have basic facilities.  When I was here 10 years ago, there was just water coming out of the ground.  Now they have built a small pool that captures the water, about a foot deep.  We took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pants and relaxed on the ledge for a while.  The water was very soft.

Next we drove through a valley that looks like a replica of a Dali painting.  It's a big stretch of sloped sand, dotted with house-sized boulders.  It's deceptively large.  We parked near one boulder, and thought to walk to another to take a picture.  After five minutes and not getting closer, we thought better.

Next was Laguna Verde, one of the highlights of the tour.  It's mint green lake, (from high concentrations of lead, sulfur, arsenic and calcium carbonates), at 4400m, with Volcán Licancabur (5960m) rising in the background.  

We had lunch at 4400m, within view of Laguna Blanca.

En route to the next stop, we drove past the hot springs again, which now looked like Daytona Beach at spring break.  We were glad we visited earlier in the day.

We drove through a pass at 5000m, the highest altitude of the tour, without any altitude problems.  Just over the pass is Sol de Mañana, filled with geyser basins and bubbling fumaroles (and sulfur fumes).  Not that impressive as other sites we saw earlier, but still interesting.

The last stop of the day was Laguna Colorado, a fiery red lake with hundreds of pink flamingos feeding.  The red comes from the algae and plankton in the water that the flamingos feed on. I got some good pictures, but a big zoom lens would be better.  The flamingos move away from humans and vehicles.

It was a shorter day, we were in a hospedaje by 3:30pm, with a view of Laguna Colorado.

There were other groups also in the hospedaje, about 30 tourists in total.  At least we had our dorm room to ourselves. Electricity was from a generator and was on from 7-9pm, so it wasn't a good place to recharge camera batteries.

We had dinner at sundown, and were in bed by 8:30pm.  There was no light switch so I had to unscrew the lightbulb in the room to go to bed.

Tupiza, Bolivia

Our bus arrived at La Quiaca, the Argentinian side of the border, at 6:30pm.  We decided to stay the night in Argentina rather than attempting the border crossing with night approaching.

La Quiaca is at 3442m and we could feel the effects of the altitude.  We had no endurance at all.  We took a slow walk a few blocks to Hotel de Turismo, and checked in.  

The Lonely Planet only has one page and no map for the town, so we went to the very friendly tourist information.  Our hotel was within a block of the church and museum, so we stopped into both on the way back.

The next morning we had breakfast then walked to the border.  Leaving Argentina was very easy;  entering Bolivia was pretty straightforward as well.  

Villazón, on the Bolivian side, is a small bustling border town.  We found our way to the bus station, and bought tickets for the next bus to Tupiza.  

We had about an hour to wait, so dropped our bags at the guardaropa and walked around.  Had some really good empanadas from a street stall (3 Bs, about 40¢).

It was fun crossing the border, because we had to figure it out as we went.  Travelling has become a bit of paint-by-numbers over the years :)

In Tupiza we checked into Hotel Mitru. We were lucky to get the last double, there are more tourists here than in Argentina, although the demographic is more 20-something backpackers.

Our errands for the afternoon were to book the Uyuni tour, get money from the bank, and have lunch. 

We booked a four-day tour for just the two of us, with driver and cook, meals and accommodation, for 4800 Bs.  On the 3rd night we're staying in a salt hotel (this is extra), and then we'll finish in Uyuni.  

I have been wrong about this before, but I don't think we'll have Internet access until we get to Uyuni.

Tupiza, Bolivia

I guessed wrong about not having wifi access for our last couple stops.  Even the hotel at the little border town of La Quiaca in Argentina had wifi (and a non-guessable password -- most hotels have just used the name of the hotel).

We spent three nights in Salta.  It was a nice town for Heather to recover from her cold.  Between the two of us, we were sick for almost our entire time in Argentina :) 

The first night we ate at the hotel restaurant, and were pleasantly surprised that the food was great. The next day we went to a couple museums (not a lot was open on Sundays). 

The highlight was Museo Histórico del Norte.  In 1999 three tombs were discovered at the peak of Llullalliaco (6739m).  Because of the altitude and cold, the tombs and bodies were perfectly preserved.  The museum gives a history of why they were there, and has almost everything on display, including the preserved bodies.

We went to a couple of the artesenal markets but they didn't have anything that appealed to us.

The 2nd night we ate dinner at Viejo Jack's, a parrilla (grillhouse) a little out of the centre.  They serve huge amounts of meat at very low prices.  We had the parrillada for two (a grill filled with various meats, brought sizzling to the table).  We originally ordered the 'Parrilla Jack', but the waiter said we just needed the 1/2 Jack.  Which was a good thing, as we didn't even finish that between the two of us.

The last night in Salta we ate at José Balcarce, a trendy restaurant with exposed brick walls and the like. The food was great (I had a llama steak, which was very tender).  

Also in Salta we went up the teleferico which has great views, as I suppose they all do.

From Salta we took a bus to the border town of La Quiaca. 

La Quiaca, Argentina

A couple pics.  The first is of Perito Moreno Glacier; the second is Isla Magdalena in the Strait of Magellan.  

Salta, Argentina

We're off to the border town of La Quiaca this morning, and then into Bolivia. We may go straight on the four day Uyuni tour. Not sure when we'll have Internet access again; it may be after the tour.

Salta, Argentina

We split up the 9+ hour bus ride from La Rioja to Salta, stopping in Tucumán for a night.  There's no real tourist attractions in Tucumán, and we didn't see any other tourists.

I was at the tail end of my cold, and Heather was just getting into hers, so we didn't do much sightseeing. We did have dinner at a nice little mom-and-pop place, with excellent empanadas.

Walking about Tucumán at night at this time of year is a bit nerve-wracking, there are a million cicadas flying about.  I didn't like it one little bit; the locals seemed unperturbed. 

Took the bus today to Salta.  We've actually been watching (and enjoying!) some of the movies shown on the bus rides, including to my surprise Norbit (the Eddie Murphy movie).

Because Argentina wasn't part of our original plans, we didn't bring a guide book for Argentina.  However thanks to the Internet and iPhones, I bought a digital copy of the Argentina Lonely Planet (they sell them as PDFs, which I've saved to Stanza), which we've been using for the last week or so.  It took a couple days to adjust, and I now find it far more convenient. Lots of locals use smart phones, so if we're looking at a map on the iPhone we don't stand out as tourists.  Plus it's no additional weight.

So far the only downside is that there was one page that was corrupted (or at least won't open on the iPhone). It is the map of Salta.  So we arrived today without a map.  We wanted a hotel near the main plaza, so took a taxi to the main square, and then looked at hotels.  We decided on Hotel Salta, on a corner of Plaza 9 de Julio, splurging an extra $10 per night to get a huge terrace balcony. We asked and received a significant discount for staying three nights and paying cash.

Salta's a beautiful colonial town with a few pedestrian-only streets around the centro.  We walked around a bit this afternoon, to stretch our legs after two days of bus rides.  We're here for a couple days, with plenty of churches, museums and artesanal markets to visit.

La Rioja, Argentina

We've been enjoying the lively little city of La Rioja.  We're staying at the Hotel Plaza, with a balcony overlooking the busy Plaza 25 de Mayo.  Sierra de Velasco (a mountain range) overlooks the town and would be a pretty background, if we hadn't been here on the only two cloudy days of the year.

La Rioja is a nine-hour bus ride north from Mendoza.  The bus stopped for 30 minutes for lunch in Vallecito, where we stumbled across the Difunta Correa Shrine. There's hundreds of scale model houses, license plates, and other offerings.  If we hadn't gone for a short walk from the bus to stretch our legs we would have missed it.

We ate at the two best restaurants on the two nights we were here, at least according to the Lonely Planet.  First night we had dinner at La Viejo Casona.  We got there just before 8pm and walked in the staff entrance, not realizing they didn't open till 8pm.  I tried chivito (grilled goat), a local specialty, which was excellent, although hard work to get each mouthful.

The next night we ate at Stanzza.  Not wanting to repeat our faux pas and show up before the restaurant opened, we went out for dinner at 8:45pm.  Unfortunately Stanzza doesn't open until 9pm.  So we wandered down to a nearby plaza and watched the local life for 20 minutes.  Stanzza has great Italian food, I really liked their lemon sole.

At both restaurants people continued to stream in at all hours, including families with little kids and babies. We felt uncool going home to bed at 11pm when two-year-olds were just sitting down to dinner.

I managed to pick up a cold or the flu somewhere along the way, and sniffled most of the time in La Rioja.  Heather now has it but hopefully it looks like she's getting better.

Mendoza, Argentina

We've covered a bit of ground since I last posted.  Right now we're relaxing on our balcony overlooking Plaza Indepencia, the centre square in Mendoza.  It was a beautiful sunny day, 24C, for walking around, seeing the town, having a beer in the pedestrian street while figuring out our next few steps.

After seeing Perito Moreno glacier near El Calafate, we took the bus back to Puerto Natales, and then caught another bus to Punta Arenas.  The crossing into Chile was much more labourious than going to Argentina.  Everyone had to get their luggage from the bus, have it scanned (for prohibited items such as fruit and meat). We had a couple hard boiled eggs for a snack on the long bus ride, which they cracked to make sure they were in fact cooked.

We stayed at Hotel Ilaia in Punta Arenas, which is run by a very nice family.  It also had the one of the best breakfasts so far, including home made chapatis, and steeped tea!  And a rainhead shower.

We took a day trip to Isla Magdalena to see a penguin colony.  We saw thousands of Magellanic penguins, although not as a big group, but rather dotted all across the island in their burrows.  We took a two-hour ferry to the island through the Strait of Magellan (which was quite comfortable), then had an hour on the island before returning back to Punta Arenas.  There is a roped qalking path from the docking area to a lighthouse at the centre of the island.  Penguins are all around you as you walk.  It was extremely windy, and we were concerned about being blown off our feet into a penguin burrow.  Fortunately no penguins were killed by our walk!

It's a long way back from Punta Arenas to Santiago (almost 48 hours by bus), so we flew with Sky Airlines, $150 one-way, about half the price of LAN Chile.  It was a mill run, stopping down in a couple cities along the way.

Stayed overnight in Santiago at Casa Bonita (same place as our first night), then took a bus through the Andes to Mendoza.  We had the front seats on the upper level of a double decker semi-cama bus (semi-cama means 'half-bed' in spanish, and refers to the fact that the seats fold back to 140*, almost flat).  This is the way to take this trip.  The views of the Andes and the road, especially near the top of the Chilean side where there's about 30 switchbacks, is amazing. Near the top it tunnels through the peak, reaching an altitude of 3195m.

Unfortunately it takes forever to get through customs.  We waited 2.5 hours at the crossing.  Definitely not as efficient as the crossing to El Calafate. There was an excellent stall selling sandwiches which helped.

We arrived in Mendoza and checked into Hotel San Martin.  We had emailed them earlier but they said they were full, but they seem to have plenty of rooms available.

We had lunch in the market this afternoon which was great, much better than the overbooked steak we had on the touristy Av Sarmiento. Tonight we are looking for a restaurant on the trendy Aristides Villanueva.

El Calafate, Argentina

We saw Perito Moreno Glacier yesterday!  It was just as impressive as the first time I saw it ten years ago.

We booked a day trip through Hielo Adventuras ($125), which included a boat trip to the front of the glacier, and walking on the glacier.

Perito Moreno is 90 minutes west of El Calafate.  We were picked up at our hotel at 9am, and then we were off.

At Perito Moreno, we first had a couple hours to wander around the observation walkways. The glacier is always calving (pieces of ice breaking off), and we were lucky to see  an entire face (about 50 ft tall) calve right in front of us.  I didn't get it on video but have some cool pictures with the mini tidal waves.

Next we took the boat ride near the front of the glacier.  It looks more impressive looking up from water level than from the viewing platforms where you're mostly looking down.

On the other side of the lake we met our guide for the glacier trek. First we put on crampons, a 10-second lesson on use (walk with your feet apart, and with your feet flat, not on your toes or heels, and how to walk up and down inclines), and then we were walking on the glacier!

We spent almost two hours walking around. It took a few minutes to trust the crampons, which were heavy on our feet.  Plus with the added height, our boots didn't get wet.

It was a very warm day (about 15C), and walking on the glacier is no colder than walking on land. We wore gloves to protect out hands in case we fell, because the surface is covered with sharp ice pebbles (sort of like crushed ice).  It is deceptive in some areas, where it looks like your foot will sink into slush, but it's all ice underneath and you can walk on what looks like slush.

It is dangerous to wander off the path of the guides.  The glacier melts at this time of year (although the snow build up at the top keeps the glacier size in balance), and so in places you could fall through to water flowing down inside the glacier.

Towards the end of the glacier walk, the novelty had worn off, and we were getting tired and just wanted to get back to town for dinner.

El Calafate has grown up since I was last here, taking advantage of the tourist draw of Perito Moreno.  It's becoming a nice resort town, with nice restaurants and patios for a coffee.

We just wanted something simple for dinner so stopped in at a pizza place.  Somehow I always forget that pizza (and most Italian food) is hit-and-miss when travelling, actually almost all misses.  The beer, however, was excellent.  There's only one beer in Argentina, Quilmes, and it ranks up there in my opinion as one of the best beers in the world, only behind Beerlao in Lao.

We forgot that it's Carnaval, and Monday and Tuesday are holidays in Argentina. There were more local tourists, and also the ATMs ran out of cash!  Fortunately the ATMs were refilled, but there was were still line ups to get cash.

We weren't sure at the border crossing if we would be charges reciprocity fees of $70 to enter Argentina (this is what Canada charges Argentinians to enter Canada). The Lonely Planet said we would, but we weren't. I think for land crossings we'll be okay.

In El Calafate we stayed at an actual IHYF Youth Hostel.  This one had part morphed into a hotel, with some double rooms with private bath.  It had the best showers on the trip so far.  The main reason we selected the hotel is because they have self-serve laundry facilities. After the W Trek, we needed to wash our dry-fit clothing, but didn't trust the special washing instructions (half the detergent, no dryer) to other people. So we now have packs full of clean clothes again.

Today we're on a couple buses to get us to Punta Arenas (about eight hours on buses, plus the border crossings). We plan to relax there for at least a couple days (we've been on the go since the start of the trip), and hopefully a day trip to see a penguin colony.

W Trek - Day 5 - 11km - 5.5 hours

Woke up at 7am and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. This boded well to get good pictures.  Earlier in the morning we heard the trekkers leaving at 4am to be at the lookout for sunrise.

From the refugio we watched Los Torres turn red with the sunrise.  We quickly ate our breakfast, and started our ascent to the lookout shortly after 8am.  I was worried that clouds would roll in at any moment, and with just a day pack, we had a very fast pace.

It was a strenuous climb, ascending from 400m to 800m, but not very technically difficult.  The last few hundred metres was over rocks, but well-marked.  We must have had a big adrenaline kick because the map said it should take 2:15 hours but we reached the lookout in 1:25!

Los Torres is simply amazing.  We were very lucky that the weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky (we had prepared ourselves to wait for a couple hours to get a glimpse, based on blogs we read beforehand). Also, the sunrise people had descended, and we were the first post-breakfast people to arrive, so we had Los Torres to ourselves for almost an hour! We sat on a big boulder the size of a minivan and took in the views for almost 90 minutes.

We went slower on the descent, to take it easy on out knees, and also because there was no rush any more.  Most people take the bus back to Puerto Natales the same day, but we had chosen to stay at Las Torres Hotel, our splurge for the trip. It's a very nice place, we were glad it was at the end of the trek and not that start (some people go east-west;  I think west-east is better because you finish with the highlight (Las Torres), and there's great views of Los Cuernos along the bottom part of the W.

The weather forecast posted in the hotel showed a high of 23C for today! -- we had packed clothing for 5C :)

Over the five days we trekked 70km, almost all ups-and-downs, over uneven rocks.  We had no rain on four days, and just a sprinkling on the other.  As well we didn't get the high winds that we'd read about.  Our gear held up pretty well, and so did our bodies.  We were very impressed by both the quality and quantity of food, although with all the walking with packs we both lost weight (at least, out clothes are fitting much looser).

W Trek - Day 4 - 16km - 5 hours

I woke with a start at 7am and ran outside in my pajamas to see how Los Cuernos looked in the dawn light. The sun was yet to rise over the foothills opposite so I had time to wash up and get my camera.

Breakfast was really good, cereal with milk, scrambled eggs and homemade bread.  (The box lunch included homemade granola bars!) We were off by 8:30am, walking alongside the glacial green Lago Nordenskjöld, with beautiful views of Los Cuernos. The weather was looking to be another gorgeous day.

About three hours in we forked left for the shortcut to Refugio Chileno.  The map showed a visual cue with the fork being just before a lagoon, but not to worry as there was a sign clearly marking "Shortcut to Chileno".  We didn't see the lagoon for another 10 minutes so it's a good thing there was a sign.

The next hour was the hardest on the trek so far. We were under the hot sun, with no wind.  It was stinking hot.  About 30 minutes in we took shade under a lone tree, to eat our oranges, reapply sunscreen and cool down.  When we got going again,  we realized everyone else on the path had the same idea, as every few minutes we passed another tree with someone under it.

We were also running low on water.  Horses use the same path, and we weren't sure of water quality (the streams flowed through more grasslands than on Day 1 and 2).  Later we found out most other people ran out of water on this same stretch. It was unusual to have such a warm day!

Finally we crested the ridge, into the Windy Pass.  It was windy as its name suggests, which helped to keep us cool.  Plus we could see Refugio Chileno in the distance, which gave us a boost.

Refugio Chileno is yet another refugio in a perfect location. From the common room there are views of Las Torres.  They rent towels ($3) (so far only Paine Grande included towels, and we hadn't packed any to save on weight) so I jumped in the shower.  It wasn't hot but I didn't care.

The sun was still strong at 3pm so we sat inside for a beer while everyone else was sitting outside.  Some other trekkers decided to climb to the lookout that afternoon because of the lack of clouds.  The sun's in a better position for pictures in the morning so we decided to wait until tomorrow as planned.

W Trek - Day 3 - 13km - 4.5 hours

(I typed and lost this entry twice, and so here´s a much shorter version)

Trekked from Paine Grande, a short break at Campo Italiano, and then onto Refugio Cuernos.  Great views of Los Cuernos, along the trek and from the refugio.  Great food.  Rained on us for the first time, but too hot under our windbreakers so just in our capilene base layers, but it wasn´t raining very hard and our clothes never really got wet.  Debated going to Valley of Frances as a side trek from Campo Italiano (the middle part of the W) but decided against it because we didn´t want to push it.

W Trek - Day 2 - 19km - 6.5 hours

We slept deeply until 6am when the sky started to lighten and woke us up.  We wanted to get an early start, to get a side trip closer up to glacier (with just a day pack) before heading back down to Paine Grande.

It took us an hour to reach Los Guardas campsite.  There was supposed to be a lookout point 30 minutes beyond the camp, but we only saw signs to a lookout about 5 minutes away. This lookout point was almost on top of the glaciers and was amazing. (Later we talked to other trekkers  who found the more distant lookout, oh well).

We went back to the refugio to get our packs, and a box lunch we had ordered. The lunch was huge!  I was thinking about how much it weighed :) in my pack.

The trek back to Paine Grande was enjoyable. The views in the distance were amazing, but so was the path (which we didn't notice the first day).  If you paid someone to create a rock garden and landscaping it wouldn't look half has good.

We arrived at Paine Grande lodge at 4:15pm.  This was more hotel-like, although still with bunk beds and shared bathrooms.  We were able to get a room for just the two of us. We showered and stretched, and the headed to the bar for a celebration beer ($4) (we also had one after day 1).

Dinner was a buffet, lots of food which was good, but not as tasty as Refugio Grey.

So far we've been lucky with the weather.  The wind hasn't been too strong (gusts up to 40km?) and no rain yet.  We've been wearing our capilene base layer with a wind breaker, and by zipping and unzipping and taking gloves on and off we've been comfortable in the changing weather conditions.

W Trek - Day 1 - 11km - 4.5 hours

We were up early yet again, this time to catch the 7:30 shuttle for the two hour drive to Torres National Park. Paid our entry fee ($30 each), and then waited for the catamaran that took us to our starting point of the trek at Paine Grane lodge on Lake Pehoe.

At the airport check in, put packs weighed 15.7kg and 13.7kg. We left non-trekking stuff at our hotel in Puerto Natales, so we had about 15kg in total between the two of us for the trek.

We started walking at 1pm. The map said the 11km should take 3.5 hours. We started with a slow ascent to just under 500m above lake level, then ups and downs, in some places over fairly difficult rock formations. The path itself was very easy to follow, with false forks marked off. After 90 minutes or so, we had our first view of Glacier Grey, around 10km on the distance, but still very impressive. As we got closer, the views improved. The challenge was to keep our eyes on the rocky path and not on the amazing views!

After 3.5 hours we were getting tired, with no refugio in sight. It took us a very long extra hour to finally get there. We were surprised, because we are usually faster than suggested walking times.

The refugio was basic, jammed with bunk beds in dorm rooms. However it was very clean and the staff were amazing. The food servings were huge and delicious, contrary to what we has read in blogs prior to the trip.

Heather and I were in bed by 10pm, the first day of the trek completed.

Puerto Natales, Chile

We're just about off for our little trek. The bus picks us up at 7am, a two-hour drive to Las Torres national park, and then a ferry to our starting point.

Yesterday was another full travel day. We spent most of the day on airplanes and in airports getting from Santiago to Puerto Natales. My biggest concern prior to the trip was that the plane schedules were rather tight, so any delay from Toronto onwards would have messed up our reservations for lodges on the W trek. JFK had been closed about once a week this winter but we made it through. Also our luggage made it all the way too!

We arrived in Puerto Natales around 5pm. A nice couple runs a shuttle to town (from one of the smallest airports I've ever flown into) for about $4 per person, dropping us at our hotel, Hotel Amerindia.

We scurried about town on errands, renting walking poles ($3 per pair per day), buying dried fruit and nuts, getting cash. Then we had to reduce our packs for the trek, leaving behind at the hotel about half our stuff. The packs are now about 8kg each.

Finally got to dinner around 9pm. Had another big steak and lamb, grilled to perfection, along with a bottle of Carmenère. There's nothing added to the meat, just a little salt and that's it. But it tastes amazing.

Puerto Natales is a jumping off spot for most tourists, and everyone is wearing their new Patagonia gear (just like us). Not too much Lululemon though :)

I don't think there will be internet access on the trek, so we'll next update on Sunday.

Santiago, Chile

We arrived safely in Santiago around 8am this morning, a little tired from the overnight flight. It was strange watching the plane's route on the in-flight map, because it's pretty much 10 hours straight south from New York.

We took a local bus ($2.80) to get downtown, and then a few minutes walk to Casa Bonita, our hotel in the Barrio Brasil neighbourhood.

We stretched and freshened up, and then headed to Las Vacas Gordas, a big steak house, for lunch. I had a big Australian wagyu steak, grilled perfectly. Heather had brochettes which were good too. It was too much food but it was really tasty so I couldn't stop eating.

Walked around Plaza de Armas. We were looking for a patio to have a beer but the 30C heat was getting to us (a 35 degree difference from Toronto), so we just went back to the hotel. Napped for a bit.

There weren't too many options for dinner on a Sunday night (lunch is the big meal). Found a cosy Peruvian restaurant opposite Ocean Pacific's (the touristy place we were originally looking for). It was excellent. We split a ceviche for two. It was a mix of shellfish and fish cooked in lime juice, very refreshing.

Tomorrow we're back to the airport to fly another five hours south to Puerto Natales, from where we start our trek on Tuesday.