Highway 1 All the Way

Good news! The minivan arrived completely intact, even with 6 bottles of wine, 3 bottles of champagne, 5 bottles of Pisco Sour, one bottle of Pisco and one bottle of Fernet. Getting the minivan back is like an early Christmas present; we are delighted to open the bags of souvenirs that we bought in Chile and Argentina, as well as have our “old” stuff back.

Here are some factoids about the trip:

Travelled 7 months and 1 week
Visited 12 countries
Slept in 91 different places
Spent $68,000 (only $3,000 over budget)
Took 5 flights (Panama-Cartagena, Galapagos, Nazca Lines, Santiago-San Francisco)
Took 2 ferries with the car (La Paz to Mazatlan and Lake Ometepe, Nicaragua) 

Here is an overview of the best and worst…

Best meat
Paul: Filet from finca in Argentina
Karen: Parrilla (grill) from finca in Argentina
Connor: Ostrich meat in Portillo, Chile
Quinn: Parrilla (grill) from finca in Argentina 

Best seafood
Paul: Seviche and locos (abalone) La Serena, Chile
Connor and Quinn: Dad’s clams in Bahia de Los Angeles, Baja 
Karen: Nothing

Best sweets
Paul: Alfajores from Termas de Rio Honda, Argentina
Karen and Quinn: Chocolate from Bariloche, Argentina
Connor: Nothing

Best wine
Paul and Karen: Malbec from Argentina

Best cold beverage
Paul: Tona (beer) from Nicaragua
Karen: Pisco sour from Chile
Connor and Quinn: Postobon soda from Columbia

Best hot beverage
Paul and Karen: Tinto (coffee) from Columbia
Connor: Coffee from plantation in Jinotega, Nicaragua
Quinn: Mate from Argentina

Best land adventure
Paul: Hiking Masaya volcano in Nicaragua
Karen and Quinn: Rappelling down a waterfall in Los Banos, Ecuador
Connor: Caving in San Gil, Columbia

Best water adventure
Paul: Snorkeling with the sharks in Galapagos, Ecuador
Karen: Snorkeling in Boca de Torres, Panama
Connor: Snorkeling with sea lions in Galapagos, Ecuador
Quinn: Kayaking in Laguna de Apoyo, Nicaragua

Scariest adventure
Paul: Tipping the boat into shark infested waters in Boca de Torres, Panama
Karen and Connor: Swimming with the sharks in Galapagos, Ecuador
Quinn: River rafting in San Gil, Columbia

Best lake
Paul and Quinn: Laguna Coatepeque in El Salvador
Karen: Laguna de Apoyo in Nicaragua
Connor: Lago Atitlan, Guatemala

Best beach
Paul and Karen: San Patricio – Melaque, Mexico
Connor: Cartagena, Columbia
Quinn: Monterrico, Guatemala

Best modern attraction
Paul: Yoko Termales hot springs in Costa Rica
Karen and Quinn: Panama Canal
Connor: Botero exhibit at art museum in Medellin, Columbia

Best ancient attraction
All: Machu Pichu, Peru

Scariest place
Paul: Getting lost at the Guatemalan – Mexican border
Karen and Connor: Santa Ana, El Salvador
Quinn: No where – “I was never scared.”

Weirdest attraction
Paul: X2 at Magic Mountain, California
Karen: Mud baths in volcano in Columbia
Connor: Fried ants and ant statue in San Gil, Columbia
Quinn: Bidets in every bathroom in Argentina

Best resort
Paul, Karen and Quinn: Portillo, Chile
Quinn: Hotel Punto Condor in Bariloche, Argentina

Best hotel
Paul, Karen and Connor: Barcelo, Guatemala City
Quinn: Hotel no name at Ojo de Agua, Argentina (where we stayed on Quinn’s birthday)

Best campsite
Paul: Playa Azul, Mexico
Karen: Bahia de la Concepcion, Mexico
Connor: Bahia de Los Angeles, Mexico
Quinn: None

Best shopping
Paul: Lider supermercado in La Serena, Chile
Karen: Artisan markets in Cuzco, Peru
Connor: Shopping malls in Medellin, Columbia
Quinn: Gaucho pants and hat in Termas de Rio Honda, Argentina

Most beautiful women
All: Columbia

Most handsome men
Karen: Argentina

Friendliest people
Paul and Quinn: Argentina
Karen and Connor: Columbia

Best dueno (hotel owner)
Paul and Karen: Enrique from finca in Argentina
Connor: Hotel owner at Hotel Camino Real Turistica in Puno, Pero
Quinn: Marcelo at the no name hotel in Ojo de Agua, Argentina

Best host
All: Carlos from Medellin, Columbia

Best drivers
All: Chile

Worst drivers
Paul and Quinn: Guatemala
Karen: Ecuador
Connor: Costa Rica

Easiest border crossing
Paul, Karen and Quinn: Chile – Argentina
Connor: Ecuador – Peru

Worst border crossing
All: El Salvador to Honduras

Hasta luego a nuestra proxima adventura!

Here are some pictures from the last few days of our trip. Adios Latin America!

http://picasaweb.google.com/102902177234791651515/Week32Chile#

After seven months and one week, we are home! After skiing in Argentina, we take the long bus trip back to Santiago. However, this time, we take Bus Norte in Chile and have full reclining sleeper seats. This turns out to be better than first class on an airplane. The bus attendant sets up our beds with blankets, pillows and extra padding, and we sleep peacefully during our eleven hour overnight trip to Santiago. Per Quinn, “This is lovely!”

In Santiago, we are anxious to get home and try to find things to keep us busy for two days. Paul and I take long walks and even longer lunches. We go to the movie theater and watch old movies on TV. We check our emails and the news on the Internet. The trip seemed to really end in Bariloche. I said my “goodbye” to the trip with tears in my eyes as I took my last ski run in Cerro Catedral. Happy and excited to be going home, yet melancholy and a bit sad that our adventure ends.

So now a new adventure starts. We are back home to our “normal” life with our friends and family. Yet, all of us have changed in the past seven months. We must now find new jobs and for Quinn, go back to school. All the while, we will start planning on next adventure. Everyone needs dreams. For us, the dream is to travel.

Stay tuned for a final blog posting about our overall impressions about the trip…

Here are pictures from our ski/snowboard week in Bariloche, Argentina:

http://picasaweb.google.com/102902177234791651515/Week3031ChileAndArgentina#

For our final week of the trip, we treat ourselves to skiing and snowboarding in San Carlos de Bariloche. We take three buses to get here from San Antonio, Chile, totaling about 22 hours. Fortunately, the overnight buses have sleeper-seats, but nevertheless, Paul and I are barely able to get any sleep, while Quinn snores away.

This area is truly breathtaking: snow covered peaks, numerous deep blue lakes, towering pine trees, fluffy white clouds in the sky. The town of Bariloche is very upscale – fancy and expensive restaurants, hotels and shops. Think Aspen or Vail, but with more chocolate. Chocolate shops are everywhere; white or dark chocolate bark is very popular. We are in sticker shock with the high prices, but manage to find local places to eat and stay in a lovely, yet inexpensive hostel.

The resort near Bariloche is Cerro Catedral (12 miles from town). Because we are here late in the season, only the top half of the mountain has enough snow to ski. The ski resort is enormous – around 17 chair lifrts and 2 gondolas. The views are amazing: jagged mountain tops overlooking Nahuel Huapi Lake. The resort reminds me a bit of Lake Tahoe, but with wide open slopes and no trees on the top half of the mountain. We experience typical spring skiing – icy and hard in the morning and soft and slushy in the afternoon. The weather conditions are overcast the first three days and the off-piste snow is wonderfully soft. We ski and snowboard the entire mountain!

We stay at a comfortable resort at the base of Cerro Catedral, so we can walk to the resort every day. The place is fairly empty and we are upgraded to a suite with a small kitchen and Jacuzzi bathtub (my favorite!). Breakfast is a big buffet with fresh fruit, yogurt, cereal, rolls, ham, cheese and pastries. We find a delicious restaurant next to our hotel and try different soups every night: zapallo (kind of like pumpkin), lentaje (lentils, potatoes, beef, chorizo, carrots and more – hearty and yummy) and verduras. We go to bed with aching bodies, yet full tummies.

I notice several aspects of ski resort life that are very different than most other resorts that I have visited:

–          The ski passes are electronic and we are required to insert the pass in a scanner EVERY time we board the chair lift or gondola. Kind of a pin in the ass…

–          The ski resort itself only sells lift tickets and all other services on the mountain are privately owned. This means competition, resulting in low prices for ski rentals and decent food. Even the ski schools are independent of the resort.

–          The rental shops require that the skis and boards are returned at the end of the day, even if the rental period is for several days. This is actually nice because the rental shops are closer to the lifts than the hotel. Plus, the guys at the rental shop help us with our boots each day 🙂 However, the concept of ski lockers seems foreign.

–          Some Argentineans ski with their arms straight out, making fast “S” turns…on the groomed runs. The style looks chaotic and is definitely overkills for an easy run. Maybe it is a show-off move. At the same time, I also see skiers and snowboarders move fluidly and gracefully with excellent technical skills. Thus, not sure what to think about the weird style.

–          Pedestrians are everywhere on the mountain. People upload and download on the chairlifts without skis or snowboards in order to go to the restaurants and play in the snow. Very odd to see so many non-skiers at a ski resort.

–          Large groups of high school students wear the exact same snow clothes. At first glance, I think that they are ski instructors. Wrong! Argentinean high school seniors take their class trip to Bariloche to play in the snow and enjoy the area. Since most Argentinean metropolitan areas are located in warm climates, people don’t have cold weather gear and must rent their snow clothes. Big business here.

After our stay on the mountain, we return to the town of Bariloche for our last two days in Argentina. We go on an incredible horseback ride through the mountains and along lakes. Side note – riding after five days of skiing is not a good idea. We are sore and tired, yet the scenery overshadows our aches and pains. The area is spectacular – truly a beautiful part of the world. We all agree that this is the prettiest place of the entire trip. A great way to end our seven month adventure!

We shipped the car! The process was difficult, confusing and extremely frustrating. Multiple visits to various offices at the San Antonio port – 14 steps, 2 days of work (9 hours total) and about $3000. Twice, I was ready to cry from frustration. I wanted to yell and scream too many times to count. I think that this was the first time that a used car filled with personal goods has been shipped from Chile to the U.S. Now, we just hope that the car arrives in Oakland at the end of October…

We will spend the final week of our trip in Bariloche, Argentina to ski and snowboard. And of course, to drink Malbec and Fernet, and eat jamon crudo, salami ahumado and carne. Gotta love Argentina!

Here are pictures from our road trip from the finca to Chile – lots of llamas, pelicans and sea lions:

http://picasaweb.google.com/102902177234791651515/Week29Argentina#

After leaving the finca, we take a road trip to reach Chile. We first drive to Cafayate, passing a stunning red rock canyon. Cafayate is a cute town – rather touristy with lots of souvenir shops, hotels and restaurants. We drive to Tafi de Valle, going over a high mountain pass. We stay at a lovely farm house with llamas and a small cheese factory. We spend a day in Tafi horseback riding (Quinn is hooked!) and meandering around the quaint town. We find a terrific restaurant, Don Pepitos, and enjoy raviolis, cannelloni, jamon crudo and steak, as well as Malbec wine, of course. We continue our road trip down from Tafi along a beautiful river, then pass green farmlands, barren foothills and dry desert, finally ending-up in Olto, a tiny town with one hotel. We head to Uspallata, near the Chilean/Argentinean border, driving past lots of vineyards and olive groves, then into the Andes with snow covered peaks, picturesque lakes and rushing rivers.

Our drive over the Andes into Chile is dramatic – over a 10,000 feet pass, to river valleys, then vineyards, next orange, lemon, olive and avocado groves. Bright orange poppies are everywhere since spring has just begun. We drive to the coast, which welcomes us with sunshine and sparkling water. We check out Valparaiso, but the city is oddly deserted (Sunday afternoon during the Chilean 200^th anniversary), so continue driving south to San Antonio, where we will ship the car.

San Antonio is actually a lovely port city with a nice promenade filled with artisan stands, street artists, food kiosks and seafood restaurants. Paul is in heaven! Pelicans and sea lions surround the fish market, happily feeding on the scraps. Behind the promenade is a large 4-story shopping mall – the food court has the best views in San Antonio. Quinn enjoys treats from Dunkin Donuts and all of us love the massage chairs which cost $1 for 5 minutes.

We are staying in a nice cabana overlooking the port. We enjoy watching the ships come and go, and the huge equipment loading/unloading the containers. One night, we abruptly awaken to strong shaking. Fears of the 1989 SF earthquake and recent Chile earthquake enter our minds, but the quake soon stops. We expect to see the earthquake in the headline news the next morning, but nothing. We learn from the locals that the quake is just a minor trembling and did not cause any damage, but we were sure rockin and rollin….

We hope to ship the car within a few days. Fingers and toes crossed….

Here are the pictures of our finca stay in Northern Argentina. Lots of pictures since there are so many good pictures of gauchos, horses and even Paul dancing. Take some time relax and envision life on a finca:

http://picasaweb.google.com/102902177234791651515/Week28Argentina#

Our ten day stay at the finca (ranch) is one of the best experiences of the entire trip. The owner, Enrique, welcomes us with open arms and an equally open heart. We feel at home immediately and quickly settle into finca life.

We stay at a comfortable detached cabana with a bathroom. The finca is moderate size, probably a few acres with a large house with 4 bedrooms/2 bathrooms, huge patio, indoor and outdoor kitchens, saddle room, and several old tobacco drying rooms, now used for equipment. Enrique has many antique collections: guns, knives, bottles, tins, witches, horse paraphernalia. The finca has a medley of animals: three dogs, ducks who like to fly onto the roof to escape the dogs, chickens (6 chicks hatched during our stay), rabbits and roosters, who like to fly into the trees. The horses stay in the pasture about one mile away from the finca and are rounded up by the gauchos every morning and brought to the finca. The finca is surrounded by farmland, primarily tobacco, corn and wheat. The Andes loom high in the background. The closest town is Chicoana, population 5,000, which is about 1 ½ miles away. Chicoana has a sleepy plaza surrounded by shops, internet cafes, restaurants and a couple of hotels. The whole area reeks of authentic gaucho – horses and cows everywhere.

Our typical day is as follows. Quinn wakes up at 8:30am to join the gauchos to bring the horses from the pasture to the finca. He dresses in his gaucho pants, vest, belt and hat. Oh, and of course, the gaucho knife tucked into his belt. He has mate with Enrique in the kitchen while waiting for the gauchos to arrive. He goes with the gauchos, Ricardo, Javier, and Felix, as well as Andy, a Pennsylvanian student working for a few months at the finca, in a pick-up truck. The gauchos gather the 28 horses to the water buckets, then lasso each horse. They ride the horses bareback to the finca.

Now it is 10am and breakfast time. Sometimes, we are the only guests, whereas other days, the place is full with day trippers and/or overnight guests. Meals are family style and we sit at a long table outdoors to drink coffee, tea or hot cocoa and eat bread pudding, biscuits and home-made orange and mandarin marmalade.

After breakfast, we mount the horses and ride for about 2 ½ hours. We ride through the farmlands, dry river beds, dirt roads and Chicoana town. At a safe place, we get to gallop – a big treat! While riding, we have long conversations with gauchos about “life as a gaucho”, as well as conversing with travelers from around the world. While at the finca, we meet people from Germany, Switzerland, France, Croatia, Holland, Sweden, Israel, South Africa, Australia, USA and of course, Argentina.

A word about the gauchos – they are not a myth; they really exist! They learn to ride horses at the same time as learning to walk. The horses seem to be an extension of their bodies; the horse and gaucho look like one being when they ride. The gauchos are proud of their gaucho heritage and that reflects in their clothes, riding, culture and attitude. As one of the gauchos told me, gaucho is “en mi sangre” (in my blood).

Quinn quickly gets the nickname of “gringo gauchito” (white little gaucho). He is crazy about horses and the gaucho lifestyle, and spends every waking minute with the horses, gauchos or lassoing tree stumps. He falls off the horses three times, but that does not deter his passion, and he continues riding throughout our stay.

Back to our typical day… After riding, it is time to feast. Enrique barbeques the meat: ribs, steak, pork, chicken, sausages, etc. – the grill is loaded. Ramona, the cook, makes salad, roasted potatoes and vegetables, marinated beans, eggplant spread, lentils and chimichurri. As soon as the plate is empty, Enrique appears with more meat. As soon as the wine glass is empty, someone refills the glass. We feast until we can feast no more. We eat some of the best food of the entire trip. I can’t help thinking about how much my father, neighbor Bil and brother-in-law Ron would love the food here.

After lunch, time for another horseback ride. Quinn always goes, whereas Paul and I refrain if we rode in the morning. Sometimes we go to the local markets with Enrique, or to the Internet café in town, or take a long walk. One day, we take a road trip to Salta with Angelina, originally from the San Diego area and now studying in Massachusetts, to explore and shop. We enjoy spending lots of time with Andy and Angelina, who recently finished a study abroad program in Buenos Aires.

7pm is tea time with sweets and hot beverages. Quinn usually goes with the gauchos to take the horses back to the pasture. Gringo gauchito… Then, we shower and do school work. Quinn is motivated since the rule is to finish his work before riding in the morning.

We have cocktails before dinner; I take a liking to Fernet and Coke, while Paul likes the red wine from the local Benedictine monastery. It is organic and supposedly will not cause a hangover. Paul often makes dinner, which Enrique relishes. One night, he teaches everyone how to make pupusas from El Salvador – yum! Dinner is served at 10pm, then we talk until late. Some nights, Andy plays the guitar and sings, and a guest picks up the “house” guitar for a jam session. We rarely go to bed before 2am.

On a Saturday night, the whole gang goes to a pena, a folkloric party at the gaucho club. One after another, local bands play while children and teenagers in traditional costumes dance. Paul is so moved by the music that he dances a weird salsa-Argentinean style. A local gaucha (female) even dances with him, and I suppose that I feel that he needs support and also dance with him. Everyone is laughing hysterically and the “grande gringo” is the talk of the town the next day.

One day, we divert from the “regular” schedule and ride to a public elementary school. Enrique collects donations from the town people and we donate books, clothes and school supplies from our luggage. Many students stay at the school from Monday through Friday since they live too far away in rural communities. We arrive during celebrations for “Teacher’s Day”. The children sing for their teachers with such love and affection. The school director introduces and welcomes us, and the children and teachers applaud loudly. We are so touched that all of us have tears in our eyes. Enrique gives an emotional speech, then we go on a tour of the school. Peeling paint and cracked walls are apparent, but the children’s artwork and decorations mask the run-down conditions. Again, I think of my father, who could turn the school’s conditions around in a weekend with help from some friends.

Our stay at the finca is incredible. The hospitality is extraordinary. Enrique is the ultimate host, yet even more so, becomes a good friend. His honesty, integrity and sincerity shine through in everything that he does. He and Paul are soul mates – their birthdays are one day apart (Nov 21^st and 22^nd) and I call them the “Blues Brothers” (Jake and Elwood). The employees, Ramona, Betty, Ricardo, Javier, Felix, Andy and Angelina, are attentive to all of our needs and do their jobs with extreme passion. The night before our departure, Quinn says, “Mom, I don’t want to leave. I just love it here. I fell like an Argentinean. I love the meat, horses and people.” I tell him not to be sad that we are leaving, because we will definitely return. I don’t know when, but we will be back at this wonderful, wonderful place.