Travel-Trotter

We arrived at our Airbnb on Thursday night, we met our host and he showed us around the house, we corralled the girls into bed before flopping into bed ourselves happy to be done with our longest drive.  We were staying in Lujan de Cuyo just south of the town of Mendoza but squarely in the middle of wine country.  We discovered that there is a triangle of area of land stretching from Mendoza down to San Carlos that was formed as a delta from the Rio Cacheuta and other rivers flowing out of the Andes in the area.  The soil is mostly pebbles and boulders and very low sediment or soil so they are good to starve the vinyards and force them to produce small grapes which have the best flavor. The best soils have a calcium carbonate building up on the gravels and cobbles that is precipitated from the river water flowing off the delta, presumably from limestone dissolved from high in the Andes.

On Friday I went out and picked up some groceries at the local market, lots of fruits veggies and steak, while the kids played in the pool.  In the afternoon we wound our way through town to pick up John at the airport on the north side.  It was great seeing family after such a long time on our trip, the kids were especially excited when they saw that John had brought us lots of new movies and other present like socks that we had sent him via amazon.com.  We fired up the argentine grill and roasted some steaks and enjoyed very much a celebratory dinner.

The next day was Saturday and we played in our postage stamp size pool that we had at our house before heading out in the afternoon for horseback riding in the foothill of the Andes.  The ride was great, we had four horses for the six of us with the twins riding along with someone.  Caroline was old enough to ride her own horse, we only did the one hour tour and were happy we did as we were a bit sore.  It was more fun than I had expected; everyone had a blast.  We enjoyed some scenery along the reservoir in the mountains before heading down the mountain to check out a winery.  We finally ended up tasting wine near our house at Bodega Weinert just down the street.  We grilled out again and spent the rest of the day lounging by the pool.

Sunday was our first full day for wine tasting, we starting out with Carinae a smaller boutique winery, they had very lovely wines made in the French style.  We met the owners and enjoyed the lack of pretentiousness.  We ended up spending too much time chatting and enjoying ourselves cause we were late to our tour at Trapiche the biggest winery in the region.  Actually it turned out pretty good because we cut out part of the tour so the kids didn’t whine so much.  We were able to taste some wines and skip the whines 😉.  Our last winery of the day was Terraze Altus which ended up being the longest wine tour ever, at least two hours, after playing on their ipads for the first part of the tour the kids came and found us and played hide and go seeking in the winery.  We were able to get a barrel tasting and lots of information about the making of their wines.   It was a great first day and we headed home with our heads full of wine knowledge.

We headed out of town the next day which was planned as our longest in the car yet, up to 13 hours for our last day on the famous Ruta Cuarenta.  We made the decision to drive along the mountains which were very pretty, lots of neat geology; it was also important to get to Mendoza because John was coming the next day.

We had our first tire blow out (the others were slow punctures) near the town called Malargue; we also we didn’t realize there was a huge stretch of road that didn’t have any gas stations that were open, so we were running on fumes when we pulled into town.  We did have to sit in a half an hour long line, likely due to being the first gas station in many miles.  Someone ahead of us actually had run out of gas and was pushing themselves along.  Once we got gas Maddy got dinner for the girls while I got our tire replaced, it was not repairable as there were at least 5 large holes.  I did quickly find a tire service station that had a replacement that for that exact firestone tire, it didn’t take us more than an hour total delay.  I am beginning to understand that these South American towns are very prepared for damage to tires due to somewhat poor quality roads.

The will say though that the flat tires were so worth the aggravation to see this incredible section of the world.  As we arrived into Mendoza after night fall and fully tired of driving after our 14 hour day (plus one waiting for the tire) it brought to a close a huge part of our trip not only finishing our time on the Ruta Cuarenta but we had officially left the Patagonia region and entered wine country and the next phase of our trip.

The next day we drove an hour or so north to a small town situated on Lago Lacar; I think we were experiencing a bit of scenery fatigue because even though the town was pretty but it didn’t seem amazing.

We were in the town for 4 nights Sunday through Thursday and we accomplished lots of school and work and we got back on the wagon with exercising, both Maddy and I did some running.  Julie also had several major melt downs; I had also reached my rope with her one of the days so I took the day off teaching and Maddy took over.  We also had an issue with our apartment booking trying to charge us the VAT tax which is exempt for travelers from the US, I ended up contacting the local tourism agency and was able to clear up the issue but not without quite a bit of aggravation.  We ate in our apartment most days during the week and had a mellow few days, spending our afternoons on the beach near our house.  The town seemed like it was a jump off point in the area for lots of rafting and fishing.  The last day we did venture out to Lago Lolog to get some sun and beach time, we found some great trees for climbing and the girls had lots of fun hanging upside down.

The next day all the girls lined up to pinch me for not wearing green, but I fooled them with a pair of green shorts, mah ha ha ha.  We did some good school in the morning, Caroline might even put a blog post up if she can finish her corrections.  Caroline, Mirabelle and I went out to lunch, Julie did not want to come, she was having a bit of a fit, so we all went to eat sushi, it was decent food and it was a fun to have lunch with two out of three girls.  After lunch we picked up Maddy and Julie and we heard there might be a climbing wall and a zip line at the ski resort nearby so we headed 10 min up the road.  Unfortunately is was pretty much a ghost town so we didn’t stay very long.

We all headed back to town because all needed to do some shopping for Caroline and my birthdays so we headed to Bariloche and walked around.  Caroline and I paired up and got mostly chocolates.  The shops mostly closed at 4:30 so we stopped and the most Irish looking restaurant and got some fries and green beer, Maddy and the other girls met up with us and we headed home.

The next day March 18^th, was Caroline’s 9^th and my 41^st birthdays.  I still believe that she is the best present I have ever and will ever receive.  Maddy and I promised Caroline that we had a special surprise for the morning so we took the girls to a giant Toboggan slide and teleferico ride.  Everybody loved it, although there wasn’t unlimited rides so we each took two, we then had to get home because we had scheduled for Caroline to get video calls from some of her friends back home.  We had lunch at home and then headed out for a boat ride at 2pm.

When we arrived at the harbor there was a huge line of people waiting for the big tour boat; we had chartered a small one for about the same prices; all the people in line were staring at us with these looks like where are they going and why didn’t we do that.  The boat ride was incredible, the weather was gorgeous and we really enjoyed puttering around the lakes for a while.  Our boat captain was an Argentine and showed us to a waterfall and several other inlets, there was basically nobody on the lake and the water was so crystal clear and blue and the scenery was amazing.  It was the perfect birthday gift.

When the boat ride was over we headed back to our house and had dinner and birthday cake.  One of our buddies Pejman that we met on the Carretera Austral was in town so I headed out to see him and grab a drink.  I also found out that Wisconsin had a huge upset over Villanova, the #1 team in the country.  Not a bad birthday at all.

During our travels we heard about Doug Tompkins and his wife Kristine Tompkins and the work they had done in preserving large swaths of Chilean Patagonia.  We also heard about the tragic death of Doug Tompkins on Lago General Gerrera in a kayak last year.  I thought about it when we were visiting the Marble Caves which, and we were struggling in rough water to get back to the port.  We had heard that they had planned to donate the land to the Country of Chile but Were delaying for political reasons.  So I was heartened when my mother sent us an article that on Wednesday March 15th, 2017 Kristine Tompkins donated 1 million acres of land under the condition that the country of Chile will reclassify 11 million acres of land for conservation.  What an amazing gift and how amazing that this woman was able to leverage the gift into 10 times the original gift.  Below is the link to the article from the BBC.  I would echo the sentiment that this is a great achievement to save these amazing lands for future generations.  I am saddened by the sentiment by certain groups of Americans who want to abuse our National Parks and conservation areas.  I have been to most of our major National Parks and they are the best of America and certainly worth fighting for.

Chilean Parks

After fixing the tire in El Bolson we sped out of town, it was a short trip to San Carlos de Bariloche which is the center of the Argentine Lakes region.  The town is well known for it’s chocolate and didn’t disappoint, we promised the girls that there would be chocolate shops on every corner, so driving into town they crabbed that there were lots of corners that didn’t have chocolate on them.  Once we got into the center of town there was as promised chocolate shops on every corner, we had to investigate at least a few of them right away.  The shops were had dazzling displays of a multitude of chocolates; they were usually mixed with fruits, nuts, or another sweet dessert like tiramisu.  It was interesting that there was a definite absence of dark chocolate and not much talk about cacao percentage, I know picky picky.

The town was located on a huge system of lakes that stretched for many kilometers into the mountains, the views were amazing.  There also seemed to be a Cerveceria or Brewery on every corner, lots of guilty pleasures to try.  We learned that the town is close to a ski hill just up the road so the area is an all year tourist mecca.  We settled into our Cabana which was owned by a nice Irish gentleman, how appropriate since St. Patrick’s day was only two days away.  We ate at home that night and enjoyed our terrace overlooking the lake, Que Rico.

The next day num num blegh school (sewas in session in the morning and went up one of the telefericos to the top of cerro campanario one of the nearby mountains.  The views were spectacular with nearly 360 degree views of the lakes area.  I took a time lapse of the ride down the teleferico which is posted on our youtube channel here:

We ate our lunch and started on the Ruta Chica a paved road through a spectacular lakes area south of Bariloche.  We stopped at the Llao Llao harbor to inquire about a boat ride for my birthday, then headed on our way, the views were great including a fancy hotel that looked like it was out of the sound of music or something, lots of Alps/swiss influence.  The kids were getting a bit punchy being in the car so so long so we stopped at a dinosaur nature park.  We had a Spanish guide but between his poor English, my poor Spanish and my healthy knowledge of dinosaurs we had a good time.  Julie didn’t like the guide so she and Maddy left early.

We then decided that we would stop at the Berliner Cerveceria and have a pint and some fries before there was an insurrection from the back seat.  The place had bruschetta, fries, beers and a playground, something for everyone.

We ate dinner at home again and spent the evening back home on our porch overlooking the lake.

We arrived in El Bolson around dinner time, our dinner time 5pm not the South American dinner time 7-11pm.  We checked in a day late but the place we booked was amazing overlooking the town with a pool, kitchen, grill and even a small stream nearby.  We were just happy to chill out somewhere and not go anywhere for two days.  We cooked at the house during our time, I cooked steaks on the grill and the girls seem to be liking the meat.  The next day we completed our schooling and Maddy caught up on work then we went out for a hike to Cascada Escondida, the kids seemed to be rebelling against hiking so we only did a small hike and then found a play ground and let them run wild for a bit. There were plenty of fruit trees around plumbs and rasberries so we collected a bunch to bring home.

We grabbed lunch and went down to the confluence of the two rivers that went through town, Rio Azul and Rio Quemquemtreu.  There was a metal bridge that we crossed and played around on the beach at the other side of the river, the rivers was a brilliant blue, hence Rio Azul.  The Argentinians seem to name their geography after the colors of said geography.  After walking through town we headed back to our cabana and the pool, it was warm enough and the pool was warmed from a solar heater so we all played in the water for a couple hours before starting dinner.  The kids were happy and exhausted and went to The next day we packed up and headed out to Bariloche.  Of course when we went to pack the car up we noticed that the tire was flat on the car, number 3 for the trip, with all the dirt roads I am surprised we haven’t had more.  We threw the spare on and got it fixed, with only minimal delay in town.

After an amazing couple hours in the park at Torres del Paine, we headed north crossed into Argentina without much trouble and drove north along Ruta 40 past El Calafate and El Chaiten.  We reached Tres Lagos and discovered that there was a barricade at the road going north.  There was no sign that the road was closed so we decided to drive around the barricades and continue.  We did see one vehicle coming south but it was a big 4×4 vehicle and after hitting the unpaved section of road we realized that we had made a mistake… the road was totally muddy and impassable with our van without large tires and four-wheel drive.  We reluctantly headed back south, we needed more money and Mira’s blanket was left in El Calafate so this seem like a logical place to go back to. 

We arrived in town and went back to our old rental, they didn’t have room but they did have Mira’s blanket which was a great relief.  We also figured out our old friend and hitch-hiker Rachel was in town.  We met up with her and chatted the night away; so fun meeting up with our traveling friends.  We did figure out that the Ruta 40 would not be opened anytime soon and so we were forced to back track all the way to Rio Gallegos before heading north along the coast road on the Atlantic side of Argentina.

After grumbling about this major detour we set our minds to the task and drove for our second and third days of 10 hour and nearly 700 km driving each day.  We stayed in Caleta Olivia on the first night and then made it to El Bolson only one day delayed.  We did drive 2,360 km (1,500 miles) and an extra 867 km (546 miles) out of the way, I had Caroline do the math for a school math question.  It was interesting to see the Atlantic coast in Patagonia, but the Argentine Steppe was otherwise flat and uninteresting. 

The van was very steady and did have any problems, we will likely get a break job and a tune up in Mendoza but otherwise the car is great!

The next morning we woke up and looked out the window like excited kids on Christmas morning as we knew it was supposed to be clear.  You couldn’t see a thing… everything was obscured by a thick fog bank.  It took a few minutes but we were able to see the top of the mountains and realized that it was a perfectly clear day other than fog.   We finished our breakfast and paid for the two nights stay with a credit card, we were happy they accepted cards because there was no place to get cash anywhere near the park.  We left the area near Rio Serrano and once our car climbed up onto the bluff and out of the river valley got our first views of the clear mountain range that we had been struggling to get views of. 

It was spectacular, the spires of Torres del Paine were out as well as volcano Reclus to the west and lots of other mountains in the distance.  We decided to drive through the park on our way out and took pictures at what seemed like every bend and curve in the road. 

We got some especially nice ones with the reflection over Lago Toro. 

We exited Chile for the last time without much trouble and headed north….

We set out for Torres del Paine in the morning and crossed the border from Argentina to Chile around lunch time without much incident except for having to wait in line.  The day was pretty gloomy and we weren’t able to see much of the mountains, we headed to the park and purchased our passes before heading to our cabana for the night.  We crossed the park to get to our cabana for the night and at one point we did just see part of the mountain peek out and we all went a bit crazy because it was so immense and beautiful. Even though we didn’t see much of the mountains there were lots of interesting rocks as we wound our way through the park as well a plenty of wildlife including the guanaco lama, an ostrich type bird called a Rhea, Armadillos and lots of different birds.  We did stop and take a hike to  a set of water falls in the park before we settled into our place on the south side of the park near Rio Serrano.  We got another small peak at the mountains before sunset.

The next morning we got up peaked out the window and got a pretty decent view of the mountains although still had some clouds.

A great start to the morning, with breakfast in our belly’s we set out on a hike to Mirador Glacier Gris.  The hike was nice with only minimal whining, we got to the view point just in time for the clouds to dissipate some.  The hike back was very muddy and we were beginning to understand why so many of the trails in the park were being closed down to hiking, it was wet and muddy.  The kids were slipping all over the place, with a bit of mud and water on our clothes we got to the our lunch spot at the hotel glacier gray and had a nice and expensive lunch.  Since there are not too many spots to buy food, and we had to eat most of our groceries before crossing the border we were stuck with eating out while in the park.  We did have enough energy to hit up another water fall before heading back to our cabana for dinner and an early to bed.

A bit more of the mountains were visible before we headed off to la la land.  One last morning in the park before we head north for the rest of our trip and out of Patagonia.