La Paz

Arriving from Oruro we were submerged into the chaos of the La Paz bus station.. we were so pleasantly surprised at how helpful people were as we stood there, packs on backs with our map out looking for the way to our hostel.. numerous people including the tourist police stopped to make sure we were ok.. a great introducion to La Paz. Next stop our hostel with its own brewery! and 1 free beer per day niiiiiiiiice..

We spent the day visiting the Coca museo, wandering around the witches market

and a stop off at the Museo de Instrumentos Musicales.. a really interesting and diverse collection of musical instruments from Latin America and around the world.. the highlight for me was the 5 prong guitar and the guitars made from Armadillos..

Salar de Uyuni - dia 3

So last night we slept in a hostel made entirely of salt! We are now officially in the Salar de Uyuni... it was crazy though. The bricks were salt, the hallway looked like a salt shaker exploded, and the bed frames were made of salt too! I told Andrew not to drop anything on the floor because we would have to sift through it to find it...I could literally lick my bed, it was the craziest thing I have ever slept on!

Then when we got up, the 3 day drive only got stranger...we were flying ontop of these crystalized salt planes...literally flying at who knows how many km/hr since our spedometer was broken! haha It was actually a welcomed relief to the constant bumps we´d experiences the last two days, at least now it was smooth...even if it was weird!

One of our first stops was at this island, in the middle of these salt planes...it was a pretty funny sight because there were about 20 other dream wagons here as well, so the locals picked up on this...and they were out flipping pancakes, selling jewlery, etc..all in the middle of what appeared to be a vast white nothingness! Also, there were about 50 other people trying to outdo each other for crazy photos...we thought we were being inventive with these poses, but since then we´ve seen many others! I will say that this may be the ONLY time when I have Andrew in the palm of my hand! (literally! haha lol) :D

Salar de Uyuni - dia 2

Ha, the first thing we couldn´t help but notice when we rolled up here...is that some dickhead was pissing on this famous "tree-rock", we were all pretty incredulous at that one! lol Anyways, this was created by the wind and sand that blows throughout the desert...it´s a rock that has been formed into a "tree" hence my earlier name! haha
Flavio continues to be the speed racer of our 70s dream wagon...he continually looks over his shoulder and his review mirror to scope where everyone is. If he sees someone closing in, it´s peddle to the metal! This could be the reason we got TWO FLAT TIRES today! Yes, I did say two, in the middle of nowhere I might add. All of a sudden the truck stops, Flavio gets out of the car and a smile spreads across his lips...but not the kind of happy smile you might want, but the "oh shit" kind. We all pile out of the dream wagon and the tire is flat as a pancake, really it´s amazing we didn´t have bigger problems! In about 3 seconds Falvio is in his speed racer outfit, that is, a one piece mechanic/race car driver jumper... and then he´s under the hood cranking up the car and removing the flat. This happened twice today... I will give it to Falvio though, he can change a flat tire in about 8 minutes flat! It was quite amazing to witness...TWICE! lol :D

Salar de Uyuni - dia 1

This was one of the first stops our 70s dream wagon stopped at... it was this intense blue lagoon in the middle of the desert! Flavio told us it gets its color because there are minerals in the lake, mainly copper that give it this crazy, unreal blue color. Anyways, it was pretty crazy to see this aqua colored lake in the middle of the desert, let me tell you! :D
Bolivia set is on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/nimbinferal/sets/72157600134936456/

¨Äsk the Leyland Brothers¨ Bolivian style

We drove about 2 mins out of San Pedro to the first border stop.. drove about 1/2 hr on a nice paved road before we turned off onto a dirt track, towards a building into the middle of nowhere. The very unofficial building was in fact the Bolivian border control. This was our first land border crossing of the trip and it seemed very informal to say the least! Next to the ¨customs office¨we saw rows of old landcruisers lined up with drivers standing by... the ¨facilities¨at the border control were to squat behind a burned out bus.. welcome to Bolivia!
After a quick cuppa we strapped our backpacks on the roof alongside large fuel containers. And it was off on our 3 day adventure to Uyuni via the Salar de Uyuni these massive salt flats.. our car consisted of Alison and Neil from London who had arrived in Chile via India, SE Asia, Aust and N.Z... they kept us amused with tales from their travels over the last 7 months.. also on board are Thomas and Silka (sorry if I spell it wrong) from Germany, Thomas was our professional photographer http://www.thomas-rathay.de while Silka was our ever patient interpreter as the guide only spoke Spanish.
Our driver and guide Flavio was quite a character, I think he is in training to become a world class rally driver, complete with overalls that look like they are from a F-1 pit crew.. the Landcruiser must have been at least from the 70´s but that didn´t prevent him from racing all the other cars at every opportunity. I´d say it has had at least a few engine rebuilds as none of the dashboard gauges worked, and it had an old 8-track player in the dash.. although he had installed a cassette deck and rocked out to some Musica de la Bolivia as he sped through the desert.

We departed the border, not on a road per se, but rather followed some car tracks in the desert, it was very Leyland Brothers... you could just sense the adventure!

A brief overview of the trip :
http://wikitravel.org/en/Salar_de_Uyuni
although we did it in reverse since we came from San Pedro in Chile.

Tetio Geysers (Grandfather who cries)

Tour to Tetio Geysers...

Wake up at 3:30am...

Blast music for the two hour bus ride to stay awake...sky full of the brightest stars I have ever seen...

arive at the geysers at 4,000m and realize it´s still shit-ass cold at 6:30am before the sun is out...literally a geyser field infront of us... steam pockets rising from everywhere...smelling the sulfer fog...green and orange ground crystals caused by minerals...seeing the biggest geyser in the area that has caused 4 deaths...

Valley of the Moon...

Day tour out of San Pedro...

HOT desert winds...unworldly rock formations that resemble the surface of the moon...the bluest sky you have ever seen...crawling around a salt cave by lantern...listening to the salt mounds expand as it got colder...visiting death valley with it´s layers of different colored rocks...endless smooth sand dunes...volcanos as far as the eye can see, 125 active in Chile alone...

the amazing Andes Mtns...

climbing sand hills to watch the sunset over the mtns...reds and purples in the sky and on the mtns...

being in the quietest place on earth...and the most beautiful!

San Pedro de Atacama

Blondie and then Keane made for a top weekend. We spent monday doing the usual pre long bus ride prep.. packed our gear and stored and it then took the metro to the Brazilian Embassy, our Visas were ready and the whole pick up process was over in mere minutes.. thankfully.. we shopped around for Manu Chau CD. There is one song of their´s that has become the soundtrack of our trip.. filled up the ¨snack¨bag with some goodies as the bus food is usually really really rubbish.. after dad left we moved to another hostel which had a really pimpy common area and a kitchen! big comfy couches, tv, dvd,s and english magazines.. but the real goldmine was the ¨free¨music we spotted on one of the computers.. 2-3 hours later both our mp3 players had a lil less space on them! score!

basically monday was a chill out day.. we cooked a nice meal and indulged in another fab bottle of chilean wine before trudging off to the bus terminal.. this time we were in for a 20hr bus ride north to antofagasto.. with a 3 hr layover and then a bus to calama (5hrs) then finally a bus to san pedro (1hr).. needless to say after all of that we REALLY needed a beer.. luckily we found a hostel that we booked in Calama (not our usual organized selves).. that had a nice bar right next store.. 24+hrs on a bus is not exactly my cup of tea but a necessary evil.. sadly none of the movies had english or english subtitles.. major bummer.. but we had new tunes, new books and that somehow made the time pass.. because the scenery out the window was endless monotonous desert..
san pedro is really small.. very ¨desert¨we like it.. Heather hit the nail on the head, it´s like we took a space time machine.. from the biggest city in the country to this really small remote desert town... are we even still in chile.. it sure doesn´t feel like it!

we have booked some tours for the next 2 days and are still deciding on who to go with for a 3 day journey across the bolivian border. we have decided to skip going back to peru. but are way stoked to be heading into a new country! we have heard SO much good stuff about bolivia from other travellers.. let´s hope it lives up to the hype..

oh did i mention this is one of the driest deserts in the world?

Keane

So Andrew bought us tickets to see Keane for my bday! We saw posters advertising the concert around Santiago and decided it would be fun to see a band in another country. The show was AWESOME!! It was an all day festival called "Vive Latino", it´s actually kind of strange Keane even played since they´re british...but surprisingly enough almost the entire crowd sang their songs in english, it was surreal to hear this predominently Chilean, spanish speaking crowd of people singing along in english to this British indie rock band...but it was good fun. :D
Earlier in the day we just walked from stage to stage listening here and there, all the other bands were local Chilean bands we didn´t recognize, so it was a lot of boppin´ our heads, having NO idea what they are singing about...although one reggae band did sing some Bob Marley! Ofcourse! lol Pretty much the only unfortunate part of the day was that the venue ran out of food and drinks at like 4:00 in the afternoon (the show lasted ´til 1:00 am) and there was NO BEER! :( We scrounged some chips and peanuts for dinner at like 9:00, having to fight our way to the vendor through hords of hungry Chileans...we were very nonplussed, but even with tummies rumbling I danced my arse off to Keane at midninght and can´t thank Andrew enough for enduring the day (even though he wasn´t even familiar with Keane) with me and celebrating my bday! That´s love! :D

Blondie

we decided to round out our Santiago experience it was time to go and enjoy some of the night life.. our pre-funk was drinking 40s at a local pub round the corner from the hostel that had a video dukebox.. well the Chileans love their 80s metal.. and some song kept coming on that reminded me of bon jovi and everyone would get up and sing along.. funny stuff.. a lil GNR and some other classsic 80´s metal..

next stop was Blondies a big nightclub in town.. we saw posters all over town mentioning that it was britpop night.. i honestly can say i have not had so much fun out in a long time.. mind you i have not been to a nightclub in bloody ages.. they played music like they used to at the Empire in theValley back in the day.. god i´m giving my old age away it was 10 years ago it guess .. the cure, blur, the hives, a franz ferdinand set, the killers, violent femmes.. iggy pop.. white stripes, blondi it was like a playlist i would make.. and they mixed in the video clips on a massive screen.. utter filth.

needless to say we boogied non-stop for hours.. although it was funny to see all the kids dressed a bit goth or punk, not the average brit-pop crowd..

oh and as per usual for Latin America a bit of 80´s was thrown in for good measure.. we still laugh about the bus ride that played a DVD of videos clips from teh 80´s.. go men at work!!

We are off to an all day outdoor concert today, thankfully the sun is out.. Keane is the headliner.. we have no clue who the rest of the VivaLatino lineup are.. but I am sure it will go off like a frog in a sock..

Monday after we get our visas for Brazil sorted we are jumping on a 20hr bus north towards the peruvian border..

whats the plan?

Well Dad arrived with a nice little care package courtesy of REI.. we had called in an order in Lima and he picked it up in Dallas.. you really need to go and buy one of these folks

http://www.rei.com/product/664265

it has been our salvation in the land of instant coffee.. Heather also got replacement shoes YAY! And along with a travel size Vegemite our breakfast sitch is looking up BIG TIME!

in other news the button on my camera is getting a bit dodge.. and now it only is able to be in automatic mode.. no manual.. lucky it did not ¨stick¨in video mode.. whew! Sometimes it´s taking 3-4 presses before it will take the photo.. I hope it can hold on a bit longer.

We spent the last day of Dad´s visit in Santiago chilling out.. walking around the Plaza de Armas watching the myriad of street performers and painters .. stopped at the Chilean Starbucks ¨Starlight coffee¨which was suprisingly good! we also visited the Museo Pre Columbia Arte which had a really awesome exhibite on headdresses worn by the different cultures from mexico to the tip of south america.. and losts more pottery and our second Quipo.. very good museum in our opinion and free for ISIC students.. bargain!

Photos on Flickr

Gudday,
have uploaded a tonne of pictures from the last week with Dad visiting us.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nimbinferal

some of the photo credits go to Dad.

enjoy!

Dad and I were coincidentally reading collapse
http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0143036556/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-6402156-1175145?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176652185&sr=8-1

i really recommend it.. a great book.. nice to read it with someone else to discuss some of the points he makes.. and he dedicates a chapter to Australia.. and it´s current environmental woes.

Early birthday dinner

We went out for an early Birthday dinner for Dad and Heather to a meditereanian resturant, if you think its hard to read a spanish menu, imagine doing it when the food is middle eastern.. well we figured it our eventually and had a really great meal.. followed by belly dancing.. although Heather declined to get up and join her.. as did I.. :D

Monumento natural El Morado

Monday it was back to Santiago with a rather annoying stop at the Brazilian Embassy who seemed to not want to be bothered to do their bloody job.. the lady was like.. ¨get your visa in Bolivia¨ .. i lied and said we were not going to La Paz.. lazy bitch! then we took the metro to the end of the line and a collectivo (well basically a taxi i guess) out to San Alfonso in the Cajon del Maipo to a place called Cascada de los Animas.. a nature reserve that offers hiking, horse riding, rafting and other fun activities.. we settled into our super quaint cabina and were stoked at the prospect of a good kitchen to use for a few days.. yes sad to say but eating out all the time gets old.. especially like in the case when it took 1hr to get our food one day.. hmm.. although i don´t miss doing the dishes that is for sure.. heather really got into the swing of it and crafted some culinary delights with the limited produce and food at the local tienda (shop).. that was really nothing more than a corner store.. we hiked to the waterfalls on the property and went horse riding.. our first attempt to get out to monumento natural el morado got foiled in San Gabriel.. we took the collectivo to the end of the line and got stranded basically.. well we got a bus back to our cabina and decided to try another approach.. which was to pay a collectivo to take us ALL the way.. about 1hr on dirt roads.. so thursday we did the drive out and hiked up to Glacier San Francisco.. stopping at Laguna el Morado enroute.. it was a nice 5hr hike not too hard but just amazing scenery and not many other people around.. it´s funny Conaf (their national park system) rangers give you the full scoop on the hike in Spanish.. both here and in Pucon I only got about 1/2 the scoop but managed to not get lost.. too bad if you didn´t know any spanish at all you´d probably end up lost or worse..

We took a Collectivo taxi all the way out to Monumento El Morado and did the 5 hr hike up to Glacier San francisco.. there was not many people on the trail and it was a really nice day to be out in the mountians..

Cajon del Maipo

After Valpariso we decided to swing the other way and head out the to forest! We found these cabins about an hour outside Santiago, where we could cook, and chill out for the week. They reminded me of "smurf" cabins, it was darling. All wood and bamboo interior, with a woodburning fire to heat the place. Cabinas de las Animas was the name of the place, named perhaps for the dogs that frequented the grounds? We had our own personal watch dog the entire time we were at our cabin...he adopted us for the week. ;DI finally got my horse back riding in while we were there too! We rode up into the mtns and got views of the entire canyon. Plus at one point I expressed some interest in galloping, and before I knew it we were galloping down the trail...it was great! My horse named Diabolita (devil) ran fast as the wind! ;D

I played "mom" all week while we were there and did all of the cooking while the boys cleaned and made the fires! It was great fun though figuring out what concoction I could throw together with limited ingrediants, and supplies...but I think all would say we ate VERY well and VERY cheap! Yum... and YAY for lentils! haha

Valpariso

After we spent a day in Santiago, we decided to leave the BIG city for the quaint bohemian SMALL city of Valpariso. After some trying problems with our hostel reservation...mainly someone had taken ours...;(

It was love at first sight...if the colorful houses, and murals weren´t enough the views of the ocean and the cozy coffee shops would do you in. We spent an entire day winding around these great neighborhoods, with hills and views around every corner. We had a great time getting lost here! ;D

We made an art form of afternoon coffee and cake...we must have hit every cafe in our neighborhood. We compared and contrasted the music they played, the art on the walls and the tastiness of their "postres"...and we discovered the joy of a "cafe cortado." ;D
There were so many of these awesome grafitti walls in the city that we became obsessed with taking pictures of all of them...I am determined to do a photo montage of them when we get back. They were all so colorful and creative, we felt they really captured the essence of the city.
on saturday we bused out to Valparaiso.. past fields of vineyards, reminding us where all that good wine was coming from! our reservation of about 2 months was fudged by the hostel so we wandered around a bit until we found another home for the weekend.. and then spent the day wandering around neighbouring town of vina del mar.. not as cute as valparaiso and a bit more yuppy but still we did see a legit Moai, the statues from Easter Island.. AND .. drum roll.. we found coffee beans.. so the plunger was christened.. such joy you can´t imagine after suffering through months of instant muck!

Sunday we did the walking tour of Valparaiso as described by the french owner of our hostel.. only 5 kilometres.. ïf you like¨.. he was a bit of a character to say the least.. we visited Pablo Neruda´s house ¨La Sabastiana¨.. and rode a number of the Ascensors that the city is famous for.. it was really nice to just roam the city and stop off for coffees along the way.. taking lots of pictures of the cool murals that we ran across..

Paul arrives

so dad arrived early on good friday we did a bit of a walk around the city.. zipped up the funicular railway to the top of Parque Metropolitano and would have had nice views of the city if it were not so smoggy although we dcould kinda make out the andes far off in the distance... we walked around the big statue of the virgin mary and had a coffee.. it was a bit like mt cootha back home.. tonnes of people biking around the place and enjoying the good weather.. we took the teleferico down, which is like a cable car or ski lift.. we stumbled into Provindecia and found the vege resturant that Heather and I had eaten at the night before.. so we pulled up a seat out on the footpath, soaked up some sun and indulged in another exquisite meal... followed by a stop at a heavenly ice-cream shop.. i think at this point dad was also beginning to fall in love with the city..

So Paul arrived safe and sound after a LONG flight from the states! It was wonderful having him along with us for awhile. The first day we decided to just walk around Santiago and show him around a bit...more like show him around the inside of every ice creamery and coffee shop within a sqaure mile! lol Here we are enjoying our first of many gelatos that would be to come!

Santiago (the return)

Our last day in Pucon we indulged in our fav activities.. I went out to the National park for a hike and Heather got some retail therapy.. Heather and I had a mellow day in Santiago waiting for dad to arrive on friday... we viisted a really cool art gallery and wandered through the city parks.. and generally just enjoyed Santiago.. our first impression has changed we found the cute neighbourhoods and have now officially fallen in love with the city..

We have definitely been enjoying the wine since we´ve been in Santiago...this was in a cafe we found in our new fav neighborhood here "Barrio Bellavista"...it´s like Capitol Hill in Seattle, Haight St. in SF, and Melrose Ave in LA... all in one place. It´s great. ;DAndrew decided he wanted to be a lamp post too this day! haha No...there was a line of lampposts, and all the glass balls had been broken so this poor guy had to go down the row and replace them all. When we were walking by they were all set out, so Andrew decided to strike a pose! Put em up babe! haha

We figured the picturesque surroundings of Pucón would be best explored by bike. So we rented some bikes this morning and armed with a most dodgy map we were pointed in the direction of the road out of town. We started out on a nice bike lane but once we turned off the paved road it was basically dodgy old logging roads.. Poor Heather was a real trooper all day, but the roads were not exactly designed for biking, nor where they nice slick single track. We managed to ride right past the waterfalls that we were supposed to reach.. We stopped for lunch at this roadside open air church.. I think Heather was muttering a few prayers of her own as her butt was still a bit sore from the rafting incident..

Well we rode not more than 300mtrs from our lunch with Christ and saw a sign for the bloody waterfalls.. luck? fate?

Pucon home to Lakes, Volcanos, hot springs...!

Heather woke me on the bus as we were almost to Pucon, I could not believe my eyes the sun was rising over Lago Villarrica, the Volcano was off in the distance and everything was so lush and green after Santiago.. Pucon is one of those towns where there are a million and 1 activities you can do.. the hike to the top of the Volcan is really pricey and only a 50/50 chance of making the crater rim (weather issues).. so we passed on that, although it is one of the main attractions.. We did go river rafting and then spent a day just lazing in the sun by the lake.. it´s been a while since we had a really nice hot sunny day and we decided to enjoy it.. although the water was absolutely freezing (I went in anyway).. There are hot springs close by and loads of hiking. The town is pretty quiet at the moment (tourist wise) which is kind of nice and mellow... the scenery is just amazing.. and our hostel has a vegetarian resturant.. so all things considered we are pretty stoked on Pucon right now.

The wine here is really cheap ($1.50 upwards) in the grocery store we have been buying Camenere and Malbec reds.. two grapes only grown in Chile and Argenitina (maybe France too not sure).. Heather is in Heaven as every other country good wine has been rather hard to find. If you need a recommendation on a Chilean red drop me an email ;)

Redhair...too much red wine maybe?

No your eyes aren´t fooling you...I dyed my hair RED! :D I was going through a blah week, and then we met this girl who had this outrageous red hair, and I thought why not?! Maybe it is a "mid-trip-crisis" or something but I bought a box of dye at the local pharmacy, tried to decipher the directions that were in spanish, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best! I think Andrew thought I was a total nutt job but... I actually dig it! :D It is like having a 24/7 accessorie on! lol

I definitely don´t feel blah anymore and it is a nice change. I think Andrew is still taking some time to get used to it, waking up next to a red head all of a sudden! lol

...but I guess now I will get the chance to see if the saying about firey redheads is true! haha

Valdivia, Chile...Knutsmann anyone?

So we left our haven of Pucon (which we adore) to head south to this sea town called Valdivia. I will admit the major reason we decided to visit was because they have the nationl Knuntsmann brewery there and we thought that might be a fun place to check out...it´s a german beer which is kinds of strange since we are in Chile, but actually a lot of the area we are in was settled by Germans long ago.
So we arrived in Valdivia at our hostel and straight away ran into another couple we had met in Pucon, Angie and Dave from Melbourne. So we set out on foot and convinced the two to join us for the brewery tour...neither of them had done one before!? There actually wasn´t much of a tour at all, aside from a meagar museum that showcased beers from around the globe. There was nothing from the states though, and they had put Budweiser and Miller in the Australia section...we thought that was funny. :D
So we got down to the more important business of sampling the different beers they had to offer. We ordered a sample tray to start and we all sipped the choices. They had this one beer called "miel" (honey in spanish) and it straight up tasted like honey, no joke, sweet, thick honey with slight carbonation...it was bizarre! In the end we settled on this "torobayo sin filtrar"(unfiltered) which kind of resembled a Hefeweizen. We ordered a "column" of it and before we knew it, on our table was 3 meters of beer in a cylindrical tube with its own tap! Ah, we were in beer lovin´paradise! What a way to spend an afternoon...