Viajando Por La Carretera

As soon as we crossed the border over to Chile, the change in culture was immediately noticeable. Whilst the scenery was still somewhat similar, the towns we passed through were no where near as touristy, having much more of a local rustic vibe to them. The culture was a lot more visible, reminding me more of the towns of Peru or Ecuador. It was a nice contrast from the touristy Patagonia of Argentina. As the bus edged closer to its arrival in Valdivia, I started wishing that I hadn't given away my big guide book. When I was in Bolivia I didn't think I'd make it over to Chile, but now here I was, about to arrive in this city, with no clue where I was going to stay. I'd made a last minute request for a local guy through Couchsurfing, but I had no idea as to what his reply was going to be, or even if he replied at all.


As I arrived in the terminal I was given my first experience of the Chilean accent. Many people had told me that they had a very fast, lazy way of speaking, and I found it to be very true straight away. By this stage of my trip I'd become confident with both speaking, and understanding Spanish, but I was now well aware that I would have to start again from a few steps back, until I became accustomed to their accent. As I collected all my bags and made my way though the terminal I was immediately approached by hotel owners, insisting that they have the best deal in town. My main priority was to find a place in the terminal with WIFI so I could find out whether or not this guy would let me stay at his house, but I quickly realized that that there was nothing. After saying no to many eager hotel owners I finally agreed to an old lady that I would come and see her place, making it clear that I had no obligation to take it if I didn't want it.

When we arrived I noticed a distinct family feel to the place. In Chile, all my accommodation ended up being in “Hospedaje” style guest houses. They are simply family houses with extra rooms available, kinda like B&B's back at home. She had WIFI and said that I was welcome to use my laptop and check my emails before agreeing to stay there. To my surprise I had received a reply. He said that I was welcome to stay there, but he was out of town, and wouldn't be arriving until the next day. I agreed to stay just the one night before meeting up tomorrow with the Couchsurfing host.

His name was was Andres, a 31 year old doctor, born and breed in the city of Valdivia. After meeting in the plaza he took me for a drive around the city to some interesting places, showing me many places that I hadn't yet seen. To my surprise he spoke very nice Spanish, and I was able to easily communicate with him throughout the whole time without to much difficulty. He lived a few minutes out of the city, and after we arrived at his house he said that I was free to do what I wanted, then later that evening he would take me to the beach where I would get to sample some traditional Chilean food, and also that there would be some performances of traditional Chilean folkloric music. The true cultural experiences have always been the most enjoyable for me so far on this trip, so I was happy to once again have a local person show me the way of the culture.

On our way to the beach Andres told me that this was the busiest time of the year. Mid January was both the middle of summer, and also the time when many Chilean people take their vacations. I was excited about going to a beach again. It had been a simple pleasure that I'd really missed from home, and I hadn't seen any sort of beach since I was in Trujillo in Peru nearly seven months prior. Although it was nice to be there again, it was difficult to really enjoy it because of the amount of people that were there on their vacation. We only visited it briefly, then it was on to the next part of the experience, sampling the local food.

The “feria” as they called it, was only a short walk from the beach. It was late on a Sunday afternoon and Andres told me that this was always a very popular time for the locals, especially in the summer. It was an indoor area which had a big open space, surrounded with food stall of various types. After finally finding a couple of seats at a table, he told me to wait while he went and fetched various samples from around the place. The food was amazing, being a sea food fan myself, I was rite in my element. The first things I tried were seafood empanadas. Empanadas are pastry pockets filled with various flavors. They are common throughout South America and each country has their own slight variation. The Chilean variation was “empanadas de mariscos” (sea food empanadas.) Some of the other things I sampled included a hot dish with crab meat and a lot of melted cheese (also very good!,) and also a couple of traditional deserts, one of which also included crab meat! After eating amazing sea foods and drinking home brewed beers, we hung around to watch some of the local folk music that happened to be on display.

One of the things I noticed here was the very strong community feel. Up on stage there was a band playing the traditional music of Chile, along with traditionally dressed dancers following along. As of many places in South America, music here is very much an integrated part of the culture. All children are taught the traditional dances in school, and it isn't unusual for dancing to occur in typical social events. At the end of the dance all the dancers went out to the audience and found volunteers as their new dance partners. It was quite a site, with people up there ranging in ages from 5 to 75. It was amazing to see the joy that it brought people, and yet another example of how music unites people in this continent. When the night was up we made our way back. I had no idea four days ago that I'd get to experience such a thing when I arrived, but it was a nice change after spending all that time in the very touristy parts of Argentina.

The next day we were greeted by a brief visit from the parents of Andres. It was again nice to be experiencing a different dynamic on my travels. It was however very difficult for me to participate in the conversation. Whilst Andres spoke to me in a nice, slow, clear manner, his parents spoke to me as if I was supposedly brought up in Chile. I could follow on a basic level what they were talking about most of the time, but sometimes they would look at me while they were talking, as if I was deeply participating in the conversation. For a start I'd ask them to clarify things for me, but eventually I got a wee bit uncomfortable with asking to often, so I'd simply nood, smile, and say “oooh.. si.” My time with Andres was brief, but very memorable. It was yet another time where couchsurfing had given me a window into someones family, and the culture of a country that I wouldn't have otherwise received. I had intended on hitchhiking from here, but on my final night with Andres he took me out to a few bars, including a karaoke bar, and constantly ordered two for one pisco drinks throughout the whole night, leaving me in a studdering, stumbling mess when we got back to his house.

As I sifted through the pockets of my pants the following day I found the business card of a “franchise bank manager,” with an phone number and address handwritten on the card. As I looked at the card, fragments of memories from later in the night started to come together. I remembered speaking to a woman who was equally as drunk as I was, she was celebrating her promotion which she had received earlier in the day, and told me that she could “show me around the city” if I wanted. I remembered that my Spanish speaking ability had nearly become non existent by this stage, and I needed Andres to do some of the translating for me. He commended me in the morning, saying that she actually had a very high position in the bank, one of the highest in the city. I decided that I was best to leave well alone with the Pisco. (Pisco is one of the national drinks in Chile. Its very strong, sort of like a Vodka style spirit, which seems to catch up you and hit you when its to late!) My hang over in the morning was so bad that the last thing I felt like doing was standing on the side of the road and sticking out my thumb, so I changed my plan and took a bus.

Andres had recommended a route for me to take on my way south. He said that from here to not worry about Puerto Montt, and instead go to a smaller place called Puerto Varas. He said that it was a bit more chilled out, and a lot nicer than the bigger city of Puerto Montt. When I was in the bus terminal the Chilean spanish once again caught me out. I went to a company window and clearly said “do you have any buses that leave today to Puerto Varas?” she replied that she did, and informed me that there was one that left in half an hour. I figured that it was perfect timing for me, so I got the ticket, but then as I was sitting down waiting, I looked at my ticket and realized that she'd actually sold me a ticket to Puerto Montt. I decided not to change it, and I had to go there later on anyway, so I decided to just roll with it and give myself a couple of extra days on Chiloe.

Puerto Montt is a sizable port city towards the south of Chile. I found it to have an interesting buzz, but I didn't really grab me to justify spending any more than one day there. I also got ripped off on a shitty hospedaje, so I decided that I would just make my way to the island the following day. At this stage a really had no plans. Everything I did was completely unorganized, and I never knew what I was going to do the following day. As I looked over a map of the island, the city of Castro appeared to be the more attractive of the cities, with a national park near by. The bus from Puerto Montt took us all the way to Pargua, where we entered onto a barge, which took the whole entire bus over to the island. It was from this point on that my trip in Chile seemed to become cursed with bad whether.

As we finally made our way into Castro I once again had to decide where I was going to sleep. Thus far in my trip I'd lost faith in the lonely planet, “the bible” as they call it, and I always found it more fun to make my decisions as I went along, sometimes this worked out great, other times I was forced to learn a few lessons. I noticed a hospedaje close to the terminal which had wifi so I decided to settle on that. It was cheap and I also had my own room so it was perfect. As I passed a couple of days in the town I tried to make a plan of attack as to how exactly I was approach the south. I found a poster on the wall which outlined the route of the Carretera Austral, a route in the south famous for its unbelievable beauty. It gave me a great reference point and some good ideas to plot my trip, so the next day I took a bus to the southern edge of the island, to a town called Quellon. From here the plan was to take a ferry over to Chaiten, the starting point of the Carretera adventure.

The Cathedral from Castro

As I woke up on the morning of my bus, I realized that I'd once again slept through my alarm. The bus was due to leave at 7am, and the time was 6.45. I jumped out of bed and threw everything in my pack as fast as I could, leaving a few scraps of food on the table as I tried to stuff breakfast into my mouth at the same time. I tried to assure myself that buses always left late here so I'd probably be fine. To make things worse, as I got to the door to leave I found that it was looked, so all I could do was stand there persistently ringing the bell, trying to wake the owner up, whilst looking at my watch every thirty seconds. Finally he came and let me out, giving me a brief apology as I told him my bus was leaving in two minutes. As I ran to the terminal I literally got there as they were about to take off, I think they could tell quickly from my red face and my sweaty armpits that I'd come for this bus, so they opened up the baggage compartment, then let me on the bus, literally in a nick of time.

The city on Quellon really didn't have anything at all to offer for me. As I arrived there at about 9.30am, my main purpose was to find out how to get a ferry ticket, then get out of there as soon as possible. I was once again a bit foolish that I didn't look over the ferry timetable before arriving here, but luck was somewhat on my side that day once again. When I got to the ticket office they informed me that there was only one ferry crossing a week to Chaiten, and lucky for me it was on a Friday. The bad news was that it didn't leave until 9pm. The thought of spending nearly 12 hours in this town made me cringe, but at least I knew I was on my way out tonight.



The glim outlook of Quellon



Getting on board the ferry to Chaiten

After about half an hour of walking around the town it felt like I'd seen all there was to see. Lucky they let me leave my gear in the ferry office, which was one less thing to worry about. As I was sitting on the beach these two local guys asked me to join them. They didn't look to crazy, so I decided to get to know the local vibe. They were drinking beer and after I turned down their offer they persistently tried to make me change my mind, after persistently saying no I tried to have a conversation with them, but they mite as well have been speaking Arabic. Their accent was so strong, and they spoke in such a lazy way that I couldn't even have a basic conversation with them. After a while the guy started getting a we bit strange, he then switched to speaking English, but all he knew how to say was, “I'm crazy man, you know I'm fucking crazy?” I nodded my heading in acknowledgment and said “ahhh yeah I think I'd agree.” He then laughed to me as you do to a good mate when you're fooling around with him, but I wasn't convinced, so I told them that I was on my way. As I got up he explained something to me, this time speaking more neutral Spanish that I clearly understood. He explained that when gringos come on to this beach that out of respect they need to pay the locals because its their beach. I gave him a look as if to say “yeah you really are crazy,” then just walked off. The impression of this town didn't improve throughout the day, pretty soon after I was approached be another man trying to make me feel sorry for him and give him cash, then the rain just topped it off as a very long strange day. Eventually the time finally came around and it was time to get out of here and on to the next stage of the journey.

It was about 7am when we arrived in Chaiten. From inside the boat it was difficult to really know how good the weather was outside, but I got the impression that it wasn't good at all. Throughout the ride I'd met an American couple from New England, and they'd made an offer to me to join in on their plan if I wanted. I took them up on the offer, but as we walked out from the boat I realized that this was very heavy rain, and my pack wasn't really prepared for it at this stage. They said that they were planning on taking a bus to a nearby town, from which they'd make their way to a lakeside camping spot. Although I wasn't all for the idea of camping in the rain, I agreed because I had no other option.

Chaiten had a very airy ghost town feel to it. It was only a couple of years ago that the town was very badly damaged by a volcano eruption, and it seems they never finished the recovery process. The streets all had a film of ash on them, and the damage on the town itself was still very visible. Some of the houses were completely abandoned, one I noticed was literally half filled with ash, which was just pouring out all the windows and open doors. There was also a lot of evidence left behind in the half burned down trees, and washed up tree stumps in the river. It felt like it could have only happened yesterday.

After we started walking I quickly realized that we had no clue where the bus terminal was. I asked a local and he said that there was no terminal. He pointed up the road to a corner building where there was a few other backpackers waiting and told me that a bus would pass by that point, and we could catch it from there. When we arrived there we were greeted by a big group of about five Israelis whom had traveled the Carretera in the opposite direction that we were going, starting from the South. They had hitchhiked nearly the whole way and told me that the further south you to, the easier it gets to find rides. I asked them where the bus goes from here, and they said that it goes to the town of Futaleufu. I wasn't really concerned where I went from this point, if I had been able to find a hostel to dry my gear and prepare myself for the rain, it would have been perfect.

We had been waiting for a little over an hour when the first bus passed. We all waved our hands frantically, hoping this was our ticket out of this ghost town, but it just passed by as if we were ghosts ourselves. It was clearly full, so we sat in hope that another would make its way past. Sure enough another hour later another did pass, but the same thing happened. We were then informed that it was the last bus out of this town, and we wouldn't be finding anymore until the following day. One of the local guys had a van and offered us a deal to take us, but as he was asking for a ridiculous price, I decided to pass. The American couple decided that they would have a go at hitchhiking from here. I was now left with no other options so I bought some water and a few supplies, then took up their offer on joining their group.

As we made our way off into the middle of nowhere I wondered to myself how long I would be able to walk with all this bulky gear. I'd hitchhiked before, but I preferred the style of waiting in one spot and just relaxing and enjoying the experience, while these guys had the style of just walking all day until someone stops, and then just camping if no one stops. After walking for around an hour or so I found a great hitchhiking spot with a potential emergency camp area so I decided to split from their group and go solo. I figured that it would also greatly increase my chances of getting a ride.

The first hitchhiking point

There is something about the adventure of hitchhiking that can be matched with anything else. I have never felt a greater sense of adventure in my life. The sensation of not having a clue where you are, not knowing when or if you'll get picked up, not knowing where you'll go next, all leads to a style of travel which is completely different to that of traveling on buses. This was my first experience hitchhiking alone, which added to the experience that much more. I stood there smiling with my thumb out for about two hours before I was finally picked up by a local guy. I ran up and asked where he was heading and he just opened up the back door of the van and said “vamos!” I noticed a pack was already in the back, so I figured that I'd probably be sharing the ride with another backpacker. The man and his wife were locals from Chaiten, and were both very warm, nice people. The other hitchhiker in the van was also a Chilean, from Santiago, but working down in the South. He asked me where I wanted to go and I just replied saying, “I don't really know, in the general direction of the south.” Most of the ride consisted of the wife venting her anger at the Chilean government for not assisting the people of Chaiten after the volcano eruption, leaving the town to perish over the years, whilst other towns, more touristy further south are flourishing, with ongoing government support.

We were eventually dropped off just outside of a town, although I would hardly classify it as a town, all it consisted of was a couple of houses. It did have a park with a camping area though, so I once again had a back up plan if I wasn't able to find a ride out. The consistent rain by this stage had turned into inconsistent periods of patchy rain. On the edge of town there was a bus shelter which made the perfect waiting place for our next ride. As I spoke to the Chilean he talked to me about a journey that he had made to New Zealand, it's very funny when you are in the most remote places in the world, and you meet people who are familiar with where you are from. He was stressing out slightly because now it was around 5pm he was still four hours away from where he lived further south, he had also missed the last bus, had to work first thing in the morning, and today was his girlfriends birthday. Just to top it off there was no cell phone reception, so he had no way of contacting anyone to inform them of his situation. I tried to chill him out, saying that we should find a ride, and that there was still plenty of time.

Sure enough, after a bit over an hour of waiting a truck finally stopped, and he had enough room for both of us with all our gear. I managed to just squeeze in the back, and after being informed that he was going all the way to Futaleufu, I decided that I would make that my destination for the day. It was a great relief to know that I wouldn't have to worry about rides anymore that day and allowed me to enjoy the rest of the ride. By now the rain had once again set in to a strong, steady flow. We had also gotten to the large section of the road which was shingle, which made things a wee bit slower. I was unable to see what the distant view looked like, but the bush close to the road reminded me a lot of the Lewis Pass, and certain parts of the West Coast. As we approached a small town on the way, the driver stopped next to a truck driver and suggested to the Chilean guy that he asked them whether they were passing through the town that he wanted to go to. To his luck they were, and his problem was solved. He was happy that he would at least be able to celebrate the last couple of hours of his girlfriends birthday.

At about ten kilometers ouside of Futaleufu, the driver stopped and informed me that this is where he lived. He said that I could hitch a ride from here, and if I wasn't able to find something in half an hour that he'd take me the remainder of the way. I wasn't to keen on hitchhiking again because it was still steady heave rain, but it was my only choice. As I was collecting my bags out of the back seat of the truck, another truck came around the corner. I tried my luck and put out my thumb at the same time I was struggling to get the pack on my back. To my surprise he stopped, and I literally was able to take my gear out of one truck, and put it straight into another.



Looking over the quiet town of Futaleufu



Futaleufu was a charming little town, covered my spectacular mountain scenery, but it was hard to fully appreciate it because of all the clouds. My main purpose for being there was to stay in a hospedaje for the night and take a chance to prepare my gear for the rain. I had a couple of waterproof bags, but thus far in my trip I never really had to use them. After buying some food I was all set to hit the road again and carry on south. I decided that this place wouldn't be ideal to hitchhike from because it was a wee bit out of the way, so I decided that I'd take a bus back onto the main route, to a town called Puyuguapi. As I sat in the bus I was happy that I chose this option, as there was still a consistent rain fall outside.

I was hoping that I'd be able to camp at this place to save a bit of money, and I had a glimmer of hope as I stood off the bus that the rain may clear. But soon enough another onslaught of gray clouds crept up and we were once again seeking out the shelter. While I was eating lunch outside the information office I met another group of Israeli guys who informed me of a cheap camping ground in the area which had covered camping spots. It seemed like the perfect option for me, so I grabbed my gear, walked in the direction of the beach, and sure enough found a house with a sign informing of a camp area. I was one of the first to arrive that day so I had the luxury of having many options.

As soon as I'd finished setting up my tent, I went into to kitchen, had a cup of tea and wondered what I was going to do with myself here. There was meant to be a very spectacular hanging glacier near by, but the weather made things very difficult, and didn't really help the motivation levels to much either. Eventually I found a clear path and went for a walk around the place to get some nice view of the town, and upon returning back found that the camp ground had been overrun with cyclists.

The Carretera is a very popular route for tourists, and there were three main ways that people did it. The first was the costly option of hiring a car. This seemed to be the popular option for families and retired couples. The second option was to cycle it. This was very popular and was often the choice of middle ages Europeans. I met many couples, and even a group of two British couples who had been cycling for nearly two years, starting from Central America, literally making their goal to end up in Ushuia. I fell under the third bracket, the tight budget backpackers option, hitchhiking. I swear that this trip must be highly recommended in the Israeli travel guide for South America, because throughout the trip I must have heard more Hebrew being spoken than Spanish. They all seemed to travel in huge groups, leaving me baffled as to how they were able to get rides, but they seemed to do it somehow.

Puyuguapi

I spent a couple of days in this small town, and at one stage thought that my rain jacket had been stolen, only to find later that I'd left it in the local hall, returning the following night I was very lucky and great full to find that it was still there, it would have been the worst possible thing to loose at that time, given what the weather was like. As it came to the time of departure I once again chose the bus option over hitchhiking. Standing in the rain on a Sunday when there was barely any traffic didn't really seem like an attractive option. The only two bus times were at 7am, and 12.30pm. I decided that the early start would be better, but I made the mistake of thinking that it left at 7.30. Luckily the lady was nice enough to let me change the ticket free of charge, but it once again meant that I had a whole lot of time to kill, and nothing much really to do.

The next destination was Coyhaique, one of the few cities of the region. My plan was to spend a brief night there before resuming with the hitchhiking the following day. It was the first place of a decent size that I'd come across since Puerto Montt, and it was the first time that I really felt the consistent cold of Patagonia. My only reason for staying here was to get out some cash, and to once again top up my food supplies. By this stage I was also really starting to get fed up with the rain, to the point where I was even considering crossing back over to Argentina. After inquiring in the tourist information office I realized that there was no bus that crossed over from here, and I'd missed the only bus heading south, so my only option was to hitchhike. I'd had success further north, so figured it couldn't be any more difficult here. I decided to be optimistic and make my next target destination a tiny place two and a half hours south called “Villa Cerro Castillo.”

As I approached the edged of the city, I was presented with the site of about six other hitchhikers, all lined up along the road, trying their best to thumb down a vehicle. I realized that I may never get out of here with this amount of competition, but being my only option I had a go anyway. I thought I better be polite, so I walked passed everyone and took my position and the end of the line, but I decided to walk away from the people a wee bit further, going an extra two hundred meters or so outside of town. The interesting thing was that all of the other hitchhikers were locals. I realized that this is a very normal way of transport for the local people. Many looked as if they'd come in to grab a few things, and now they were on the way out again. I think the fact that I was this interesting looking gringo played to my advantage, it appeared to spur on a sense of curiosity in people. The idea to move further away from everyone proved to be successful. After no more than half an hour or so, a man pulled up and with a friendly smile asked me where I wanted to go. After showing him my map and explaining my route he said that he could take me a good part of the distance.

He looked like he was in his late 50's, and he worked in the Chilean military. At this moment he was off duty, on the way to the airport to pick up a relative. I had a great conversation with him and explained many similarities and differences between the south of Chile, and the south of New Zealand. After a while longer than an hour, he pulled over at this intersection and said “OK, well I'm going straight from here, but if you take that road up you'll get to where you want to go. I gave him a quick hand shake, thanked him for the ride, then once again I was on the road, not knowing how I would take my next step. The place where I was waiting had a nice bus shelter, giving relief to any rain. Now that I'd moved a lot further south the rain had eased off a lot, and I was beginning to hope that I mite even get some consistent sun, but I'd learned better than to get my hopes up in this Patagonian weather.

The traffic from this point wasn't nearly as frequent, and once again I was keeping my eyes out for potential camping spots if I needed them later on. The wait was a little longer here, maybe an hour and a half or so, then a truck pulled up, once again offering a seat. After I showed him the map he also said that he wouldn't be going all the way there, but he would be stopping very close. It sounded good to me, so I threw my gear in the back seat and jumped in. This guy was a lot harder to understand. He spoke in true Chilean fashion, very fast, dropping the end off most words, and using a lot of slang. I was able to understand somewhat that he was a road worker, and for some reason he was on his way to do some work on something, and he was able to take me as far as his work site. A while later, out of the blue, he pulled the truck over at the top of this bit windy mountain pass and said, “OK, I'm working here, you can hitchhike from here if you want. I couldn't believe that he actually thought this place was a good idea as a hitchhiking spot. The first thing I wondered was whether many cars would actually pass over here, the second was if they would have enough time to safely stop.

It turned out that this guy was actually collecting a bunch of road signs from the site, and he was off again before I knew it, leaving me standing in the mountains, trying to think of what I was going to do. There were no areas where I could set up my tent, and the road was far to dangerous to walk down, so my only option was to stay. As a few cars passed I realized that traffic volume wouldn't be the problem, and that it was more likely to be whether or not they'd stop. As I waited and the cars kept passing, I decided to try a different technique, “the desperate prayer technique.” The way it worked was at first I stuck out my thumb as usual, then as they get slightly closer, I put my hands together like a prayer position, then, helplessly, desperately look at the driver, hoping to put some sort of guilt into their mind for not stopping. This worked like a charm, and sure enough the first car I tried it on pulled over for me. They were two engineers who were working on bringing WIFI down to the area. He was happy at the opportunity to practice his English with me, so we both ended up getting something out of it.

Third hitchhiking spot view
to the left



Third hitchhiking spot view
to the right



When they dropped me off I found that there really wasn't anything to the town at all. On the road that passed through there were about fifteen people, all Israelis, trying to hitch rides out of town. I spoke to some and they said that they'd been waiting here all day, some people had even been stranded here longer. By the following morning I came to the conclusion that rather than wasting time here trying to find a ride, I mite as well take a bus through to the next town, in hopes that from there there wouldn't be so much competition for the very limited traffic coming through.

The bus passed by the next day as scheduled, but I then found that it was horribly overpriced (one of the few downsides to Patagonia.) I figured it had to be done, so I paid the money and got the bus to the next place, “Puerto Rio Tranquilo.” This was another tiny town, and the weather had also turned to shit again by this stage, so once again I wasn't able to fully take advantage it. My plan was to straight away begin hitchhiking and try and get a bit further South, so nearly straight after getting off the bus, I made my way to the edge of town in hopes of getting a ride out. The problem with this spot was that there was almost no traffic passing through, and the vehicles that did, seemed very reluctant to stop. I tried everything, even the desperate prayer technique, but nothing worked. After a couple of hours I got frustrated and made my way back to buy a coffee and dry myself off a wee bit. As I was sitting outside a bus pulled over and a whole lot of people got out. It was here that I met a couple, a guy from USA and the girl from Puerto Rico. As usual on this trip, I got to know them well in a very short space of time, and before we knew it we decided to camp out on the back yard of a friendly local and make the next move the following day.

The plan for the next day was to get up early, have another go at hitchhiking, and if I didn't have any success, to take the bus to my next destination. Just after I finished packing up my tent the rain settled in again and the prospect of waiting for a ride didn't seem worth the hassle. I gave it a go for a wee while, but given the fact that there were no cars passing by, and my gear had already gotten wet, I decided that it was easier just to go and buy a coffee and wait for the bus to come by in a couple of hours. As the bus turned up it appeared to be full. By the time it had arrived there were many other backpackers waiting for the bus, all desperate to get a seat, as it was the only bus that passed during the day. In the end we all managed to get a seat, and once again it was way overpriced, but once again my only option. I'd looked on my map and decided that the next place I'd go to would be a place called “El Maiten. It was a junction point on the main road where I was going to veer off to the final destination of my Chilean adventure, a town called Chile Chico, close to the border of Argentina.


A Patagonian New Year

As I made my way south to Bariloche the view gradually changed to the typical postcard scenery that I'd imagined the south of Argentina to be. Before I knew it I was looking out the bus window to jagged mountains, which still had a light coating of snow left over from winter. They stood over pristine lakes which were all bordered with sandy beaches. From the bus these places looked very tempting to swim, but I got the feeling that once I got out there I probably wouldn't get much further than getting my toes a little bit wet.

After the bus arrived I got my first feel of the fresh Patagonian wind. Coming from the strong summer heat of Neuquen I wasn't really prepared for it, still wearing my shorts and t shirt, but the fifteen minute walk to the hostel kept me active enough to avoid getting to cold. Up until this point in Argentina I'd spent a lot of time staying with Argentinians. It had been a great experience, and I'd gotten to know a lot of the Argentinian culture because of it, but I decided that for Christmas and New Years I would find a hostel to settle down in to meet a few people to celebrate with.

I arrived in Bariloche on the 23rd, I'd made a reservation a wee while before, thinking that it would surely be booked out at this time of the year. It turned out that in fact there were plenty of spare spaces available. Posted up on the reception desk was a sign advertising the Christmas dinner for the crazy price of 100 pesos (around $33 NZ.) Normally I'm content on spending 10 pesos for a meal, but I decided that because it was Christmas, I'd spend out a wee bit to have a classic Argentinian asado on Christmas eve.

A view Lago Nahuel Huapi

Hanging around in the hostel seemed like the most attractive thing thing to do after I arrived. I wanted to get out and see some of the surroundings but outside it was so cold that it was hardly appropriate to be going on an easy Thursday afternoon stroll. The whole mountain range was covered in clouds which made it difficult to really see anything more than a gray haze. Argentina up until this point had been all sun and shorts, but now I was once again digging deep into my pack to get out the woolly hat.

As Christmas approached it was barely noticeable that we were approaching the festive season. Occasionally there would be decorations up on the shop windows and there was an impressive Christmas tree in the main square, but the main thing it missed was the fanatical people rushing around everywhere to buy presents (which was a good thing.) Another difference here is that all the celebrations are on Christmas eve, then Christmas day is just a simple day of relaxing and recovering from last nights hangover.

On the day of Christmas eve I looked around and it didn't really feel anything like the day before Christmas. After speaking to many of the people in the hostel I found that not many people had signed up for the Christmas dinner because it was too expensive, turned out I was going to be one of the few people who were actually going to do it. The deal was that for 100 pesos we would get the asado dinner with a selection of salads, “free” alcohol (which only turned out to be one of their local beers), and a desert (which was served up as a small piece of ice cream cake, all of which were individually wrapped in plastic.) I realized pretty quickly that the dinner had fallen well short of the money I'd paid, but I enjoyed it never the less, and made the conclusion that it was still better than most of the meals that I'd made for myself.

The remainder of the night was followed by entertainment from a local performer. He used backing tracks for the bass & drums, then he interchanged between guitar and keyboard to fill in the rest, also putting an extra layer over top by singing. He was always encouraging people to get up and jam wherever possible. After a while I decided to join in on the fun, so I got up and played a couple of songs, hoping that everyone would know them. At the end of the night we all went out to some of the local bars. When we arrived to the first one we waited for nearly two hours before we decided to try somewhere else. We got into the second place a lot faster, but then straight away I saw that it was the place to go for all the 18 and 19 year old school graduates, whom had come to Bariloche for their graduation celebrations. It didn't feel like I was in the bar for to long, but by the time I finally got back to the hostel Christmas day had well and truly gotten underway. It was 8am and I even arrived just in time to enjoy the hostel breakfast before going to bed to spend half of Christmas day catching up on sleep. When I finally got out of bed it seemed that everyone else was doing the same thing also. It didn't end up being what I though it would be, but I was adamant that I would redeem it on New Years eve. After finding out about a different hostel on the lake front, I decided to change hostels in the hope of finding a better vibe.

I was very lucky to get a room in the next hostel. This was the beginning of the peak time, so I turned up early in the morning, hoping I could jump in on a room as someone was checking out. She told me that I would have to wait until mid day, but after an hour informed me that I would have the room for the time that I wanted it. This hostel was a lot smaller, but it had a bar which was very popular with the local people in Bariloche. The first night I arrived they had live music and a very relaxed vibe, I felt a lot better about the prospect of spending New Years here than in the other hostel. The parties continued every night, making sleeping early a slightly difficult option, but the party for New Years ended up being a great party.

Another view of the lake, close to Bariloche from a bike ride I did one day

By the time the night came round I'd made a new bunch of friends and it was a great chance to experience the way Argentinians like to party. The funny thing is that here the parties start very late, and then also finish very late. Back at home, the climax of the party is of course the big countdown to the New Year, but in Argentina the countdown is barely even acknowledged. At the stroke of midnight we all did our countdown, but as the locals were still eating dinner they didn't at all seem bothered by it. They decided to do their countdown a few minutes later, which was a pretty lame effort to say the least. If you would have judged the party by the scene at midnight, you would have easily assumed that the party was a sure to be failure. The bar was empty, and there was just a couple of us sitting around on the lawn. The locals insisted that by 2.30am people would start arriving, and by 3.30 the party would be well into full swing. They turned out to be pretty accurate in their predictions, by 3.30 the place was crawling with people, and was a completely different site to what it was a couple of hours earlier. The Argentinians well and truly outnumbered the tourists, so I felt like I had a real local experience. It was great having a bar in the hostel as well because it meant that we never had to leave to go anywhere else. After once again using another whole day up to recover from sleep I decided that it was time to move on to somewhere else. Through my time in the hostel I'd made friends with a coupe of people who had hired a car for six days. They invited me to join in with them and go and explore a nearby national park and some other small towns close by.



One of the glaciers in "Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi" this
was also the park that went camped at.

 The plan was the go to a national park not to far away called "Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi," and spend some time camping, and weather permitting some hiking also. The park ended up being a wee bit harder to find than we'd originally thought, but after asking directions from a passer by, we finally found ourselves in the right direction. The weather also wasn't what we'd originally hoped for. By the time we'd put the tents up the rain had well and truly set in, and we were left with nothing much to do than sit in the kitchen area and drink mate. Later on that night our neighbors noticed that we were sitting in the car to get away from the cold. They were a wee bit more prepared than us, and had their area well covered at away from the rain, and also had a steady fire well underway. They said that we were more than welcome to come over and drink some mate & share some music with them. We gratefully accepted the offer and went over to join them.

The plan was to do a hike up to a Refugio (hut) the following day and stay a night there. But after finding out that it was absurdly overpriced, and also taking the whether into account, we decided to spend the day in the park instead, then drive a wee bit further south to a small hippie town called El Bolson. Throughout the drive down the weather cleared up, and we ended up getting some of the best view of my whole trip. This area had the typical post card views of Patagonia that I'd imagined before I came. It was great to have a car at this stage, we were able to stop wherever we wanted, and it also meant we could take our time when we wanted.

El Bolson was a very different site to Bariloche. Bariloche was a big city and was well built up for tourism, and at this time of the year it was full of tourists both Argentinians, and foreigners. El Bolson on the other hand was a lot smaller, and had much more of a relaxed vibe. Not only is this place known as a hippie town, but also a place which has a great market, where you could find anything from home brewed beer, to all sorts of crafts, to interesting musical instruments. One of the local beer breweries had a very impressive assortment of flavors, from many types of lagers, to various other interesting infusions such as chili, chocolate, and also an extra potent dark beer.

We were originally only going to spend a brief amount of time at this place, but something about it seemed to lure us in a keep us there for a wee bit longer. The time that we were there happened to co-inside with one of the days of the market, which was a great chance to see what the local artisans had to offer. Later in the day there was also a reggae band which made the already chilled out atmosphere an ideal afternoon in which nothing else seemed necessary other than sitting in the sun and listening to music.

Local band in El Bolson

The next step was to make our way back up to Bariloche, then carry on exploring part of the lake district, ending up in a place called Villa la Angostura. This place was a lot smaller than many of the other destinations I'd visited in Patagonia, but it was still very touristy. The main street was stacked up with souvenir shops, and there was also no shortage of bike rental shops either. By this stage the weather had settled into a consistent rhythm of nothing but long hot sunny days, but despite this the water was still very cold. The day that we went to the lake and have a swim ended up being a day where we spent most of the time sitting by the lake, and about five minutes actually swimming. It was the first time that I'd actually gotten into the water this far south, and I also decided that it would probably be one of the last.

From this point I had decided earlier that I would somehow try to get to San Martin de los Andes, following the route of the famous seven lakes road. Originally my idea was to either hire a bike and do it that way, or possibly hitchhike it as well. I'd passed more time over new years than I though I would, so I was now pressing on to get to Chile. In the end I made to decision to take a bus. It perhaps wasn't the most ideal way to pass through the rout, but I'd seen so many amazing lakes and so much other scenery during the time that we had the car, that I was pretty content with seeing this part through the window of a bus. It was also at this point where we split ways with Flor, and Evan came with me to check out the sights of San Martin.

The Patagonian team from left - Me, Flor, Evan

I had always noticed that Patagonia was a lot more expensive than other areas in Patagonia but I was shocked when I arrived in San Martin, only to find that the cheapest hostel was $25 per night. It turned out that this place was a popular destination spot for the slightly wealthier Argentinians. I decided pretty quickly that I couldn't stick around here for to long, so as soon as I checked into the hostel, I went straight back to the bus terminal and bought my ticket to Chile for the following morning at 6am. It was a Friday night, and the hostel had that feeling about it that there mite be a party going down that night. I realized that I had two options, the first was that I didn't do anything, then go to bed early so I made it up on time for the bus, the second was that I didn't go to bed at all, and just partied on through until I had to catch the bus. I decided to take the second option, and in the end after paying all that money I didn't even sleep in the bed, nor did I get to enjoy the complimentary breakfast, as I was leaving a couple of hours before it was served. Never the less I had no regrets, we ended up going to another hostel next door where we had a huge jam/singalong session. By the time I got to know a couple of people I actually started wishing that I'd given myself a day or two longer there. As the night went on we went to a couple of bars, eventually I got to the inevitable time where I had to make to taxi ride to the terminal to take the bus. At least one good thing that came out of that night was that I was now able to sleep well on the bus, making the long journey seem at least a wee bit shorter. I still didn't have a great idea as to exactly where I was going to go in Chile. All I knew was that I was starting in a city called Valdivia, and from there I was going to travel south until I decided it was time for me to cross back over to Argentina.

From North to South - The road to Patagonia

Mendoza is the region of Argentina most famous for its wine, red wine in particular. The region is also a very similar latitude to New Zealand, I'm sure this is the reason for the amount of similarities I found between Canterbury and Mendoza. There were many vineyards, many fields full of olive plantations, and nearly always there was clear blue sky and hot blazing sun, (perhaps this is one slight difference!) The place where we were going to work was near a small town called Junin, about an hour outside of the city. I'd received an email earlier with a map informing us exactly how we were to find their place from the bus terminal. I figured that a sure way to find it easily would be to show the bus driver the map, pointing to their housing, saying, “we want to go here.” The was a wee bit more to it than that, but eventually the driver confirmed with me that he did know this place, and that he would let me know as we approached it.


The directions that she gave me said that it was about 45mins to an hour on a bus. As we were going along I was trying to orientate myself with the map, but gave up in the end, insisting that I really had no clue where we were. Eventually the bus driver called me up, signaling that we were approaching the stop off point. I stood there ready to get off, but the bus driver then just gave me a confused look, saying to me “there was the cemetery but I can't find the street that you want.” (the cemetery was a land mark on the map which was close to where they lived. Before we knew it we had arrived in Junin, completely missing the place that we wanted to be at. Junin was about 11km past where we wanted to go so it wasn't exactly a convenient place to end up. After dropping us off in the square, the driver said to me that my best bet would be to go and talk to the police and that they'd be able to help me get where I wanted to go.

Despite what people had told me about the police here in Argentina, I once again my experience to be very helpful and positive. I explained to the officer what had happened, and showed him the map where we wanted to be. He then said that there was going to be a bus passing by soon which would be passing by exactly where we wanted to go. He even went out of the way to show us exactly where the bus passed, the got another police officer to wait with us she could explain the the driver exactly where we wanted to go. With this help we were informed exactly upon arrival at our destination. As we were finally walking down the street to where we wanted to go I wondered exactly what we were getting ourselves into, but I was also very curious as to what exactly this experience was going to come to, as I still really had no idea. As I was starting to wonder exactly which one their house mite be we were greeted by a friendly sounding voice, and three dogs whom were also eager to get to know the new guests. Hugo and Silvana were the couple. They were working on a piece of land through the methods of permaculture, with the intentions in mind to eventually make it self sustainable, taking minimal from the earth, and then returning it back where ever possible.

We were greeted in true Argentinian fashion, with mate and tortitas. The mate was as I explained it in my last blog. Tortitas are another distinctive food that come of of the culture. They are small flat breads, some of which have a slightly salty taste. The closest thing I could compare them to back at home would be scones. This is a custom that we very became accustomed to. Every morning we'd have toasted tortitas for breakfast, then every morning after a few hours of work when they got the daily delivery of fresh bread we'd once again stop for the usual mate break. I knew straight away that I'd have a great time for our two week stay at this place. It was a great opportunity to not only get to know the rural aspects of Argentinian culture, but also to learn a great deal about living in a way which consumes a lot less energy and relies a lot less on outside resources. They spoke good English so it also made it a good place for an exchange. I'd practice Spanish as they'd correct my mistakes, while they'd speak English to me.

The first thing that I learnt about permaculture after our introduction, was how mud can be used as a renewable building material. The first part of the process was the preparation of the mud. The four ingredients were dirt, water, chopped up dried grass, and horse shit. It was our job to walk all over the mud, getting everything all mixed in so it could be used for application later on. It was truly getting our hands dirty, but it felt good to be doing some sort of work, and although the thought of mixing shit into mud with my feet didn't appeal to me to much at first, it soon became a fun task. After that we were shown the correct way to layer the mud onto the wall. A mud wall is made of many layers of mud, each layer with a different combination on ingredients, each serving a different purpose. Most of the work we were doing was inside which was just as well, the heat was relentless, and seemed to suck the energy out of me every time I went outside. We carried on working with this throughout the first few days of our stay. Some of the other tasks that I was assigned to included building a fence out of recycled materials, cleaning out beehives, and plating cactus’s.

One of the things that I really enjoyed about my stay here was the change to the simple way of living. Every morning after waking up we'd have toasted tortitas with jam, accompanied with tea. Whenever we sat together to eat or take a break, it would always be accompanied by long interesting talks, with all of us practicing each others language, learning new words off each other. After about two hours of working we'd have our first break, which was often termed “the mate break.” (any excuse to stop and drink a mate here is always welcomed!) There was always a big cooked lunch every day, full of organic vegetables and fresh bread. Possibly the best thing was the standard siesta that followed. The style of working here is very different to back at home. Rather than working less time with less breaks, here is a very long work day, but with many breaks during the day, however the long daylight hours meant that I could still enjoy the day a wee bit, even though we often worked through until 8pm.

Working for two weeks was a great way to break up the trip a wee bit, and it also gave me a wee bit of a chance to catch up on my budget. During my time I felt like I was really able to have a true experience on the lifestyle of a small Argentinian town. On our final night we were lucky enough to be able to share an asado. As usual there was a huge amount of meat, and a lot of red wine, but it made for a great night. In return for putting of the asado I offered to perform a concert, playing some of my original music for the first time. I'd really enjoyed my time over the two weeks, but one thing I was looking forward to was being able to sleep without mosquitos buzzing all around my ear. In the whole time during my stay I would have been lucky if I had four decent nights sleep. We were due to go and stay at a party hostel for a couple of nights so I was hardly going to catch up either.

After saying goodbye to our new found close friends we made our way to the road to catch the bus back to Mendoza. The town that we were near was not very far away from the city, but the buses took well over an hour to reach central city. As we were waiting I noticed that there was a lot of traffic so decided to have a go at sticking my thumb out to catch a ride off one of the locals. It only took five minutes and two attempts before a man pulled over his truck. He said that he was going to small town on the way but he could drop us off there and then from there we could find another ride to Mendoza. We decided to give it a go, so we threw our bags on the back of the truck and jumped in. As usual, the guy was interested in where we were from, how long we were traveling, and how we were able to afford it (that one always comes out eventually!) Halfway through the ride he said to us, “ahh well I could probably actually take you all the way to Mendoza, it's not that much further.” He then went half an hour out of his way to take us all the way to the center of Mendoza city. Not only did it save us a wee bit of money, but also half an hour in time. Our main reason for staying in Mendoza was to get to know the city a wee bit, and also to meet a few people to do some trekking with. During our work Hugo had explained a trek in the mountains that only local people knew about. It was quite an explanation on how to get there, and to assist us had drew a simple map with a few notes each step of the way. It sounded like a true adventure so we were both excited to meet a couple of people and make the trip with them.

After a big walk around the city to try and find a cheap hostel we settled on a place that seemed to have a good vibe, then I immediately went about trying to find some people who may be keen to go on a hike with us. We also hadn't been living with Argentinians for over three weeks now so it was nice to meet some other travelers for a bit of a contrast. One of the things that I really liked about the hostel was the fact that each night it had some sort of theme. One of these included a night which was labeled as “ the asado night with free tequila” it sounded like it would be worth the money, so I signed up and went along. When we arrived at the place the sign conveniently changed from “free tequila” to “free tequila from 11 – 11.30pm.” This wasn't the only catch either, if you wanted to take a drink of tequila you had to tilt your head over the bar as they poured it directly into your mouth. You can imagine the scene. I had a few turns, but after filling my stomach up with excessive amounts of meat, it didn't react particularly well to the tequila.

A couple of days was more than enough for me to get a wee bit of partying done, and through that time we also met a couple of who people whom were interested in joining us for the hike. There were now four of us, which made an ideal number for the hike. On the morning of our departure we had a mad rush buying last minute supplies and picking up our tent for hire. It was cutting time very finely, arriving at the terminal with not one minute more to spare. It seemed that in Mendoza the one time that you needed a taxi asap was also the one time that they happened to be busy, or they just didn't feel like stopping. The first step of our adventure was to take a bus ride to a small town from which we were to start the hike from. It was yet another one of those trips where we really didn't have much of an idea as to what we should be expecting.

When we arrived in the town I realized that really was a small town. The only shop open in the whole town when we arrived was a small restaurant. When we showed the guy our basic map, at first he gave us a confused look, saying, “I think you've come to the wrong place, this map doesn't look familiar at all.” He then studied it for a while and finally realized where exactly it was that we were wanting to go hiking. It was about 5.30pm and he told us that we had about three and a half hours to our first camp site. The second day involved climbing up to the top of a saddle, going around a traverse, the climbing all the way to a hut where we'd spend the second night. The third day was the return all the way back to the town. None of us really had a clue as to how long it would take us to the first camp site that night. We'd met several people whom had all told us completely different things. Hugo wrote on the map two hours, a guy on the bus told me four or five hours, and a guy we met on the track on the way said that we still had another three hours to go (after we'd been walking for an hour already.”) We had decided that if we still hadn't found the campsite by eight o'clock that we'd just set up camp wherever we were, but in the end the three hour prediction turned out to be the most accurate and arrived in time with plenty of daylight to spare to set up our tents and even explore the surrounding areas a little bit. This day had been fairly straight forward, but day two was set to be the most challenging day. The map was very vague, pointing out a few obvious land marks that would supposedly lead us the way.

Day two began with a late start, but by nine we had finally left and the next step was to find something resembling a saddle, which was meant to our first point of orientation. Once we reached to top of the saddle we were meant to find a big pile of rocks, and from there the path was meant to be shown with other small rock piles. It took us a wee while to come to a decision as to where exactly the saddle was that we were supposed to climb. The camp site was in a valley so there were several places that slightly resembled a saddle like figure, but in the end we settled on one in hopes that we wouldn't have to climb all the way back down. Once we got to the top we were unable to see anything that looked like a man made rock pile, so we had another group meeting to decide where exactly we were going to go. We figured that maybe we'd come up the wrong end of the saddle, and we mite find the pile if we carried on up to the other side. After about 20mins of wondering if this trip was a good idea we finally came to the big man made rock pile which was one of the key land mark points on the map. It was a great confidence boost to know that at least we'd made this decision correctly. Hugo had explained to us that after this point it was fairly straight forward, simply a matte of following the rock piles until we reached the refugio, (hut.)

Luckily the small rock piles were in fact pretty obvious from this point, which made the pass over the traverse pretty straight forward direction wise, but the path was very steep and rocky. That coupled with the altitude made it a very challenging walk, requiring breaks every twenty minutes to half an hour. We were very lucky on this day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and from the top of the traverse we were able to see a view that stretched all the way to the horizon. The view revealed lakes, mountain peaks, and condors, which all seemed to be hidden away from the bottom of the valley. (This was another situation where my camera ran out of batteries so once again I'm short of photos from the second day onwards.) The second big landmark that we were looking out for was a second campsite. This wasn't to far away from the hut , so it was going to be our point of reference that we were on the right track. As we approached the point of the map where it specified the campsite we couldn't find anything but rocky slops which didn't exactly look ideal for camping. We carried on anyway, by now we were on our way up a valley on our final stretch to the hut. At this point the sun was unbearably hot with no shade to be seen anywhere, the track was so loose and steep that it felt like we went back two steps with every step we took forward, and my pack by now felt like it weighed 100kg.

After about two hours of climbing up the valley we saw something that looked like maybe it mite be the hut that we were so disparately hoping for. It was very far in the distance, but it still gave us some sense of hope that maybe we'd be arriving soon. As we got closer our hope was crushed, as we realized it was nothing more than a pile of rocks which just happened to sit in a very deceptive way. Even though it wasn't the hut that we were looking for, we still took the opportunity to take a well needed break. All I wanted to do at this stage was go to sleep. The sun had drained every bit of energy out of me, and we really had no idea where we were, or even if we were anywhere close to the hut. We still hadn't seen a campsite so we were wondering if we'd just passed it by without noticing, or if we'd taken a wrong turn somewhere and taken a completely wrong direction. The only option we had from here was just to keep walking in the general direction of where we thought it mite be. Eventually we saw something that resembled a man made object. It was hard to pick out exactly what it was, but it looked like an areal of some sort, which gave us the sign that there surely must be something else there. After our last incident with the rocks I was careful not to give myself false hope, so I decided that I wouldn't make any conclusions for myself until I could see 100% that it was for sure the hut. As we climbed over the hill I was me by a feeling of immense relief as I saw the shape of a small building reveal itself in front of me. I was beginning to form some pretty strong doubts in my head, but all that quickly subsided when I was finally able to relax, knowing that we'd arrived. The day hadn't been a really long day, but the six hours in total had all been spent doing very steep climbing in the very hot sun, which made it one of the most difficult days trekking that I'd done on this trip.

As soon as we arrived I lay straight down on the bed and went straight asleep. I didn't get to explore around the hut very much, because I didn't have any energy at all to do so. The rest of the night was spent sleeping, only getting up briefly to have something to eat. I realized at that point that the sun had done more to me than just draining my energy. As the headache started kicking in I realized that I'd suffered a minor case of sun stroke. I decided to go to bed early, hoping that a good nights sleep would restore my body back to what it was. As I awoke early the following morning I realized that my body was anything but restored back to what it was. My stomach was making very strange noises and the first thing in my mind as I woke up was “you need to go to the toilet right now!” I quickly rumbled through my bag to find my toilet paper, then I rushed outside to find a rock to hide behind while I let the pressure off a wee bit. I'd had the shits a couple of times on this trip already, but I could never have asked for a worse place than at the top on a mountain. By 9am I'd already gone to the toilet three times, and the others kindly offered to let me rest for another hour or two before we left, insisting that we still have plenty of time go get back before the final bus. I tried to sleep if off for a couple of hours, but it didn't really get any better, instead it felt like I had acid in my stomach, and that every time I put food in my stomach it wanted to get rid of it faster than it went in.

After a short sleep the inevitable time came when we had to start making a move, and I just had to have a go and see how it went. Luckily Anni had a special pill that she gave me. Normally I don't like taking pills when I'm sick but this was one circumstance where I was willing to try anything. After one last dash out to my hiding spot we started out I didn't feel to bad, I just took my time and I was getting down alright. This didn't last to long, every step down seemed to shake up my stomach that little bit more, making it more and more unsettled the further down I went. Eventually it got to the point where I was having to stop every ten minutes to let my stomach settle a wee bit. I was also made hard by the fact that my body didn't appear to retain any of the energy that it had lost in the previous day. After about an hour and a half it got to the point where I was really struggling to go any further, and by this stage the pill still hadn't worked any of its magic on me. It was at this point where Matthais offered to carry my pack for me. The other girls divided up some of my things between themselves to make it a bit lighter, then Matthais went about climbing down the steep, rocky, narrow path with his back on his back, and mine strapped around the front. This helped a lot, but I was still lagging behind as I slowly made my way down. After about three hours the pill finally started kicking in, and I was finally starting to feel normal again.

By the time we'd finished the most difficult part of the climb my stomach had finally started to settle and I was now able to fart without the fear of shitting my pants. The day had passed by pretty quickly and we were now wondering if we were going to make it back in time for the final bus. At this part of the day everyone was really starting to feel the tole of a difficult two days of hiking and we were really making our way back quite slowly. We all decided that it would be nice to make it back in time for the bus, but if we didn't it wouldn't be a problem if we had to stay. When we got back to the starting point of the trek we still had a couple of minutes to spare before the bus was due to arrive so we made one final dash to the bus stop hoping that we'd get there just in time to jump on board.

We got to the stop pretty quickly, but after a one and a half hour wait we were beginning to wonder that maybe we did in fact miss it. Just when we were really beginning to wonder, a man pulled up in a truck and told us that it was some public holiday here at the moment, and the the usual bus schedule isn't running. Apparently there was still one bus due to pass by, but no one really had a clue as to what time. Eventually after a two hour wait the bus came through and we were on the bus back to Mendoza. I was happy with the adventure that we went on, even though the start of the third wasn't one of the most enjoyable times of my life. We had been lucky to have perfect panorama views, also the privilege of seeing a couple of condors. The plan here was just relax in Mendoza for a couple more days before having another go at hitchhiking in the south.

Mendoza ended up being one of my favorite cities on my trip. It had a big city feel, but also seemed to have a very relaxed energy about it. It had several impressive plazas, a huge park, and all the streets were lined with big old trees. Eventually I'd spent three weeks in the region of Mendoza so I was well due for a new place. Some of the locals had told me that the nearby town of San Rafael was also a nice places , with some good areas for camping. We decided that it would be a nice place to spend a couple of days. One of the great things about this area was the canyon, which was filled with great areas for camping. We found a campground which had been recommended by a local and spend a few days camping by the river. From here we decided that we would have a go at hitchhiking as far in the direction of Neuquen as we could. A man at the campground recommended to us that we should first take a bus from San Rafael to and small town called General Alvear. He said that this was a very small town and a good place to start hitchhiking from.

It was only a short bus ride to General Alvear before we were about to embark on our first hitchhiking adventure of the south. First priority was to buy some snacks for the long waits, then the second priority was to find out where the road was that went in the direction of Neuquen. I thought a good person to ask would be someone from the bus terminal, so I went into one o the offices and explained that we were wanting to hitchhike, and therefore we were looking for the best place in town to wait from. He gave me these crazy directions which I understood fine, but still had an intuitive sense that they were going to lead us in the completely wrong direction. As we made our way in that general direction I thought for sure that this was the wrong direction, so we went in to a bakery and asked again. Sure enough, the guy had given us the directions for anywhere but where I had asked him. Luckily it was easy to find where we wanted to go, and after a brief walk we'd arrived in the outskirts of the town, ready to find a ride.

As we were waiting there we were approached several times by police officers. At first I thought they were going to try and negotiate some sort of bribe out of me, but it turned out they'd just come over for a friendly chat, asking us where we were from, what we were up to, and where we were wanting to go. They also looked at us a bit funny, wondering why we were waiting in this heat. Two long hours had passed by and we were beginning to think of other options if we wouldn't be able to find a ride. Just as we were talking about the idea of taking a night bus, a truck pulled up. The back was filled up with hay bails, and inside were three young looking people. I spoke to the guy who was driving and told him that we were looking at getting to Neuquen (over 400km away,) but I also said that first we were aiming to reach Santa Isabel first (150km.) He told us that they lived on a farm not so far away, and that they could drop us off at the police checkpoint on the boarder of the next province, which wasn't to far away from Santa Isabel. He also said that it should be easy to find a ride there because all the cars have to slow down to almost stopping, making it more likely that they'll pull over. We started off the ride on the back of the truck, sitting amongst the hay bails, but pretty quickly we were covered in hay, so we all squeezed into the back seat together. They were all around the age of 19 and 20 and were friends from the community. The ride went for about an hour and during the ride we got to know a lot about each others culture. As they dropped us off at the checkpoint it was yet another moment in the trip where we were saying goodbye to people that it seemed we got to know so well in such a small space of time.


The police checkpoint turned out to be a great place to hitchhike, as the others had told us. I spoke to the man working there and he said to me that our best bet would be to take a big cargo truck because they will be passing through all the way down to Neuquen. The problem with that was that they don't pass through until later in the evening, and it was now only about 4pm. We had a nice shady spot to wait, then Anni and I took turns to stand for a while and stick out our thumb. After a couple more hours waiting a man pulled up, once again a truck and told us that he'll be passing through the town of Santa Isabel. It was perfect for us, and we got to ride on the back of a truck through Patagonia for the remainder of the journey. It was the ultimate feeling of adventure and we raced down the highway, leaving every car in front of us to fade behind. I had no idea how fast this guy was going, but was fun sitting on the back. We arrived in Santa Isabel in a lot shorter time than I thought we would, and the town was tiny, with not much more than a few corner stores and a small bus terminal. After he dropped us off there we tried to find out some information about buses, but the office we needed wasn't open until ten in the evening. The heat from the sun at this stage was also so hot that we decided that we'd catch a bus from here to Neuquen.

The wait lasted for ever, but eventually the office was open and I was finally able to ask about a night bus passing through to Neuquen. The lady said to me that there was a bus passing through this evening, but that it wouldn't be passing by until 2.45am, (it was only about 10.15pm at this point.) Being our only option, we tried to find an interesting way to pass the painfully long wait. For a while I read, for a while I listened to music, and I even managed to sleep for a while, but nothing seemed to make the time pass quickly. I slept for a while just before the bus arrived, thinking that I'd be able to sleep properly when the bus arrived. But as we got on the bus I learned quickly that this wasn't going to be a smooth bus ride. A man about two seats behind me was snoring so loud that even the bus driver was probably getting bothered by him. The couple beside me also decided that even though it was three in the morning, they'd still have they big social catch up, informing everyone else close to them at the same time. There are not too many things that really wind me up, but wanting to sleep and being kept awake is defiantly something that wore my patience pretty thing. In the end I was able to sleep, but only because my eyes couldn't possibly stay awake for any longer.

It only seemed like I'd been sleeping for ten minutes before I was awoken by the arrival at the Neuquen bus terminal. We had organized to couchsurf here, but we still didn't exactly know whom we were going to stay with. Anni had contacted two people and made requests to stay at their couch, but no conclusion had been made yet as to whom exactly we were going to stay with. As we sat in the terminal we did some last minute planning to try and find a place where we could stay. After some last minute emails we received a phone call from Nico. He told us that we could stay at his house, but we had to wait until 6.30pm this evening for him to finish his work. It worked out well because the other girl called and offered to show us around for the afternoon until we were ready to go to Nico's house. As Valentina and I met and got to know each other, I found out that she was a singer, and frequently did gigs here in the city. I told her that I was also a musician, and that I was always looking for opportunities to perform my music. She said that if I stayed in Neuquen for a while that she would give me an opportunity to perform at one of her gigs. I'd already bought my ticket to San Martin for the following day, but now I was thinking that maybe I'll stay for a wee bit longer. By that evening I'd made up my mind that I was going to refund my ticket and stay in Neuquen to make use of some musical opportunities. Anni decided that she would carry on to San Martin, so from the following day I was once again traveling solo.

Staying at Nicos house was a great way to get to know some more of the Argentinian culture. He was new to this city as well, so the chance to go out and meet people was gladly taken up by the two of us. A couple of nights later I went to a Brazilian bar where Valentina was performing. Originally I was going to get up and do a wee duet with her for one song, but she ended up just saying to me, “ahh just get up and play your own songs for a while.” When I got up I decided that I'd give them a taste of New Zealand, playing “Loyal,” then I carried on playing my originals. Throughout my time there I also got to see Tango performed for the first time, and also went to a salsa bar, but both times I was content to stick to a spectators roll. I also learned the correct way to prepare a mate, and a great new way to prepare a huge cut of meat. As usual the time disappeared and already Christmas was approaching. I thought about a few options, and in the end decided that Bariloche would be the place to celebrate. After one last night out in the city I forced myself out of bed for the early bus and made my way to my first destination of Patagonia.

Ok, well I'm caught up again now, from now on maybe I can make them a wee bit shorter and more frequent, but my habit thus far has been leave it until its to late so I don't know whether or not that idea will manifest, we'll see!

Drinking Fernet and Eating Empanadas - Learning the fundamentals of Argentinian culture

After a long break from my blog I've finally decided to get back into it and somewhat update things. Because of the fact that I got so far behind I've decided to miss out the last part of my Bolivian section. It involved a very fascinating three day trip through the salt flats from a town called Uyuni, but I'll just post the photos up and then you can get a pretty good idea on what that was like. I'm going to start this off with my arrival from the Bolivian border town of Yacuiba, into my first taste of Argentina in the town of Pocitos. I'm going to warn you in advance that these posts will be long reads, but I'm hoping that next year I can keep them more frequent and a wee bit shorter.... but we'll see.


By the time I'd spent a few days in Yacuiba I was well and truly ready for a new country and a new culture. Bolivia had been very cheap and a great adventure, but at times very exhausting also. After taking my final taxi in Bolivia I arrived at the border. As I got my final exit stamp out of Bolivia there was only a small bridge separating me from the two countries. When I arrived I had to wait a bit for my visa entry, then as my bags were searched I was exposed to the Argentinian accent for the first time. As my bags passed through the scanner the security guard mumbled something at me so fast that I could barely pick a word. I asked him if he could please repeat it a wee bit slower so I could understand. He then repeated the exact phrase at the exact same speed. I gave up after the third time and said to him "no entiendo" (I don't understand.) Eventually I was able to understand that he was asking about one of the unusual pieces of recording equipment that I had. I thought my Spanish was coming along nicely before this encounter but after this it made me realize that maybe Argentina will pose me a new challenge with it.

I didn't intend on hanging around in Pocitos for very long. I had decided to cross the border early to give myself enough time to catch a bus to Jujuy by the late afternoon. As I was walking through the town to the bus terminal I noticed that it was very similar to Bolivia, both the people and the town itself were clearly influenced by the culture of their close neighbors. When I arrived at the terminal I was given my first reality check on how much more expensive Argentina was going to be. The buses up until now had been very cheap, normally between $1 - 2 per hour. But here the cheapest I was able to find was three times as expensive. The cheapest one didn't leave until four hours after I arrived in the terminal so I was once again forced to spend some patient hours waiting in the terminal. I tried to have a conversation with a shop keeper, but once again ended up being left with nothing but a confused face, trying to somehow become accustomed to the strange accent.

The time flew by quickly and finally I was on the bus and ready to head to my first Argentinian city, Jujuy. This was scheduled to take about seven hours so I was expecting that I'd arrive by the early evening. It wasn't long into the bus ride when I learnt that in Argentina they take a few more security precautions around the boarders than in some of their other close and distant neighbors. After about ten minutes into the ride we came across our first security check. There were four guards standing on the side of the road in their army outfit, one of then putting out their hand as we approached, signaling for the bus to pull over. One of them then came of to the bus and informed us all the we had to get off the bus and take all our things outside with us. When we stepped off the bus we also had to grab our big luggage to get searched.

Once we were all off two guys with mirrors and torches entered the bus to search it over for any prohibited items. Outside the bus we had to make two lines, one for the men and the other for the women. It was the first time that I'd been in a situation like this so I was a wee bit curious as to what would happen. The guards all looked very serious and didn't really look like they were to interested in conversation. But as I gave the guard my passport he looked me and said "ohhh kiwi ay" I laughed and said "ohh so you know a bit about New Zealand?" he smiled and said "yes you guys are fanatical about rugby there, you have Jonah Lomu." It was obvious that he hadn't been following the rugby in recent years. It was also clear that they weren’t so concerned about the tourists. He checked through the first couple of things that were in my bag, then gave me the nod and told me to go and wait in the other line. About forty minutes later we were finally finished and on our way again. That same bus ride later turned in to what seemed like the never ending bus ride. There were two more stops where we had to repeat the same process, then one more check later on in which only the bus was searched. The standard seven hour ride to Jujuy turned out to be about ten and a half hours.

As I walked around Jujuy the next day, the sight of Mcdonalds restaurants, expensive clothing shops, and cafes selling espresso coffee reminded me of home. Even though I still had the sense of being in a distinctly different culture, at the same time I felt I'd somewhat come back into civilization again. The downside to that was that everything had also become a lot more expensive. I'd been given a guide book from 2008, but since then there has been so much inflation that some things have doubled in priced. I got a wee bit of a shock when my hostel was 50% more than what I was expecting, so I decided after a couple of nights that it was time to put my tent to use again. I met two Canadian cyclists from the hostel who had a tent also, who decided to join me. We'd been recommended a good place about 40mins outside of Jujuy which had hot thermals and places to camp. When we got there we realized that the thermal hot springs were in fact part of an expensive hotel and were really nothing more than a spa, so we ended up just going to a more low budget outdoor park which had a pool. When I asked the lady if we could camp there she said that they didn't allow it, but it would be fine if I camped on the side of the road. For two nights I had a free spot next to a river with an outlook over the Northern Andes. Two days gave me enough time to plan my next move. I had a week before I needed to be in Salta, so I decided to check out some of the small towns north of the city.

I chose to base myself in a small town called Tilcara, which was about a two hour bus ride from Jujuy. I didn't really know anything about the place, the reason I chose Tilcara was because that it looked big enough to be interesting, but at the same time small enough to be nice and chilled out. I had only been in Argentina for around a week by this stage, so I was still trying to figure exactly was "cheap" or "expensive." After getting dropped off in the small terminal I began my wonder through the town to find a cheap hostel option. The first one I found had labeled itself as a hostel, but when I inquired about a price the cheapest room was about $56 NZ. It quickly became apparent to me that maybe this wasn't exactly the most ideal location for a tight budgeted backpacker. As I carried on down the road I saw a rough looking sign with "Burrito Hostel 400m" written on it, "surely this couldn't be anything to flash" I thought to myself.

As soon as I entered the door I realized that it was exactly what I was looking for. It reminded me of an old student flat I used to live in, dirty dishes were scattered all over the kitchen bench, and everywhere you looked there seemed to be some sort of clutter lying around. Outside there was a big area for asados and a big sunny area with a hammock. The owner of the hostel had one of the most difficult Spanish accents that I'd ever heard. I could barely understand him, but eventually I managed to get the price out of him, and communicate to him that I didn't really know how many nights I was going to stay. He was one of the most relaxed hostel owners I'd ever seen, (or maybe lazy is a better word for it.) It wouldn't be uncommon for people to leave, then he wouldn't even bother to make the beds. Some of the rooms were empty, yet most of the beds always looked like they were occupied. Having said this, his unique nature made for an interesting stay.

A couple of nights into the stay me and a couple of others decided to have a go at doing the almighty Argentinian Asado. I really had no idea how to go about it, and I had no choice because being the only male it was up to me to prove myself on the grill, this night the hostel owner just so happened to be away as well so I was left to some how figure it our for myself. This is a whole different thing to our BBQs back at home. In New Zealand all it takes is lighting a flame to the gas, then just standing around with a beer in your hand, making sure you turn the meat every now and again. The Argentinian method however is a whole science on it's own. The two different types of fuel they use are wood, or carbon. This place didn't really have any wood, so the common technique was with the carbon. After buying all the ingredients from the local store the time had come to give it a go. There was no wood at all so I really didn't know about going about getting these coals hot enough to cook some food over. There was barely even enough paper there to start a fire. I scrunched it all up the draped a few pieces of coal over it in hope that it mite get a bit heat into them, but in no time all the paper was burnt out and the coals barely looked like they'd been touched by any heat at all. I tried to think how I'd find more paper, then I remembered that I had some old Spanish notes which I'd pretty much finished with. After several more unsuccessful attempts I said to one of the girls (who had previously seen how this was done,) "I'm running out of paper, there is no wood, and these coals are so cold that I cold put them back in the paper bag and it probably wouldn't lite on fire." After some thinking we decided that maybe if we tried some petrol, that mite get some heat into them. All this did was made a huge flame for a little while, then just made the whole area stink like petrol. By this stage the girls had prepared all the food for the grill and the pressure was really building to redeem this failure first attempt. Just when I was on the brink of giving up, the hostel owner arrived back. I did my best to explain to him the problem and he just said to me, "ohh you need a lot more carbon than that, and also more paper." After retrieving him what he had requested, he proceeded to show me the way in which you do it properly. The first thing I'd done wrong was trying to light the fire and then put the coals on top. He told me that I needed to put them on top of the grill, then light the fire underneath, heating them from below. I thought that now he was here that he'd take over and I could just observe, but after explaining it to me in his crazy Spanish he said to me "cool, now you can carry on and finish it." Although we now had hot coals, it didn't really turn the whole thing into a success. After about a four or five hour wait we were finally able to have our dinner and about 11.30. It tasted pretty good in the end, but I decided that the next few times I would be the observer rather than the cook.

After my terrible failure on the grill I had a chance to redeem myself a few nights later when a local musician offered me a gig with him. He was friends with the hostel owner and had come over the night of the asado for a catch up. After we each played a couple of songs he said to me, "hey I'm playing in a bar tomorrow night, you can come and play a set if you want." (This guy spoke so fast that I was never able to understand anything he said, I always needed someone to translate for me!) I'd written a few of my own songs by this stage so I was eager to take the opportunity to jump behind a mic and have a go. When I turned up the following night the place was pretty quiet, but I was happy to play my first gig to a quite, yet receptive audience. As I waited for my turn to play I pondered over what I was going to play. I ended up deciding that the best thing would be just to decide when I get up there. Eventually the time came, and before I knew it, for the first time in my life I was sitting on a stage with a mic in front of me, about to perform the play my own original music. I'd performed many gigs and sang to many people before this, but this experience was very unique. Not knowing the feedback that you'll receive from your original music certainly brings up a sense of vulnerability, but as soon as I began playing I immediately relaxed and enjoyed the experience, it was also to my advantage that nearly all the audience consisted of Argentinians, which meant they were unable to understand what I was singing about anyway. Despite this they all gave me a great reception after wards, and through this performance I was even offered another one the following night.

My time in Tilcara had come to pass very quickly. When you get to know people its very easy to just pass up a week somewhere before even realizing it. I perhaps would have stayed longer in this place, but I had arranged a time to meet Andrea in Salta, so the inevitable time eventually came, and I was on my way to Salta. I only managed to find a later afternoon bus that left, and it was due to arrive in Salta until about 9.30pm, but I figured it would still be OK to have a go a pitching a tent at this hour. Once again however to bus ride was delayed with police searches, and it wasn't until about 11pm that we arrived. As I arrived at the terminal my next plan was to take a taxi to a camp ground where Andrea’s tour group was supposedly camping, and have a go at pitching my tent in the dark. After waiting outside the terminal for ten minutes without seeing a free taxi I decided to walk down the street for a bit until I found one. As the driver drove past various places he pointed out each place that I mustn’t walk at night because of almost certain risks of being mugged, then afterward he said to me, "but Salta really is a great city, we have the best wine, and some beautiful places to visit."

As I got all my gear out of the taxi I was relieved that I could finally just relax for a wee while.... well so i thought. As I was approaching the gate of the campground the guys were all looking at me like I was a complete idiot. I told them that my sister was staying here with a big tour group and that I've come to join the group for a couple of days. The guy then looked at me and said "you can't stay here at the moment, the campground is closed until mid December." I was very confused because I'd found this place on the internet and there had been no information about it on there, nor did the taxi driver mention anything when I told him that this is where I wanted to stay. At 11.30pm I couldn't really be bothered searching for another hostel but at this point I really wasn't left with many options, so I jumped into another taxi and went nearly straight back to where I'd come from. As this was meant to be the meeting point for my sister and I, I had no idea as to how exactly I was going to go about finding her now, not having a cell phone was certainly going to make things difficult.

Luckily the hostel I found had wifi, so the following day we were able to have a brief conversation on facebook to organize a new meeting place. It turned out that they had arrived in Salta after me, and had come across the same issue, turning up at the camp ground, only to find that it was closed. When we met I jumped into their luxury tour bus and went with them to find a new campground to stay at for a couple of days. Andrea was traveling in the form of an organized tour group, so it was very interesting for me to see the contrast of this way of travel, compared to independent travel. It was also nice to have to company of a big group for a few days after traveling solo for a wee while. With the recommendation of the driver, we were taken to a steak restaurant, which served the biggest and best tasting steak that I've ever eaten. (If you like meat, you haven’t truly enjoyed life fully until you experience an Argentinian steak!) After the meal we all decided that it would be a good idea to go out to the town and have a couple of drinks together. I managed to drag everyone to a karaoke bar at the beginning, then after a while when we'd all had enough drinks we were all ready for the dance floor, after searching the street for a good looking bar, we finally found a place that looked popular. The music was of course the typical reggaton. Even though its far from my musical choice, its a lot easier to blend in on the dance floor as opposed to salsa or meringue, where unless you're one of the locals (many of whom look like they learnt to dance before they learnt to walk!), you just have to do your best to shuffle your feet around and move your hips, pertending that you at least have a vague idea on what you're doing. Later that night I met a local guy and he was interested in my travels. I'm always glad to have conversations in Spanish because its good practice, so I asked him if he wanted to go outside to have a yarn. I told him all about my travels, and he told me a bit about the culture of Argentina. The time passed by pretty quick and eventually I got to the point where I thought I better go and find everyone again.

As I scanned the entire night club I couldn't find anyone anywhere. I started getting a wee bit worried because I had no idea where the campground was that we were staying at or even a slight clue as to the name of it. All I knew was that it was about 20mins out of town. As I kept looking around I found the guy that I'd had a conversation with and I asked him if he had seen anyone from my group, explaining the whole situation to him. We had a look around and he said to me, "don't worry, we can help you find them. If you don't find them then you can stay at my place and sort it our tomorrow." I said to him that I'd rather try and sort it out tonight, so he offered for me to jump in his car and we'd have a look around. Luckily he was pretty sober, but the rest of the guys in the car were far from that. As we drove around Salta I really had no idea as to how exactly this was going to help in finding anyone. Eventually at about 5am he drove me to the police tourism office and said, "here you can speak to the police, they know of the camping areas around here so they can help you find where you need to go." I gratefully said thank you and made my way into the police office, wondering if they would really be able to help me here.

There were two people working in the office, and of course they didn't speak a word of English. At 5 in the morning it was defiantly a bit more effort to get my point across, but never the less I was able to tell them my situation, but then they said to me, "we aren’t the tourist police, they don't arrive here until 8am, so if you want you can wait here for them to arrive you can." I was meant to meet everyone at the campsite at nine to go on a horse trek for the day, but I realized when they told me that, that I was almost certainly going to miss that. To my surprise the police were actually very friendly. They were curious about New Zealand culture, and why I was traveling, and they occasionally offered me water, or tea. The three hour wait also gave me a lot of time to look at a map of Salta to try and recover anything in my mind that mite help me remember where the site was, but nothing at all came up. When the tourist police finally arrived I once again explained my situation to them. They said that there were many many camp grounds around Salta, and because of the fact that I couldn't even give them a direction, it made things a lot more difficult for them. They made a list of over ten campgrounds, and began calling each one, asking if there was a big tour group staying there with a big yellow bus in their area. An hour went by and the same answer came up every time... no. What made matters worse, was that it was a Sunday, and in Argentina that means that absolutely nothing is open, and the internet was down in the office, so we had no access to the internet. I then realized that Andrea had given me the cell number of her friend in one of her emails. Even though she specifically said you can't call this number, I figured if I can get on the internet and find it, I could just have a go anyway. After explaining this to them they took me to another office where I was able to borrow their internet to recover the phone number. I tried a couple of times and luckily managed to get through. At about 10am I was finally able to track down the directions to where we were all camping, it turned out to be pretty much the opposite direction to where they had been looking. By the time I got back I'd of course missed out on the horse trek, but I was so far behind of sleep that I spent the whole day sleeping anyway so it didn't really matter to much.

As usual the three days camping went by like nothing and once again I was in the position where I had to decide where I wanted to go next. I had about three days before I was meeting a friend in Cordoba, so I decided to go to the town of Cafayate for a couple of days. A touristy place famous for its wine and beautiful surroundings. I managed to find a surprisingly cheap hostel there which had a good outdoor area to spend a few days relaxing and writing some music. On my final night we also had an asado. This time I was happy to watch someone who knew what they were doing do the job. It was a great social atmosphere with people from France, Irland, and of course Argentina. An essential thing to accompany an asado is of course red wine, so after filling my stomach with the two I was well and truly ready for my 17 hours of bus travel which was to begin at 1.45am. I wasn't able to find a bus which went directly to Cordoba from Cafayate, so I first had to take on to Tucuman, then from there find one that would take me the rest of the way. The first ride to Cordoba was about 7 hours. It worked out perfect, when I reached the terminal in Tucuman I was able to find one that left half an hour later, giving me enough time to have some breakfast and to stretch the legs before the next long haul. I was excited about Cordoba, here was going to be my first experience of couchsurfing, and I was also going to be meeting a friend of mine, Anni.

As I arrived in Cordoba I realized what people had meant when they told me that it's a huge city. The bus drove around suburbs for nearly an hour before it even arrived at the terminal. There was a university close to the city center so the city had a very alive buzz with young people wondering around everywhere. The local that we stayed with was called Emanuel. He lived in an apartment with his brother close to the city center. Staying in the house of a local person is a very different experience to the hostels. It was great to have someone show us around the city and give us some recommendations on some cool places to check out. His brother was also a chef, so one night he showed us how to cook empanadas. We were also introduced to a couple of other popular Argentinian customs including mate, and fernet. Mate is like a herbal tea but it is served and drank in a very particular way. Everyone drinks out of one cup called a mate. You drink from the cup with a thing called a "bombilla," which is basically similar to a metal straw, which has a filter at the bottom to filter out all the "yerba." This is passed around and everyone drinks out of the same mate. It is commonly drank with hot water, but there are many different ways in which you can have it, depending on your preference. Fernet is a strong alcoholic drink which is always mixed with coke and ice. It a very acquired taste, and when I first tried it I didn't like it to much, but it didn't take to long before I was enjoying it like the locals.

My stay in Cordoba was brief. After three days I felt that it was time to check out some of the nice surroundings. There was a national park near by which was meant to be a good place for viewing condors, which had a free area for camping. The map had mentioned this place as if there was a wee town there or something, but when the bus dropped us off in the middle of no where there was nothing more that a sign confirming that this was indeed the national park that we were looking for. After about a 500m walk we found the information office where we were informed that there were a couple of options for free camping, the catch was that we had to walk about another kilometer with all our gear. Eventually we got there and after setting up camp with a wee bit of time left in the day to go for a walk to the viewing platform for the condors. Turned out we did in fact see a couple, but they were flying so high that you couldn't really appreciate their huge size, and it also made it difficult to get a good photo. That night I also got to know what it was like to sleep in my tent during the rain for the first time. I seemed to handle it pretty well, apart from the fact that the vent on the back wasn't able to be shut properly caused me to think of a quick fix option. It turned out that the poncho that had been sitting in the bottom of my bag had a use after all. After a mad rush to fix the problem of course the rain stopped. Luckily the next day had enough sun to dry it all out before we left.

Eventually we'd passed enough time and we were due to be in Mendoza for our first experience of WWOFFing. The whole concept of this is that you work for however long, then instead of getting paid money, you get a free room and fed for free during your time. I was looking forward to a slight change of dynamic in my travels. I'd moved around quite a lot up until now so I was happy to settle down for a couple of weeks to do some work. Id heard mixed things about this. People had told me that it was very much determined by luck as to how your experience turns out. I had some very good luck when it came to finding the place, so I favored myself on perhaps finding more good luck once we arrived.