Why...

Two mature aged people who love travelling and learning along the way... Our names are Rob (Robyn) & darian in the 60+ vintage of travellers keen to visit parts of the world which will stretch us mentally, physically and emotionally.

15 April 2014

Santiago - Chile 2014

We arrived into Santiago, the capital of Chile late in the afternoon after our flight from Buenos Aires, found our accommodation and settled in.  Where we were staying was in an apartment complex in the centre of the city so we had easy access to most things we want to see.

Santiago is a city of 6M people founded in 1541 and is surrounded by the Andes Mountains which we are sure would be very spectacular if you could see them, the smog makes that a bit difficult.

We only had 2 full days there so we went walking after settling in to get a feel of the place.  The area we were in is called ‘centro’ and is a lot older than other areas of the city but in centro, we walked to the Plaza De Armas, a square surrounded by key historical buildings and formerly a place where military training was conducted.  Nearby was also the Mercado Central which is the central market running since 1872.  Fish was very prominent as were the numerous eating places in the large open space central area.
seafood in Mercado Central
As we walked, there were specific sections that concentrated on particular goods or services.  For example, there was an entire street of barbers & hairdressers and another section with multiple shops selling brightly coloured wool for knitting.  On the wide walkways near the central market were over 15 tarot card readers all in a row and doing a very brisk trade, whilst further on there were rows of people playing chess and many people watching how different games were progressing which created a very communal feel.

Next day was spent using a hop on/off bus to move throughout the city, enabling us to explore places which grabbed our interest whilst hearing about the city’s history along the way.  So we made a point of specifically exploring the Plaza De La Constitucion (Constitution Square), Santa Lucia which is a hill we climbed winding our way up stairs through and around numerous arches, fountains and other neo classical structures.
some of the stairs up Santa Lucia
We drove through very new parts of the city like El Golf, nicknamed by the locals as ‘Sanhattan’, a play on Manhattan because it is Santiago’s financial centre filled with very tall and modern high rise.  We stopped for lunch in a colourful area called Patio Bellavista, a part of the city renowned for its culture, quirky restaurants and access to the San Cristobal hill adorned with a large Virgin Mary statue accessed via a funicular.
'Sanhattan'
Santiago is a nice city of multiple faces and unless you put the effort into exploring all of it, you could very easily come away from it with the wrong impression.

For our final full day in Santiago, we took a full day tour to visit Vina Del Mar and Valpariso, coastal cities located about 90 minutes from Santiago.  Vina Del Mar is like the Gold Coast equivalent for Santiago and receives millions of visitors each year taking their vacations.

Valpariso on the other hand is a much older ramshackle and fascinating city, once very important to Santiago as its main trading port until the Panama Canal was opened and caused ships rounding the horn to almost cease.  In 2003, Valpariso was declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site due to its importance and spontaneously built architecture across 41 hills and steep gullies which is why there are at least 17 funiculars.  We did a walking tour through this fascinating place with its bright colours, thousands of timber and iron unique homes built on steep hills, quite often adorned by bright colours and artwork as the pictures will show.
We visited Valpariso on the Friday and flew out of Santiago the next day which is unfortunately when Valpariso caught fire, so far with the loss of 12 lives and about 1,000 homes.  Having walked through part of this city, a fire in it would be a terrible experience due to the steep hills, old timber buildings and very narrow streets.  Very sad indeed!

For more photos of Santiago and surrounds just click on the link below:

CLICK HERE for more photos of - Exploring Santiago 2014

So this is our last post for this trip and we hope you have enjoyed it.  

When we head off on our next meandering we will start the blog up again, but for now and using a Chilean culinary treat to close off with, we’re ‘completo’... for now.
Santiago version of a completo

11 April 2014

El Chalten & El Calafate - Argentina 2014

El Chalten, a 3 hour road trip from El Calafate through sparse barren land known as ‘The Steppe’, punctuated initially by a lake we had to skirt and a river we followed and criss crossed multiple times.  About 130 kms from El Chalten, we had made our first sighting of the already imposing form of Fitz Roy Mountain.
driving across 'The Steppe' - Fitz Roy in the distance
El Chalten is a quirky, eclectic, rustic, unpretentious little village situated at the northern end of Los Glaciares Nat. Park.  This little village, nestled between mountains next to a river with the imposing form of Fitz Roy Mtn. (3,405m) as the primary backdrop, was founded in 1985 as a result of a land dispute between Chile and Argentina.
El Chalten
Our initial late afternoon meander throughout the village uncovered a lot of construction underway, but most of the existing buildings were in some way unfinished, irrespective of whether homes or businesses.  Normally it was the 2nd storey still to be completed in some way, so it was quite normal to say an operating business on the ground floor and a ladder going to an open window of the floor above.  We think there is some form of tax due when a building is completed, so they simply don’t.

Then there are the DOGS, many many dogs.  We had noticed the same thing in both Ushuaia and El Calafate, with lots of dogs of all different breeds, colours and sizes just roaming the streets.  They were all quite indifferent to us as we at times had to walk amongst them, but there’s just a lot of dogs.

After a very nice dinner at a wonderful little restaurant at the far end of town, we settled into our equally rustic hotel room.  There was little spare room, old eclectic fittings and both of us had to duck our heads as we moved around near the end of the bed, which was very comfortable.

Beep… beep… beep!  Why do we do this to ourselves, 7am, the alarm buzzing and pitch black outside.

With camera and tripod on backs, our warm red jackets on and Rob with her little torch in hand, we headed out to climb along a small dirt track leading to the top of a hill behind the Nat. Park building.  Should only take only take about 30 mins one way to the top we thought.

We had been told by the park rangers when we visited them the afternoon before, that the hill was the best place to view sunrise on both Fitz Roy Mtn and Cerro Torre (3,102m), so long as the weather was good and it was.

It is interesting climbing up a hill following a dirt track using the light of a small torch to show us the way and the frequent rocky obstacles.  At least we weren’t the only ones on the side of a hill in the dark, as we could see 2 other torchlights jiggling around above us about 15 mins ahead.
El Chalten from the hill, the sun starting to touch Fitz Roy
Slowly but surely, those beautiful red colours started to crawl their way down, not just Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, but all the other mountains surrounding them.  So was our climb into the darkness worth it?
Cerro Torre on the left and Fitz Roy is obvious
Our climb down off the hill was a lot easier in growing sunlight and soon we were back in our hotel enjoying a good breakfast because we were going to need a good breakfast as we learned later that day.

Now the words ‘trekking’ and ‘hiking’ are not ones we use or consider very often, especially after the “its only a medium trek!” we did in Laos awhile back, which left us almost scarred forever.  But here we were in El Chalten, the trekking/hiking ‘capital’ of Argentina, so what are people to do after a 1hr return jaunt up a hill early in the morning, go hiking of course!

So with backpacks on and having found the bakery to buy our small lunch to take with us, we headed out of the village following the track towards our goal of Laguna Torre, which is a glacier lake near the bottom of Cerro Torre.

The Rangers had warned us that the first part of this hike was a fairly constant climb out of the village.  Now we don’t particularly like the words climb and tracks together, but here we were on our way into the mountains.

The track did level out, well sort of, actually occasionally, but we walked on through some really stunning scenery, the form of Cerro Torre jutting into the sky ahead providing the constant motivation to keep going.  We rested fairly frequently to catch our breath, take in the views or refill our water bottle form the many crystal clear streams.

on the trail to Cerro Torre
Being the time of year it was also meant that the colours of autumn were consuming many of the trees and shrubs, which surrounded us.  The track despite its regular undulations, wound its way like a snake through thick stands of small deciduous southern beech trees, around a lake of dead looking trees or followed a fast flowing river.  

At times we were in open country then just minutes later, thick 2-3m foliage brushing our shoulders, our track almost disappearing from view at each bend.
Cerro Torre and glacier surrounds
Then into view, almost surprisingly, came our complete eyeful of the jagged rock spire of Cerro Torre looming above the mass of glaciers feeding the lake at its feet.  What a stunning place to sit quietly, like the few others that had also reached this point, absorb the views around us and have lunch.

Our trip back, whilst almost a rewind of the outward journey, was slightly different.  Our bodies were beginning to protest, ever so gently at the start and the need for rest breaks increased.  

We made it back to the village naturally but the walk back to our hotel seemed to take forever.  





Well it did take longer than normal because we stopped at one of the microbreweries for an ale and Rob did something quite different and probably not seen before.






So for those of you wondering, after our early morning hill climb, the Laguna Torre return journey had taken us 7 hrs to complete the 22 kms and to keep the description simple, at the end of it we were f****d!

We opted for a really simple meal that night; a shared vegetable soup and chunky lamb stew from a café very close to the hotel.  We got chatting to our waiter who spoke very good English, after 2 years working in NZ.  He told us that we were very lucky with the weather and that it was very out of character.  We also asked him if there were many animals in the mountains.  “Yes” he said, “there are lots of pumas, I saw one only a few days ago on the Laguna Torre track”.  The looks on our faces may have suggested we thought pumas were a bit of a myth so he went off and brought back the photo to prove it.  The long hot showers before dinner were helping but we were keen to see what our bodies wanted to tell us in the morning.

Well we didn’t feel too bad whilst having breakfast next morning, so do we do this hiking thing again and back up… yep!  So our plan for this day was to head out towards Fitz Roy to reach 2 locations, the Mirrador (viewpoint) and then the Laguna Capri.  Again this would mean a constant climb out of the village using a track at the far end of it and 6 kms to reach the Mirrador, then about another 1 km to reach the Laguna.  So off we went… again.

The climb out of El Chalten this time, whilst not steep was more constant and kept going for about 2/3rds of the 6kms.  The track wound itself once it leveled out a little, mainly amongst beech forest and the colours were great.  This hike actually seemed to iron out some of stiffness from the previous days activity.
the view as we climb out of El Chalten
So this time in front of us stood the magnificent Fitz Roy Mtn in all its abrupt glory as it did again when we reached the lake and surrounding autumn colours providing a stunning foreground to rise out of.
Fitz Roy Mirrador
Laguna Capri
So in 2 days we had managed 35 kms of, yes we will use THAT word, ‘hiking’ and we thoroughly enjoyed it because of everything that surrounded us as we took each step.  If you like to go hiking, try El Chalten and to think we almost decided not to come here.
In memory of the climbers who have died


We had one last walk around pleasantly quirky El Chalten, before heading back to El Calafate, and found a very very small Chapel of Austrian design called Capilla de los Escaladores, built in memory of all the climbers who have lost their lives here since 1953.



For more photos of El Chalten just click on the link below:

2014 - Hiking around El Chalten


Back in El Calafate

what a steak!


Don’t normally talk too much about food but we only had one night in El Calafate so enjoyed a fabulous meal to celebrate our time in Argentina.  Argentinian steak is simply excellent as was Rob’s superb lamb ravioli  accompanied by simple roasted vegetables, all just delightful.



Argentinian BBQ










Before checking out the next day and flying to Santiago, we did manage somehow to have yet another amusing experience.  We mentioned a bird reserve in a previous post, so we thought we would try walking to it after an early breakfast to try and get some shots of flamingos.


There is a short cut Cat & Cal showed us from the hotel down to the main street, which involves walking down some steps, through the bus terminal and then down some more steps.  When we got to the bus terminal, we went through the first door, through the terminal and when reaching the 2nd door to go out the other side, were greeted by 5 dogs just sitting in front of the door.  We gently pushed it open, the dogs all looked at us, moved and we stepped outside.  All good so far.

Well it must have been those red coats of ours of ours we were wearing to stay warm, or something else, BUT those 5 dogs started walking with us and if we stopped, they stopped, if we walked, they walked.  No matter where we walked, down the next set of stairs, across the main street and off down the back streets, they stayed with us.
Darian and his 'mates'
Interesting!  To add to our experience, other wandering dogs would come out to either renew old friendships but others would come out to protect their territories.  At times there were 8-10 dogs circling us as we walked.  On a few occasions ‘our’ pack of dogs would all charge off to chase another dog or cat sitting behind some local residents fence and this would invariably mean that resident coming out and yelling all sorts of things in Spanish either at the dogs, us or both.
in the middle of the main street
Well we and our dogs did find the bird reserve and guess what, not a single bird of any description in sight so we re-traced our steps, our 5 dog pack faithfully keeping company until we reached the bus terminal and we were able to stop them getting through that first door.  What a relief, because we had visions of them wanting to join us at the hotel.

So we bade El Calafate and its dogs our final farewell and headed off to the airport on our way finally to Santiago, Chile via one night in Buenos Aires.  

Argentina has certainly provided us with some wonderful experiences.

9 April 2014

Perito Moreno Glacier - Argentina 2014

Travelling by road on the 4hr trip from Torres del Paine to El Calafate was an interesting experience!  We were with our 4 Aussie travelling friends along with 2 UK ladies and a non English-speaking driver as we headed for the Argentinian border.

First we had to leave Chile so stopped at their border.  We followed the driver inside, handed over passports, got the correct stamps and climbed back into our mini bus, another empty mini bus parked behind us.  Then both buses travelled through no-mans land and stopped again at the Argentinian border.

Out we piled again and went through their processing of passports, got back into our mini bus, passed through the gates, the same empty mini bus also following us through.  After about a 500 mtr drive we stopped and had to get out of our mini bus, collect all our bags and load everything into the empty mini bus, all without any ability of either driver to tell us what was going on.  Then our new driver headed off with us towards El Calafate and our initial driver waved goodbye and headed back into Chile.

About an hour further down the road whilst driving through a small town with a major intersection in it, we were pulled over by a police roadblock and the driver was asked to stop near a large van surrounded by police and Federal officers.  Out we got again and had to take every bag of any description to one side of the van.  This van was a portable X-ray unit and every bag was scanned before we loaded everything back into our mini bus.  Again, no English used to help us understand what was required of us except stern gestures and very grim faces.  The rest of the drive however was uneventful.

The town of El Calafate is a true tourist location like Ushuaia and its claim to fame and focus is THE glacier – otherwise known as Perito Moreno, one of the largest glacier systems in the world, excluding Antarctica and Greenland.  This glacier is also directly connected to the Grey Glacier way back in Torres del Paine.  Perito Moreno Glacier was the primary reason we were in El Calafate, a very pleasant place to stroll around, nestled near a very large lake and associated bird reserve.

Our hotel was very nice and modern with a large comfortable room and bed, relatively good internet access and views over the lake, the reason we could catch up on some posts.  Down in the bar with the other Aussie travellers, we all re-acquainted ourselves with pisco sours as the sun set over the town.
sunset over the lake and El Calafate
By a sheer stroke of good fortune, Cat and Cal were also in town and were separately heading to the glacier early tomorrow morning to go walking on the glacier itself.  We caught up with them for dinner and heard about their trekking and camping throughout Torres del Paine, the rain, the very strong winds and other challenges.

The weather the next day was stunning as the 6 of us were picked up for our tour of the glacier, which essentially involves an 80 km drive to it and then advice on the very extensive walkway system used to allow everyone to get quite close to this very striking place.  The Perito Moreno Glacier is certainly extremely popular based on the sheer number of buses and people here.

First activity once we arrived within the national park was an optional boat trip to nearish the glacier face which lasted about 1 hr. and certainly provided us with a sense of just how big this thing is.  Actually it’s about 30km long, 5km wide and around 50-60 mtrs high.  Our boat looked very very small against this juggernaut.
the boats do look VERY small
Everyone split up once we finally reached all walkways, so we headed for one we hoped would get us the closest and give us a good view down the face of the glacier, hopeful like most people to hear that very familiar and loud ‘crack’ which signals calving occurring somewhere.
on the walkways along the glacier's face
It didn’t take very long… CRACK!  We madly looked along the face of the glacier in both directions and spotted a big blue shard of ice heading for the water below.  Up came the camera and click, click, click, other people pointing to the large splash that followed.
calving underway
For the next few hours we slowly made our way around the walkways and spent much of our time simply quietly watching and waiting.  This is not a receding glacier and in fact is moving quite quickly, up to 2mtrs per day, that’s right, per day!  The thing that grabs your attention constantly is the noise of this glacier.  It creaks and groans, then that cracking sound occurs quite frequently, not always associated with a calving event.  We certainly took a few photos of this very impressive place.

For more photos of THE Glacier just click on the link below:


On our drive back to El Calafate we also observed quite a few flocks of flamingos near the shore of the lake, which is something we will need to explore also.

Well we had come to the final day and night with our new Aussie travelling friends and they had certainly made the last few days very enjoyable when sharing stories of what we had all just seen as well as having a lot of fun.

Time to part company and for us to head to El Chalten.

8 April 2014

Torres del Paine - Patagonia 2014

Aussies!! On the way to our hotel in Punta Arenas from the ship, we travelled with 2 other couples who turned out to be Aussies also going to Torres del Paine and then El Calafate.  We introduced ourselves; learned one couple is from Darwin (Di & Stewart) and the other from Echuca (Maureen & Dick).  Will be good to travel with some like-minded people.

Our brief time in Punta Arenas was spent walking its streets past very beautiful historical buildings and the back blocks.  We also enjoyed a Chilean speciality… the Completo or Chilean hotdog.
view over Punta Arenas
 A Completo comprises the bun, layer of chopped tomato, sauerkraut, sausage, mashed avocado and creamy mayonnaise on top, served on a narrow plate the width of the bun and a knife.  It sounds a little weird but it actually tasted good, especially when you’re trying it in a packed Chilean ‘hamburger joint’.

Next morning we joined our new travel companions for the 7 hr. road trip to Torres del Paine National Park, including a lunch stop at a sheep ranch where we were served more tender lamb, Chilean wine and other veggies.  Other tourists joined us at our table, 2 girls and a couple from Brazil and 2 video makers from Chile.  The conversation was fascinating, despite the mixture of languages and accents.

As our road journey progressed, we were all waiting to see our first glimpse of the Paine Massif, especially the Torres del Paine, sometimes called ‘The 3 Spires’ which is what the park gets its name from. With a setting sun, we did get a first tempting but cloud surrounded view of ‘The Spires’.
clouds teasing us with views of The Torres
Our hotel, Las Torres, is beautifully located near the base of one section of the massif with tantalising glimpses of ‘The Spires’ peaking out from behind it and the massif made the hotel look very small and insignificant indeed.  The hotel was very comfortable and located on the only remaining private land within the park’s boundaries.
hotel is little white strip bottom left of massif
Our alarm went of at 7am and we peered out our window, hoping we were in luck with the weather, which has a reputation for being extremely changeable and fierce at times.  It was still very dark but we could make out that it wasn’t raining or blowing a gale, but there was some cloud in the sky.

Why were we awake at this hour, simple, we wanted to try and capture the sunrise and its impact on ‘The Spires’.  With cameras and tripod we headed out with a quick stop at Reception.  We wanted to know about pumas (mountain lion type cats) being in the area as heard about during dinner.  When asked about pumas, the guy behind the counter, shrugged his shoulders, told us he knew nothing and then simply finished with… “good luck!”.

So off we went, walking off into the darkness, every little sound catching our attention, particularly one, eyes peering into the darkness catching sight of a man on horseback that loomed out of the greying sky and passed us.  After 30 mins walking, we found a place we thought would give us the best view we could get and simply waited for the sun to join us.

The effort and wait was worth it, first because of the great sunrise we got behind us and then as the sun made its presence felt, the change in colour which appeared in front of us on two of ‘The Spires’ themselves, the third unfortunately hidden from us.  





The whole sunrise inspired colour impact lasted a mere 3-4 minutes before the magnificent massif turned its natural light grey.  We count ourselves very lucky to have seen it based on what guides constantly told us about the weather.





By the way, we also learned over breakfast from our travelling companions, that the specific noise we heard on our walk out into the darkness was from a grey fox and it is a noise they make when there are puma around.

Torres del Paine is known to the Chileans at least, as the 8th Wonder of the World.  A few facts first, it was created in 1959, has a surface area of 227,298 hectares and averages 155,000 visitors a year.  We engaged in 2 full days of wandering throughout the majority of the park by car, boat and foot.  We got close to the granite spires of Torres del Paine, the Cuemos del Paine, a massif of uniquely contrasting (grey & black) sedimentary and metamorphic rocks and the tallest peak of Cerro Paine Grande at 3,050 metres. 



The rustic boat ride, including a zodiac transfer from shore, took us across the Grey Lake and very close across the 3 faces of Grey Glacier, which happens to have some of the deepest blue ice we have ever seen.  



Cara Cara getting stuck in






There were also numerous animals in this park, some of them eating and some being eaten.








Torres del Paine is yet another place requiring adjectives to try and describe it.  Words like primitive, raw, huge, jagged, breathtaking, demanding and panoramic come to mind because of the profound impact the massif or the numerous lakes has on you, no mater from which location within the park you are observing it.  It also seduces you with multiple and unexpected scenes of serenity.

You will notice there are quite a few panoramic photos in the link attached below because this place naturally inspires this style of photography.

For more photos of Torres del Paine just click on the link below:

CLICK HERE for more photos of - Torres del Paine 2014

As a humorous aside, we did have a very funny experience one night over dinner with our new Aussie travelling friends.  A film crew from Channel Ten (Places We Go – Saturday afternoons) doing a feature on Chile and was seated at the table next to us.  We had noticed them doing filming the day before and again as we walked in for dinner.

Our dinner was progressing well along with a few local cocktails (Pisco & Calafate Sours) and we again noticed we were being filmed from a distance enjoying ourselves.  A little later when the laughter at our table had begun to increase, a waiter came up to us and asked if we would mind reducing our noise a little.  Reason, the Aussie front man was interviewing the owner of the Hotel right behind us.

Well then the fun really began and whilst we did reduce our noise, we started trying to make the cameraman laugh, gave the interviewer wind up signals out of camera shot, all of which cause our waiter to retreat to the furthest wall from us and crack up with stifled laughter.  With his interview over, the front man thanked us and told us he also found the whole thing very amusing.  Their show goes to air supposedly sometime in June this year.

Torres del Paine really is a place of striking place of raw natural beauty!