Beaches, Vineyards, and Volcanos ...

Hola amigos,

We hope you're all enjoying the holiday season! We're thinking of home and miss everyone! 

Here's what we've been up to for the past week, heading south through Chile.  From the last post we were in La Serena and bused south to the funky city of Valparaiso, where we spent a few days exploring the city.  The city is on the ocean and built haphazardly into the surrounding hills. It's a fun town with lots of hand-painted buildings, fresh seafood, and a big export harbor.    

A view of Valparaiso

The artist at work on our hostel

Musical Stairs

 We decided to take a day trip from Valparaiso to celebrate Christmukah in a small town called Quintay about an hour south.  We showed up at an absolutely stunning beach that we had all to ourselves.  The ocean is too cold to swim and the waves were huge but we really enjoyed the scenery.  After soaking in the sun, we walked to the little marina cove in town for a delicious fresh seafood dinner.  A lovely day!

Gorgeous beach all to ourselves in Quintay

Christmukah dinner of fresh seafood and beautiful views

From Valparaiso, we took a short 1.5 h bus inland to Santiago, the capital of Chile.  Expectations were low (the big cities have not wowed us to date), but they were greatly surpassed!  It is such a clean, modern and well planned city.  It was easy to get around and there are several hills you can climb up (or take a funicular) for nice views of the city.  We explored the city, did some shopping (bought some camping gear for Patagonia), and celebrated Christmas at our hostel by cooking up a delicious meal (of roasted chicken and vegetables, potatoes au gratin, and salad) with 3 French guys we met.

Santiago sprawl and smoggy Andes - but it's really nice!

After Santiago, we headed to one of the many wine producing valleys in central Chile. We stayed in a town called Santa Cruz and visited the Viu Manent vineyard in the Colchagua Valley.  It was beautiful.  Rows and rows of vineyards (20 varieties!) and soft green mountains. We had lunch after our tour and tasting at the cute little cafe on site. 

Touring the vineyards by horse and carriage - how sweet

Best cafe location!

Next we took a long 11 hour bus ride further south to Pucon, the Banff of Chile, but with active volcanoes!  There are enormous cottages along the crystal clear lake; the town is full of resto-bars, cafes and shops; and the surrounding area is full of national parks and nature reserves.  We're spending 4 days here.  Day 1 was today and what a day it was! We woke up at 3:15am to be at the base of the Villarrica volcano by around 5:30am. The volcano is active and has hot gas coming out the top all the time. The glacier at the top of the volcano has ice year round as well. We climbed up to the peak (~2850 m) in about 4 hours and enjoyed gorgeous views of surrounding volcanoes and parks.  The 'fog' in the photos is actually volcanic ash from a nearby volcano!  

View halfway up the volcano at sunrise

The gas-spewing top (you can see the path on the left)

View looking south from the peak

Our group at the volcano peak

The inside of the volcano!

We endorsed the Chilean propaganda :)

Although the climb and the views were amazing, the best part of the climb was the way down. We were outfitted with duct-tape bums and mini-flying-sauce-type toboggans and slid all the way down the volcano!! The best (and longest) toboggan ride of our lives! It took about 1 hour of sledding.  What a blast!

Marsh sledding down on the last run

Us at the bottom of the volcano after sledding down - SO much fun! (you can see the peak of the volcano in the top right)

To top it all off, after sledding on a glacier in the morning, we could walk to the beach in the afternoon and enjoy the almost 30 degree temperature! Tomorrow we'll have a proper beach day and a New Years Eve BBQ and beach party. Then we'll head back out to the parks for an overnight trek and test out our new camping gear.  We'll let you know how it all goes!

Have a very Happy New Years and see you all in 2012!

xoxo Marsh and Shaina

Hasta Luego Argentina, Hola Chile

Hola!

When we last wrote, we were indulging in steak, ice cream and wine in the city of Salta in Northern Argentina. Since then, we have been very busy and put in a lot of time on the bus…..

From Salta, we rented a car and took a beautiful 3 hour drive through the Quebrada de Cafayate – a gorgeous valley of bright red rock formations. It was a fun drive through the winding valley (Marsh felt like a race car driver) and the views were amazing!

The Quebrada de Cafayate

Our rental car

We ended in the town of Cafayate, Argentina’s second biggest wine producing region with vineyards everywhere you look. We squeezed in 4 winery tours (and tastings, of course!) - a large industrial vineyard (producing over 6 million bottles of wine per year), a midsized winery, an organic winery, and a small family winery (producing only about 5000 bottles per year). The area specializes in a nice white wine called Torrontes, but also had wonderful Malbecs and Cabernet Sauvignons. After tasting over a dozen different wines, we went out for a delicious dinner at a local “parrillada” (a variety of grilled meats) and of course, more ice cream!

A vineyard just outside of Cafayate

Marsh at our first tasting

The "souvenirs" at one of the wineries

The next day, we headed back to Salta and regrouped before taking an 11 hour bus ride across the Chilean border to San Pedro de Atacama the next morning. San Pedro is a tiny town smack in the middle of the Atacama Desert (the world’s driest desert) in Northern Chile. Its location in the desert provides some great scenery and unique things to do.

On our first night in San Pedro, we went on a tour to a local observatory to look at the amazing night sky! There are no clouds or lights in the middle of the desert making San Pedro one of the best places in the world for astronomical research. We learned about some of the constellations and got to look at some very cool formations, planets, and stars through the observatory’s telescopes.

The next day, we rented bikes and sand boards and headed out into the desert to give sand-boarding another try. It was very tiring (you have to walk up the dune each time you go down) but very fun and the view from the top of the dunes was pretty spectacular too!

Shaina hiking up to the top of the dune

And the fun part on the way back down!

Marsh at the top ready for a run down the dune

Biking back to town with our boards

On our last day in San Pedro, we biked about 30 km through Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) – a desolate, rocky landscape with sand dunes and intricate caves.

The Valle de la Luna

Biking home from the Valle de la Luna with Volcan Licancabur in the background

From San Pedro we headed south on another long bus ride (16 hours) to the coastal city of La Serena. We spent three great days in La Serena. On day one we explored the city and spent the afternoon at the town’s Japanese garden. We spent our second day at the beach! We hadn’t been to the beach since Ecuador so it was great to relax in the sun! The weather was warm and sunny but the water was too cold to swim. The cold Humboldt ocean current travels north from the Antarctic along Chile’s coast – bringing lots of nutrients.

The Japanese Garden in La Serena

Our lunch on the beach!

The beautiful beach in La Serena

On day 3 in La Serena we went on a tour of the National Humboldt Penguin Reserve to see some of the Humboldt current’s wildlife up close. We saw tons of penguins, sea lions, sea birds, and even a pod of bottle nosed dolphins!

A Humbolt Penguin (they were much larger than the penguins we saw in the Galapagos)

Lazy sea lions taking in some sun

Penguins in the water fishing for lunch

The view from one of the Reserve's islands

Today, we were back on the bus and headed further south to Valparaiso (another coastal city in central Chile). We will spend a few days here before heading a couple hours inland to Santiago (Chile’s capital city).

Hello to everyone at home and we hope you are having a happy holiday season! It doesn’t feel much like Christmas time around here with the warm weather but we aren’t complaining.

Love Marsh & Shaina

Southern Bolivia and Northern Argentina

Hey Everyone,

We have been overdue for a posting for a while so there is a lot to tell! Last time we wrote we had just returned from the jungle and were headed to Sucre. Sucre was by far the nicest city in Bolivia. It is the judicial capital and home to the country's supreme court, as well as several nice parks, colonial buildings and architecture. We spent 3 days in Sucre (which was one more than planned due to road blocks created by political protesters - the norm in Bolivia - that prevented us from leaving when we wanted to) exploring and enjoying the more pleasant side of Bolivia. A highlight was our walk up to the city's mirador (lookout) where there was a great view and a cafe that had a quinoa beer! So Shaina was able to have her first beer in 5 months!

Marsh at the lookout in Sucre

Shaina with a bottle of Lipena - a beer made from Quinoa which was surprisingly good!

We left Sucre and took the bus to Potosi, which is a city famous for its mining history. The mines in the mountain overlooking the city were said to have funded the Spanish empire with their vast amount of silver. The mines are still active today and are home to some of the worst working conditions on earth. They are hot, there is little to no technology used, the air is full of asbestos and silica and the miners are very likely to die of silicosis after just 15 years of working! However, there are over 15,000 people in Potosi that head to the mines every day to make a living. There are also several tour operators in the city that bring tourists into the mines to catch a glimpse of the every day lives of the locals. We took a tour and were in shock/awe at the miners willingness to work in such harsh conditions every day for such long hours! The miners were very friendly and seemed to appreciate our presence. This was likely due to the fact we brought them presents in the form of juice and coca leaves....

Shaina in her mining attire

Literally crawling through the mines down to the third level!

Miners with a trolley full of rocks

Marsh doing some work in the mine (and sweating profusely from the heat)

After the mine tour we also toured a museum that used to be the home to the national mint. The silver did not used to travel far before it was converted into currency....

The next day, we headed further south to the town of Tupiza, from where we wanted to take a tour of the famous Salar de Uyuni (the worlds largest salt flat). We had a great group - two girls (an American and an Italian) and a guy from Switzerland. The tour is normally 4 days but we extended ours to 5 days as the group wanted to try to summit the Licancabur Volcano (more on that later).

On day 1 we headed out of Tupiza with our group of 5, our driver/guide, and our cook. We quickly climbed from 2300 masl to 4200 masl and had some spectacular scenery along the way!

Overlooking a valley with some drastically eroded rocks

The town where we spent the first night

Day 2 we headed into the National Park and made several stops to see the native wildlife, some beautiful lagoons, and some spectacular natural hot springs. We stopped for the night at the base of the Licancabur Volcano, which we would attempt to summit in the early hours the next morning.

Wild ostrich roam the grasslands

Flamingos taking flight in one of the many lagoons where they spend the summer months

Soaking in natural hot springs with a view that's hard to beat!

Us at the Laguna Verde and Licancabur Volcano in the background

We woke up on day 3 at 1:30am in order to get an early start up the volcano (if you start later it gets very windy and therefore more dangerous). We got out of the jeep at 4600 masl and hoped to make the summit at a mindblowing 5960 masl in around 6 hours! The summit would be by far the highest we have climbed but we were hopeful that spending most of our time in Bolivia at high elevations would have us well prepared. We started the ascent in the dark at around 3am with amazing views of the stars. We climbed in the cold night for what seemed like forever but when the sun came up the views were fantastic!

The day's first light with a star-studded sky. (photo taken by Elia in our group)

The view from 5300 masl just after the sun had come up!

Shaina and the other girls climbing with the laguna verde and laguna blanca in the background

We continued climbing and could feel the thin air the higher we got. After 5,500 masl it was tough to breathe and you could feel your head pounding. However, we pressed on and amazingly, our entire group was able to make the summit! (normally about 50% of the people who attempt the climb cannot make the summit) From the top we had a 360 degree view and could see all the way into Chile!

Us at the top of the volcano! By far the highest we have ever climbed at 5960 masl!

After reaching the top exhausted, we still had to go all the way back down.....the descent was easier but were were completely drained when we got back to the jeep after a round trip of over 9 hours! It was the hardest thing we have ever done and we are very proud to have reached the summit! We piled back into the jeep and made our way towards the salt flats with a couple stops at some geysers and more flamingo-filled lakes.

Thousands of Flamingos in Laguna Colorada

Day 4 was mostly in the Jeep making our way North towards the salt flats. We saw some very cool rock formations that resembled everything from camels, lions, mushrooms, Fallopian tubes, and the world cup of soccer trophy. We spent the night in a hostel made from salt! The bricks, furniture, and floor were all made of salt!

The group "riding" the camel rock on day 4

Day 5 had us up early again and we arrived at the Salar de Uyuni in time for sunrise! Driving through the salt flats was like being in another world with white as far as the eye can see. We made stops at an "island" with some giant cacti (over 8m tall and thousands of years old), a lookout halfway up another volcano, and had some fun taking pics before the long jeep ride back to Tupiza.

Marsh watching the sunrise over the Salar (photo taken by Vittoria in our group)

Isla Incahuasi in the middle of the Salar

Shaina blowing a "shrunken" Marsh off her hand.....

The group in the Salar

The view of the valley just outside Tupiza

The tour was an amazing experience, unlike anything we had seen before, and a highlight of the trip! The next day, we left Bolivia behind and eagerly crossed the border into Argentina. We stopped for 2 days in the small town of Tilcara before heading further south to the city of Salta. After arriving in Salta, we are suffering from a bit of culture shock! It's like we left South America behind and are now in Europe! That being said, we are loving Argentina so far and have taken in a Pena (local folk music concert over dinner) and had our first "asado". The asado is an Argentine tradition where they barbecue various cuts of their world famous beef over a coal fire. Our group of 10 polished off 5 kg beef and 4.5 L of wine last night and it was delish!

Mmmmmm meat!

Tomorrow we are planning to head to Cafayate, a small town renowned for its wine and gorgeous scenery, for a couple of days before coming back to Salta to catch a bus into Chile.

Hope everyone is well at home and is enjoying the upcoming holiday season!

Love Marsh & Shaina