Thoughts Abroad

New railing!!

2009-06-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

Three years after moving in we finally removed the hideous plywood from the backyard:
No idea was AC=ND even means

before:

after:

Meagan and Anna helped me garden this spring, here are the results (same bed from different angle one month apart):

just planted second crop of spinach and lettuce...

Atherton Tablelands, Australia

2008-02-29T22:03:00.000-08:00

The Curtain Fig tree

Lake Eacham

Gaby, Sue and Toby

Barren Falls

Marty and Timmy - the pademelons - at the Krockenbergers' house

Leaf-tailed lizard - look closely

Brushtail possum

China

2007-11-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

I just looked back at the photos. While it was an incredible trip, it was also extremely depressing in that much of the consumption and pollution were far worse than I had anticipated.
For a much more informed assessment of the Chinese pollution (and water shortage and authoritarian rule)problems see the the "Choking on Growth" series:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/08/26/world/asia/choking_on_growth.html

Panda Power

2007-10-08T03:07:00.000-07:00

Shanghai

Wuhou Temple in Chengdu celebrating the Three Kingdoms period (disunity in China around 25 BC)

Wenshu Buddhist Monastary (chanting in background and not many photos allowed)

National Holiday street fair

Kung Fu

Hello kitty drinks

Poet Du Fu's thatched cottage

Refreshments

Gingkos!!

Yellow and red makes orange - they melded their genes and their coat colors

Chengdu - population: 10.5 million

China in a nut shell

Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Station

Wolong - town up in panda habitat

Little environmentalists

More pandas at Wolong Panda Breeding Research Center

Dujiangyan Acient Irrigation Project

Dumplings in Beijing

Tienenman Square during National Day Holiday - China's 4th of July. It felt like all 1 billion were celebrating in the capital.

Day

Night

Temple of Heaven - Beijing

Great Wall

798 Art Collective - huge old factory site in Beijing. More art in one place than I've ever seen in my life.

Photo exhibit of family planning propoganda

Translation reads: Harvest must select improved varieties, a child must eugenic.

2008 Olympic "Birds nest"

Official communist countdown

Back in Shanghai
Museum:

300 Buddhas

Sunrise from the apartment

Saying goodbye

Mr Cao

PNG photos

2007-07-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Port Moresby - Ella Beach

Church in Port Moresby

Sign in Port Moresby airport

Toby's apartment in Lae

View from apartment in Lae

View of airstrip in Yawan village

Arriving in Yawan village on 6 seater plane - 5500 ft

Baby tree kangaroo

Kids in Yawan

Primary school in Yawan - each building is a different grade

The students maintain the garden and cut the grass before class

Blackboard in school - learning about logging

Classroom

Research house

Our bathroom

Dono and Annie's house

View of Yawan

Seroen and Stacie on our tour of Yawan

Woman carrying firewood and garden food

Man separating coffee beans by hand

Bamboo is planted everywhere for use as a building material

Flowers in the village

Carriers getting ready to take our stuff up the mountain

Our stuff (wow! too much - and half of it didn't show up. I ate ferns and rice for dinner for a few nights)

Bridge of Uruwa River - between Yawan and Towet. Kids cross it everyday to get to school

Me and the gang in Towet

Spider in my sleeping quarters in Towet

The slots in the houses make a convenient place to keep your knife

Flower lined path in Towet

Cloud forest during hike up

View of Yawan on hike up cliff - you can see the landing strip

View of Towet and Uruwa river on hike up

Camping on the way to field site

Tree fern fiddlehead

Trail to field site(flat part)

Kotem River

Building structures for tents to go under

Ropes made of vines

Stanley and Victor

Kunai - open area with bunchgrasses and fern

Victor, Gabriel, Andrew and Carol look up what animal they spotted

My friends Emily (16) and Helen (15)

One of the hundreds of species of bryophytes

View of fern hut

Me and Kuna

Kuna and Mellie tracking a tree kangaroo

All of the hunters

Me and Toby

Collaring a tree roo

Cute face!!

Releasing a collared tree kangaroo

Yangu

Sunset

Epiphytes in tall trees look like tree kangaroos in the sun

Sunny cloud forest

Birdwing butterfly at Rainforest Habitat (zoo in Lae)

Bananas

Orchids at Rainforest Habitat

Boelen's python at RFH

Cassowary

Tree roo

June 11 2007

2007-06-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

Wrote this on (my) June 11 - last night. Off to the field tomorrow. Last of the information superhighway for me for a while....

More of the same in Lae. Today we did a variety of tasks from working on a publication that Toby and I will be editing together from half way across the globe to sorting out the first aid kits. We tried to buy remaining items but it being the Queen’s birthday, a lot is shut down.

One of the guys who works for us is missing in action. Toby isn’t worried as this guy is a bit flakey when he isn’t in the field. He was supposed to be here Saturday and still no word. He better show tomorrow because we are leaving on Wednesday! A new guy, Mellie, is coming from Goroka and had to delay his arrival until tomorrow to finish up a few things. So that means we have been left to finish up a bunch of the duties that we were thinking they could help with. Tomorrow will probably be crazy last minute stuff and trying to get to stores once they open – so I probably won’t write again until we return.

Last night I saw my first flying foxes (fruit bats). They are huge! It rained so hard last night that it woke me up over the generator and the air conditioner. Right now is the rainy season in Lae and the dry season in Port Moresby. It seems that it is always the rainy season in the highlands unfortunately. I have a wet two weeks ahead of me.

I’m really looking forward to the field. The plane ride I’m not so sure about. I know it will be gorgeous. Being in the middle of no where for two weeks does not bother me, but the small plane and grass landing strip to get there is my main concern at this point. But they don’t fly in bad weather – so it will be fine.

We will be in Yawan village for about 2 days once we arrive. We have a research “house” there (bamboo and thatch hut). We will sort out all of the stuff into smaller sacks and hire all of the carriers from various villages. The same hunters and trackers are usually hired each season, but since we won’t start collaring the tree kangaroos right away they probably won’t come up to the field site until the rest of the folks from the US and Australia arrive on the 18th. It is a 2 day hike up to the field site, called Wasaunon, so we’ll probably be there on Saturday. Then we have until the following Wednesday to set up camp, hang out, read books, look for echidnas and tree kangaroos and use my new 5 pound flora of alpine plants in PNG from 1980 to figure out the plants up there before every. Oh and improve (read: start to learn) my Tok Pisin skills. So far I can understand words but not sentences. Many of the words are quite obvious (when you say them out loud), such as:
Lukim – see/saw
Nogat – no/I don’t have
Manmeri – people (they call all women “meri” – I’m sure I’ll get funny looks when I tell them my sister’s name is “woman” J)
Kwiktaim – soon
Husat – who
Nem bilong mi – my name

June 11th is also another anniversary besides the Queen’s birthday. Wonder if Dad would have expected his youngest to be working in Papua New Guinea. He certainly wouldn’t like the planes!!

First day in Lae

2007-06-08T17:33:00.000-07:00

This computer isn't letting me post photos. I'll try again tonight....

Yesterday we met with the Department of Environment and Conservation. We’ll see what will happen with the Conservation Area. Seems very unlikely that this will go down before elections, but it is on the right track. All necessary parties are on board. We are still optimistic but now focusing on the upcoming field work.

After the meeting we got to the airport really early because we had to change our tickets and possibly pay for extra baggage. We had over 100 kgs total and each person is allowed 16! Yikes. I’m so happy to not be traveling with these gigantor bags anymore. We looked pretty absurd saying “oh we are just going trekking”. In the end they didn’t charge us for the extra bag which was nice. Sad to say, but being white gets you a lot around here.

We took a flight that went through the Highlands – Mt Hagan – to get to Lae. Toby got me excited for 4-foot tall people as the highlanders look very different from the coastal folks, but aside from a couple of hats on some “old geezers” nothing too different. It was great to see the area as we flew in. The people have gardens everywhere. Imagine driving along Hwy 80 in the CA hills and seeing little patches of garden way up on the brown hills way above a housing development. That is what Port Moresby is like. The highlands also have gardens everywhere but they are much bigger than those in the city. The rivers and mountains were gorgeous from the air and the sun was setting as we flew down from the highlands to Lae. At the airport, I saw the plane we will be taking to the bush. Wow – super small!!!!

The drive from the airport to Lae was pretty nuts. It was dark by then because our flight was late and it involved 45 minutes on a two lane road (no bigger and no shoulder for sure!) with massive pot holes and oncoming traffic to negotiate not to mention all the people walking along the same road. In the dark it was a bit crazy. As we got closer to the city there were slowly more and more electric lights in the settlements and more and more people walking along the road. Everyone walks everywhere here. Very few bikes. There were also more and more fires as we went along. The predominant smell here is smoke.

Lae is the manufacturing capital of the country. That coupled with the fact that there is a road from the highlands to Lae (not the case for Port Moresby) means more people come down looking for work – and often don’t find it and still hang around. The beach kind of shows the manufacturing history – not a place to swim and only pretty from far away.

Toby’s apartment/office is really nice. It is one of about 8 two-story apartments that is managed by and enclosed in a hotel complex. We had breakfast in the hotel today and we can use the business center and other accommodations as needed. Pretty nice to have my own room and a working kitchen for a bit – oh yeah, AND a washing machine. Today we did some shopping for the field (and for cooking for the next few days), and now we are working at the kitchen table. It is super hot and humid here – I’m not sure if I’m making it up or if I can actually tell that we are closer to the equator here than we were in Port Moresby.

Critters of the day: huge spider hiding in the apartment, giant millipede outside that Toby brought in, birdwing butterfly dead and mounted in the hotel restaurant (biggest butterfly in the world – put your two hands together each one as a wing. For real. Hence the name).

Oh. We also stopped in a DVD/CD store and Eminem was playing. EVERYONE has a special place in their heart for Detroit. I wanted to tell everyone that I was from the same town as the guy on the radio, but I’m not sure what sort of reaction I would have received.

Day on the town in Port Moresby

2007-06-06T02:07:00.000-07:00

Church downtown

Kids at the beach downtown

We finally got out and about today. Yesterday entailed changing hotels because they screwed up our reservation and were booked up this week. We are now at a hotel with smaller, cinder block rooms and more roaches but WAY better food – especially on the veggie side of things. We actually had super delicious Indian food at the hotel last night – while a Discovery Channel show on Tree kangaroos – YES tree kangaroos!!! – played in the background.

Today we had lunch with a woman from WWF. For the record, they have much nicer offices than Conservation International. The lunch allowed us to actually walk around a bit. Saw the ocean, saw the blood in the streets. Not really. They all chew betelnut (a palm fruit) as a stimulant which turns bright red and when spit out looks like blood. Lovely. Turns the teeth a nasty color after a while too.

After lunch we went to the Botanic Gardens at the University of PNG. Pretty nice aesthetically but could use some interpretation. There is also an aviary with awesome birds and 4 species of tree kangaroos in cages. My first ones to see in real life! I didn’t photograph the tree roos simply because they were sort of sad specimens. Better pics to come on those.

Tomorrow we have a meeting with the Dept of Environment and Conservation, then flying to Lae. Monday is the Queen’s birthday so we have to catch a flight before they all fill up for the long weekend.

In other exciting news, I realized that my blinding headaches are in fact nothing more than allergies. Great. Just like the days at Point Reyes. So a Claritin later, I’m feeling great!

I actually have more pictures to share but it takes FOREVER to upload them...

Port Moresby

2007-06-04T01:12:00.000-07:00

Today was the first real day of being here. Yesterday after we arrived it was pretty much hanging out in the hotel, reading by the pool and falling asleep very early. When we flew in it was gorgeous: reefs off the coast, wetlands around the airport, etc.

Today I got to actually drive around a bit and see Port Moresby. We had a meeting this morning at the Conservation International offices about the Conservation Area that we are trying to establish (and has been in the works for 2 years!). There are still some beaurocratic hurdles to overcome but now we know that the minister can go ahead and declare it if he so chooses. With elections literally around the corner, we hope that he chooses to do so and score the "first conservation area in PNG" while he is still in office. But, not a big surprize - things here take a long time.... so we'll see. We are probably going to stay in Port Moresby until Friday just in case there is anything we can do to speed things along and help out during this window. By the time we come out of the bush, the elections will be underway and nothing will happen until at least August.

We also headed to another meeting about research visas on the other side of town. I really like driving around to see things. This is certainly not a place where you strap on you shoes and go for a stroll to see the sites. There is a lot cement and barbed wire and security fences and people loitering- but also a lot of gorgeous flowering trees and smiling people.

Tomorrow is World Environment Day but we weren't here early enough to plan anything official so we will likely go check out the Botanic Garden which also includes a bunch of tree roos and snakes and birds.... should be neat. My first tree roos!!!! Pictures to share then!

PNG - Almost there

2007-06-02T16:03:00.000-07:00

Crossing the international dateline is so weird. 12 hours ago it was Friday and now it is Sunday.
Toby and I are sitting in the Brisbane airport waiting for our flight to Port Moresby. Luckily this airport, unlike LAX, has launched into the 21st Century and has free WiFi to keep us occupied for the next few hours.
Nothing exciting to report just yet. Um... I watched "The Pursuit of Happiness" starring the Fresh Prince. It was pretty good. Also saw my one of my favorite Simpsons episodes - the stonecutters one.

I am feeling like I should be dorking out more to show my enthusiasm by reading PNG guidebooks and listening to tapes on Tok Pisin. Instead I'm reading magazines and posting pointless movie reviews to the blog. Oh well. The excitement is there - for sure. Just hidden under a lack of sleep and a bit of disbelief that I am actually on my way to PNG…

(Map by Lonely Planet) I will be spending the next few days Port Moresby followed by Lae.

Heli-skiing

2007-04-05T21:02:00.000-07:00

Dave won this trip through the Ski Journal, and it morphed from a gnarly day with a pro (cancelled due to bad weather) into a mellow day with a group and the wife got to join. No pro, but Montell Williams was in the other chopper - you heard me. Yes, that Montell!

It was gorgeous and we had great powder and we used more petroleum than we could ever justify for just 4 runs. But it was a blast!!

Tree on House

2006-12-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

Tree on house:

Rootball in neighbor's yard

Through windows:

Christmas Decorations

New bedroom

2006-11-26T18:05:00.000-08:00

Before:

After:

Thanksgiving
First fire in fireplace. Yes, he is in a onepiece long-john suit.

Snow in Seattle:

House renovations

2006-08-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

Living room

Dining room and kitchen

From kitchen towards bedroom door

Dave and his garden

Veggie seedlings: spinach, chard, lettuce, squash, peas, basil, leeks

Bathroom before

During

After

Trips

2006-08-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

Alpine Lakes area in WA June 2006
Wild children in wildflowers. We counted over 50 species in bloom. Amazing.

Full moon

Campfire

After hike to lake

Same area a few weeks later....
sunset

Trips

2006-08-17T21:13:00.000-07:00

30th birthday at Olympic National Park. Michelle made me a non-bake cheesecake on the trail complete with wild berries!

Hurricane Ridge

Avalanche lily

Potential new house

2006-06-17T17:48:00.000-07:00

It's almost ours.

Nearby skatepark

Nearby new library with living roof

Santiago and hot springs

2005-12-10T08:29:00.000-08:00

Pucon

2005-12-09T23:17:00.000-08:00

Volcan Villarrica

2005-12-09T23:11:00.000-08:00

El Can~i, monkey puzzle trees!

2005-12-09T22:59:00.000-08:00

Puerto Varas and Parque Nacional Alerce Andino

2005-12-09T22:32:00.000-08:00

Castro, Chiloe Island

2005-12-09T22:20:00.000-08:00

Bariloche and vicinity

2005-12-09T21:24:00.000-08:00

Peninsula Valdes - whales, penguinos and armadillos

2005-12-09T21:07:00.000-08:00

Punta Arenas & Puerto Natales

2005-12-09T17:10:00.000-08:00

Torres del Paine

2005-12-09T16:35:00.000-08:00

Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina

2005-12-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

El Chalten, Argentina

2005-12-09T16:10:00.000-08:00

Happy belated Thanksgiving

2005-11-25T19:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Dave and I took a morning bus from Puerto Natales to the Punta Arenas airport and arrived in Santiago in the late afternoon. It is so hot here compared to down south - between 70 and 80 each day and the sun still doesn't set until about 8:30. It was more like 9:30 or 10:00 in Punta Arenas. I'm not sure how I will deal with the abruptly short days upon return to the U.S.
For Thanksgiving dinner we went to 'the most famous vegetarian restaurant on the continent' according to my guidebook. It was fantastic - no stuffing though...
Today we went up into some hotsprings in the mountains. It was a bit expensive and a bit less than what it was talked up to be. Nonetheless it was worth it to see the mountains in person rather than through the smog of Santiago. We enjoyed the drive up through the city and foothills. The Andes are huge and not far from the city. Still tons of snow up high. This is a skier's paradise.
The hostprings were just some clay pools in the side of a barren hill with guys at and 'entrance' asking for money to use them. Somewhat questionable, but warm and relaxing. I think we got burned between the sun and the hot water. We had to keep moving to cooler pools. They view was the best part of the day.
Well, things here are wrapping up. Tomorrow we will do some shopping and museuming in the city and then catch the plane for the red eye to Dallas.
A lot has been seen and enjoyed and learned in the last 40 days.
p.s. I got word that I can work for NPS during our week in SF!

El Chalten rules -remix

2005-11-22T17:15:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd add to this one because I was rushed and had a poor internet connection...
We crossed the border on Saturday and ended the journey in El Calafate, Argentina. We had a rainy, whirlwind tour to the Glacier Perito Moreno in Los Glaciers National Park on Saturday afternoon upon arrival. People call this one the big brother to Glacier Gray that we saw in Torres del Paine. They are all part of this huge southern ice cap on the continent - the biggest outside of polar regions. We went on a boat to get close to the glacier and to get out of the rain which was actually snow only 1000ft above us. It would have been nice to see the glacier on a nicer day for the full effect of how far back into the the valley this thing goes, but it was still great. More time and the ability to sit still rather than dodging freezing raindrops would have allowed for more calving events. About every 1 or 20 minutes a huge chunk of ice breaks off into the water. It sounds like thunder and creates a huge wave in the lake. Surprising all of the lakes we have seen have few icebergs floating around for the amount that breaks off. They mush melt fairly quickly. Moreno Glacier is 20 stories high and is currently forming a dam at a narrow section of the Lake Argentina. After the water builds up on one side of the dam for a long enough, it eventually breaks under the pressue. That would be great to see. When we saw it there was about a 3m difference in the water level between the two sides.
El Calafate is super fancy and touristy. Lots of leather and fur stores and servicepeople that speak English. We left bright and early the next day for the highlight of Los Glaciers Ntnl Park - Fitz Roy!
El Chalten is this tiny little town in the middle of the north end of Los Glaciers National Park. It is also much less visited than the southern end of the park which houses Moreno Glacier. From town you can see Mt. Fitz Roy and huge granite towers similar to those in Torres del Paine, called Corre Torres. Our first day in El Chalten was completely bluebird - finally the rain stopped following me!!! Typically the Corre Torres are socked in, so the recommendation was to hit the trail with the views of those guys first. Every bus that arrives in town stops at the park visitor center where everyone gets a map and a briefing on the rules.
We had trouble finding a hostel at first because we didn´t make reservations. Luckily we ended up at a decent place and didn´t have to rent camping equipment. We have too much stuff to carry up a hill at this point in the trip! The downside is that we've been dealing with loud snorers each night. Private rooms are the new plan after El Calafate.
There are two main series of granite pinnacles here. The trail you hike up determines which ones you will see at the top. By now we´ve done three hikes and seen Fitz Roy from many different angles. The best part about this place is that we can just take off from our hostel and be on a great hike in minutes - and for free! There is also amazing vegetarian food here which was very unexpected because we are 70km down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The bus ride was not fun. The town of El Chalten starts at this visitor center and ends a rambling 2 km north. For the amount of buildings and houses here the town is really spread out. It is all dirt road with fairly ugly quickly built structures, no ATMs (you must stock up on cash in El Calafate), about a dozen hostels and a fancy hotel on a hill at the end of town. Besides the great food, there are also cool artist stores and rather urbane clothes, jewelry, etc. Kind of weird but I bought a purse and necklace that look like they came from a boutique in the Mission from a shop in an Argentinian Ntnl Park.
Yesterday's hike was the longest, hardest and wettest, but the views were great. The very top of the summit we thought we were aiming for was inaccessible without an ice axe and crampons, so we settled for the view accessible using hiking boots.
It is just amazing here. Dave has met the local ski guide and is already planning to come back for some touring someday.
Now we are waiting to get back on the 4 hours on gravel road bus ride.

Torres del Paine

2005-11-18T22:26:00.000-08:00

I wish I could just upload photos and not even try to describe this place. TdP is the most visited and most famous park in Chile, if not all of Patagonia. I know I´ve used a lot of superlatives during the blogging, but seriously... this place stunning. It isn´t very big, but it packs the most varied and amazing geology into its boundary. We kept comparing it to other places we had been if they were next door to each other - like if an Alaskan glacier was heading into Lake Superior in Yosemite Valley with the Tetons in the background. Actually even pictures won't give a good description because you can´t capture the different mountains in one shot. Dave described it best as before and after diagrams of what glaciers do to mountains. There are enormous, glacier-covered craggy mountains ...seriously huge! Then across the valley there are polished granite towers with different rock bands through them.
The park has a really nice trail system with refugios along the way. You can eat or rent a tent or shower or sleep in a bed in the refugios. It is very civilized. We opted for renting a tent and carrying our own food. We attempted to splurge on breakfasts but that only worked out well once. The box of wine and cookies that they stock at the refugios were quite welcome.
We hiked the part of the trail known as the 'W' because you start on one end and walk up and down three neighboring valleys. We actually did an abbreviated version because we are trying to squeeze in some time in Argentina in the next week too.
The first day we set out by boat to the west side of the park. We hiked up the valley to Glacier Gray. This was the first time Dave had seen a glacier that wasn´t on a slope up on top of a mountain. It covers an enormous valley and calves off into Lago Gray. We saw and heard one iceberg implode for some unknown reason. This glacier isn´t particularly active, so not much calving happened. The color was fantastic. Gray is a dudes name, not the color. It was aquamarine.
On day two we hiked back out the valley and along the shores of the biggest lake in the park (named after some slavic guy which can´t say or spell) to just beneath the Cuernos. These are incredible and one of the highlights of the park. The entire hike there was packed with vistas and waterfalls. Around every bend we were amazed. The Colorado Paine Grande is the enormous mountain (before picture) next to the Cuernos (after picture). The glacier on top of the Paine Grande was huge and pretty active. We saw and heard a bunch of small avalanches. The thing is that we were down hiking in essentially desert scrub looking up at avalanches. The park is in full springtime. Primavera! There were all sorts of wildflowers and birds and butterflies. I´m not sure how the butterflies manage to get from flower to flower because the winds are so strong! Gusts of 60mph were not uncommon and would often knock me around on the trail with my backpack acting as a sail. Which brings me to the bees. The bees around here could carry off small children. After experiencing the wing, I now understand why.
The evening of day two was fantastic. The second refugio was much nicer with an attentive staff and a nice common space inside. We rented a tent, made some dinner, bought our boxed wine and sat out on the rocky beach looking back at the Cuernos and the Paine Grande side by side. A condor was cruising around between the Cuernos. So nice.
On the third day we hiked to the end of the lake and up the last valley of the 'W'. This is the valley with the Torres at the end. Most people consider the Torres (towers) to be the ultimate reason for going to the park. Up for debate. I vote for the Cuernos. Much like the tourists, the clouds also seem to like hanging out by the torres. We couldn't see them at all that afternoon. We camped at another nice refugio right on the river as the temperature dropped. We woke up this morning to a good bit of snow coming down. No hope for an up-close shot of the towers with the snow storm. Bummer. It is kind of like missing Half Dome or El Cap if you are at Yosemite. We did get a good view of them on our ride into the park. Now and then we could make out their outline through the clouds. Oh well. We chalked it up to being very Patagonian. The spring turned to winter overnight. We didn´t see any sign of things clearing up in time to hike up to the base of the Torres, so we hiked out of the valley and caught the afternoon bus back to Puerto Natales.
We have so many pictures! We will try to edit them for your benefit before Christmas.
Tomorrow we leave for El Calafate in Argentina. Glacier Moreno and El Chaltan await.

Puerto Natales

2005-11-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

Dave arrived on Saturday night - yeah!! He had a days worth of adventures in Santiago before getting down to Punta Arenas. Our very fancy and expensive hostel only had room for one night so we decided to come up to Puerto Natales and start planning our hike in the Torres del Paine National Park on Sunday.
Puerto Natales has incredible views of the Andes to the north with crazy glaciers and snowfields just past the fingers of ocean that wind through the islands to this mainland town - it is the endpoint for the cruise down the coast. Today a person from the hostel suggested that we hike to the top of the mesa that is behind town. Puerto Natales is literally on the flat southern side of the sound and the north side is jagged peaks - it is pretty crazy. She drove us to a nearby estancia (farm). We paid the family a bit to get through their land and for the tea and bread they gave us at the end of the hike. We hiked about 1000ft to the top of this gorgeous mesa. It looks like something out of Utah but then once you get to the top you are facing these insane glaciers and have a perfect view of the town. We hung out at the top for a while taking a million pictures during the crystal clear day. On the way down, the neighbors dogs got through the fence and were fiarly menacing. We ended up getting trapped up on the steep trail for a while until the dogs got bored with us and went back to their house. It was actually a little scary when I went from thinking that their tails were wagging to hearing the growls. Luckily they weren´t smart enough to follow the trail up the hill, so we just hung out about 200 feet above them.
We spent the rest of the day getting all of our supplies and bus tickets for the trip. Unfortunately the weather has taken a turn for the worst, so we might be staying in the refugios rather than tents during the trek. We leave tomorrow morning and will stay 3 nights, getting back to town on Friday evening. Saturday we leave bright and early for Argentina. I just can´t stay out of that country. It is so beautiful and cheap!! Dave is also a little baffled by the Chilean prices. We found a great veggie restaurant here but it is almost more expensive than those in SF.
El Calafate is the destination in Argentina. We will head straight for the Moreno Glacier on Saturday afternoon.
Blog to be continued then....

Crabby in Punta Arenas

2005-11-12T11:45:00.000-08:00

Not sure if it was my 30 hours of travelling or the fact that Dave doesn´t arrive for another 11 hours....
Thursday I took an 18-hour bus ride from Puerto Madryn to Rio Gallegos in Argentina. Again I had the seat near the baño. Nice. About 2 hours into the trip the bus pulls over next to two stranded trucks full of people. I thought how nice it was that the driver was giving them water for their radiator or otherwise helping out. The next thing I know a band of wild gypsies/hippy cult members pour onto our bus. There were at least two adult females with several children and a 12 year old girl seemingly doing all of the work. One man went upstairs to the nice part of the bus and left the rest of us to endure his dirty, half-clothed progeny. The babies were screaming and running all around the bus. They were adorable once you could see them through the filth. It was an olfactory and auditory nightmare. The noise was on top of a Bruce Willis shoot-em-up movie on full blast in Spanish. Luckily they got off the bus around midnight and we could all sleep.
The bus station in Rio Gallegos has the worst facilities of any that I´ve been in. I had a 4 hour wait for my next bus and the town was too far and rainy to walk to. Luckily I have learned to stock up on food because the kiosk had only candy bars and warm soda. Okay, here is my gripe. In both Chile and Argentina the people are fairly rude and everyone eats tons of sugar. Every little shop has ice cream, chocolate and candy but finding anything like an apple is impossible if you aren´t in a supermarket. If I never eat ice cream again it will be welcome. Granted some of it is amazing. In El Bolson they were artisans of the helados, but Nestle bars and chocolate between every meal is just too much. No wonder they don´t get hungry for dinner until 10pm. I was about done with people cutting in front of me like I don´t exist and bumping into me once I got on the second bus.
This bus ride was great despite more unruly children. I´m glad my neices and nephews are so well behaved :) Earlier in my travels I was befriending little dudes, but currently they seem to be my nemasis. Hopefully my relationship to the niños improves.
The ride went through wide open grassland with some small ridges and rolling hills. It was so vast. Very Patagonian. I finally know what a bunchgrass prairie is supposed to look like. There were also lots of sheep grazing near the road with their little baby lambs chasing behind them. So cute! The grassland started to mix in with small wetlands and some trees the closer we got to Punta Arenas. I think we either have to go further north or east to get to mountains again.
Now I am in Punta Arenas waiting to get into our nice hostel. I really bit the bullet to save money last night with my hostel selection. I met a South African guy with the craziest South American adventures of biking through the Andes and ice climbing with unskilled guides in Bolivia, so it was at least entertaining.
Poor Dave is also in the middle of a 4 plane trip. He is currently killing time until his plane leaves Santiago this evening. I hope he goes to the hostel where I stayed(and where he is supposed to retrieve my sunglasses) to relax a bit. They speak English too.
Not sure if we will spend two nights here or push on to Puerto Natales and start planning our trek in Torres del Paine. With all of the sitting and ice cream, I am ready to start hiking again!! He is calling the shots in terms of our plans from here on out since he only has two weeks.
p.s. Dawn, the penguins I saw in Argentina and the species down here are Spheniscus magellanicus, Magellanic penguins.
p.s.s. The thing about people being rude is on a macro level. The overall society is pushy and the service workers are unfriendly (maybe similar to NYC?) but individuals are really pleasant. In fact, I just met a local guy at a vegetable stand who used to live in Texas and wanted to discuss U.S. policy while choosing pears. He is fine with Iraq. According to him, if we didn´t go in China would have... hmmm. He didn´t seem too familiar with geography in that he was describing this future plan of China as simply a border expansion.
p.s.s.s. Why is the song 'Whats going on?' by 4 Non-blondes still played on any station in the US or abroad? This is the 5th time I´ve heard it on my trip.

Penguinos

2005-11-09T16:35:00.000-08:00

How weird are these birds? I love them. I could have stayed at the colony all day and night.
Unfortunately I took the same tour company and the bus broke again!! The drive to the colony was quite far and hot, but well worth it once we arrived.
The penguins lay their eggs on land just up from the beach. Some of the sorryer guys end up in some real estate up to 2km from the water. It is such a bizarre scene to drive through scrubby desert and look out of the window to see penguins under the shrubs in their nests. The lay their eggs in a small depression on the ground or in a burough. Some shrubs have up to 4 nests underneath, other nests are pretty well spaced out.
I was expecting a sea of black and white wobbling to and fro, in and out of the water. This time of year the eggs are just beginning to hatch so the birds are mostly sleeping in their nests. It ends up being less a sea of black and white and more a dotted landscape of them. There was at least one chick that hatched today, but the mother was too stubborn to get up from off the baby while I stood there and stared at her for a half hour. Their were some hanging out in the surf. One area served as the penguin freeway with constant wobbling traffic back and forth. I think the freeway headed to the undesirable neighborhoods in the back.
So cute.
The weird thing was how close we were able to get to them. You could literally man handle them if you were a moronic tourist with no respect - which according to the guide some people are. Some researchers are comparing this colony with other secluded colonies to see if all of the people wandering around impacts them.
The more exciting part of the day for the locals was the thunderstorm. I am starting to worry that the rain if following me. It didn´t start until after we left Punto Tombo and it is always cool to see a thunderstorm in the desert.
Tomorrow I leave for Rio Gallegos - last stop before Punta Arenas at the southern tip of Chile.

Peninsula Valdes

2005-11-09T00:33:00.000-08:00

My day was like a real life version of Jack´s favorite show "X-treme Animals". The Peninsula Valdes juts into the Atlantic and has been compared to an embryo on the Mother Argentina. Look on a map and you'll see why.
I took a tour to the peninsula which got off to a rocky start with the car breaking down. We drove through rolling desert with low shrubs and lots of open space. On the drive we saw guanacos (wild llamas) and lesser rheas which sort of look like ostriches. Then we got on a boat and saw Southern right whales in the southern bay. The mother whales deliver and nurse their babies in the bay. We saw at least 4 or 5 pairs. One mother had the baby on her back and every time she came up for air, it was a mess of fins and tails that were hard to figure out. They were very curious and the boat was able to get close - probably too close for marine mammal protection standards.
The next stop was Punta Norte on the peninsula which I was anxious to hurry through in order to get to the penguins. Punta Norte is mostly known as the hang out for elephant seals and sea lions - both of which we have plenty of in CA, so I wasn´t too impressed. There were not many of either left on the beach. Two sea lions and a few dozen juvenile elephant seals. It is also known as the only place where Orcas come ashore and grab baby sea lions for lunch. This is not the right time of year for that behavior, but we were there at high tide just in case. We were on a cliff with a great vantage point of the beach and surf. All of the sudden we realized cliff that there were a bunch of orcas very close to the shore along with a mother and baby Southern right whale. Turns out the orcas were trying to wear out the mother and eat the baby whale. According to the tour guide, they only eat the yummy parts of the baby and then leave it to die. Not to mention the orcas are about 1/5 the size of the baby, so they definitely needed the whole team to take this 1 month old down. In the end, it didn´t seem that they succeeded this time, but it was quite a captivating 15 minutes. One of the orcas was a baby with the mothers and aunts likely teaching him how to hunt.
Oh, the other cool thing was armadillos running all around the parking lot! They are like pesky dogs begging for food but in a very bizarre reptile meets a pig kind of way. They are hilarious. I have some great pictures.
We did finally get to the penguins, but the big news will be tomorrow when I go to the biggest colony outside of Antartica.
There is also a great Ecocenter here which is a science museum with a big library that has a reading room shaped like a lighthouse. From the top you can see the town, bay and peninsula. The hostel is nice - I finally made some friends again.
4 days until Dave arrives!!!!!!!!!!

Bariloche

2005-11-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

The weather has gone from cold and drizzly to full fledged summer in the past day or so.
On Friday I went on the boat trip that I wrote about. It was really beautiful. I am so glad that I didn´t pay the $160 to do the boat-bus tour from Puerto Varas because the tour I did on Friday was essentially the Argentinian end of the same tour for $15. Granted I was one of the few people under 50 on the boat, but it was nice. We stopped in an area in the ntnl park for a short hike up to some waterfalls and then the boat went across to the other side of the lake for lunch. I ended up taking a trail around the lake instead of getting back on the boat. It was fantastic and not as wet as people had warned.
The sun came out for the boat ride back home. Pictures do not do this place justice.
Yesterday, after little sleep do to a log-sawer in my room, I went by bus to El Bolson. It is a town about 70 miles south of here and is known as the hippy capital of Argentina. It is a 'nuclear free zone' and has a great artisan fair every Saturday with booths taking up several city blocks. I went in search of crafts and soy protein. I left with only crafts. I am still getting used to the siesta deal and couldn´t get any soya burgers at the time that my stomach was asking for them. Cocina closed. Oh well. I am getting my share of cheese on this trip with my primary options being pizza, pasta and empanadas. Good thing the veganism went out the window years ago. It is actually not that hard to be veggie in Patagonia as long as you aren´t looking for variety.
The bus ride to El Bolson was definitely the highlight of the day. The entire ride is jaw-dropping. There are ridges running north-south and every saddle and east-west drainage is a different color of rock. Gray, green, slate, orange, tan.... Then the lower slopes were bright green and packed with shrubs and small trees. Every now and then would be a hole in the greenery and the earth opened up into a waterfall. I may have missed ski season and I may be too early for true summer, but I am definitely here during the peak waterfall season. They are everywhere!!
Today I pretty much just walked around town and took a gondola ride up a hill with a view of town, the lakes and mountains. There were some small hikes at the top. I have pretty much seen all sides of this town. The boat ride on Friday left from the western-most point which has an exclusive hotel. The bus ride went past lakefront homes that must be owned by the elite of South America. Most were new with super modern architecture and beautiful grounds. Often the house was somehow built into the hillside or otherwise included in the scenary. The way out of town to El Bolson yesterday went through the exact opposite end of town with little shanty houses and tons of garbage and dogs.
I upgraded myself to a private room in the hostel last night after the snoring incident. I have a 13 hour overnight bus ride to Puerto Madryn on the Atlantic Coast tonight, so I figure I could afford one night of luxury in the top floor, private bath, double bed suite for $20. No seriously. $20.
I am looking forward to penguins and whales in Puerto Madryn. It is only the Atlantic coast. I am also looking forward to making some friends. I´ve become a bit of a hermit in Bariloche. I was really lucky to geniunely like the first few people I hung out with in previous towns. I think it spoiled me because the people at this hostel are not doing it for me.

The real Patagonia

2005-11-04T03:39:00.000-08:00

I guess by most definitions I have been in Patagonia during the majority of my trip. Even the island of Chiloe is considered Patagonia in a strict geographic sense. But not until I drove over the Andes yestereday did I really feel like I was here. The simple bus ride up and over the Chilean side and into the Argentinian side was amazing. I took tons of pictures from the bus window! I luv the digi cam JV and CJ!! I am currently in Bariloche which is another resort town on a lake. It is gorgeous. To the east is dryish shrublands due to the rain shadow but huge mountains are immediately to the west. I keep making annoying California comparisons, but seriously it is a lot like driving over Tioga pass and ending up on the East side of the Sierra Nevada.
People were right about it being cheaper. I had a big meal of pasta, a big salad and half a bottle of wine for dinner which came to about $5.
The only bummer is that they had a huge snow year. They are no longer skiing but there is too much snow still around to hike to some of the peaks nearby. Rafting and such summer activities will be in full swing in a couple of weeks. It actually snowed for a few minutes last night. I now look like an idiot wearing my brand new 'Bariloche' sweatshirt in Bariloche. Kind of like Tim buying a Rolling Stones t-shirt and throwing it on over his other clothes at the concert last week :)
Today I am going by boat to the other end of Lake Nahuel Huapi and then hiking around to another glacial lake. All of this, including the town of Bariloche, is in Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi.
I am meeting more Americans here than I had been in Chile.
Bush is here too, so apparently this country is a fave for all sorts of Americans.
Most everyone I meet understands that those of us that travel abroad in such a manner as I am tend to like the man about as much as they do. So mom you need not worry about anti-Americanism directed towards me in the next few days. And you also don't need to worry that I will be joining the protest because the Summit is a good 1000km from here.

Dia de los Muertos

2005-11-01T20:45:00.000-08:00

You know how some holidays, like Thanksgiving some years, take on that surreal, never-ending quality with the holiday over and yet the day still going? That is how today feels. It is a national holiday in Chile. Dia de los Muertos. Where everyone goes to the family plot at the cemetary with flowers and has a picnic. In Mexico (and the Mission) it is a big party with a parade, and you pretend that you are living it up with your old amigos and family members. Here it is a bit more somber. Due to the holiday, no tours were heading to the national park. Instead we caught local buses to Dalcehue which is a small town north of here. Then we took a ferry for a 5 minute ride over to a smaller island ending in the tiny town of Achao. We mostly walked around, went to a market, bought some things made of wool and had lunch. A tsunami wiped out a good bit of this town and others in 1960 but some of the wooden churches survived or were restored. The alerce trees I mentioned earlier were used to build all of the famous structures - churches and houses in this area. Many of them are now national monuments.
Today started at 9am which wasn´t a problem for me because the owners of my (previous)hostel have a midnight curfew. I thought the woman said that curfew was at 2:00 (dos) but she apparently said 12:00 (dose). So my mistake, I´ve learned to ask for clarification in 5 different ways. But that meant a short Halloween of watching the children walk around getting candy and an even shorter time at the bar. Last night was apprently one of the few lively nights per year with a salsa band and everything but I had a curfew... My friends had other plans and stayed out until 5am.
Halloween here is mostly the same. Kids dressed up looking for candy. I saw some broken eggs on the street this morning... apparently that is universal. No devil´s night - solamente en Detroit.
Another weird thing about Chile is that you continuously run into people. A woman from Holland introduced me to a group of locals trying to speak English at dinner. I kept running into them last night and this morning. Then we saw one of them on our bus after the ferry ride in the tiny town of Achao. She lives there.
My new Italian friend, who my Seatle buddy met at his hostel, is a big whig Marine Ecologist in Italy. She is old, but very cool. I´m off to meet her for dinner and talk about science :)
If the weather is terrible tomorrow, I might skip the tour and hop a bus to Bariloche.

Castro for Halloween

2005-10-31T12:12:00.000-08:00

Did I plan this? Well, sort of. I am in Castro (Chile) for Halloween. Very appropriate though I am not sure that the party will be the same.
(FYI The Castro neighborhood in SF is where the huge Halloween parade-street party is..)
I took the bus to the island of Chiloe, of which Castro is the capital. The island doesn´t have a bridge so the bus went on a ferry for about 20 minutes. It was the only 30 minutes of sun I have seen in days, so that was good timing. There were actually some seals playing around the ferry too!
The houses here are built on stilts near the water and painted various bright colors. Maybe this place is more like San Francisco afterall. I´m going to meet another gringo for a Halloween beer tonight. I plan to dress up as an obnoxious American which doesn't take much effort.

Have fun and get lots of candy everyone!!!!!

p.s. just made a $9 phone call home to Dave! He is worth it :)
p.s.s. ClearChannel has brought it tentacles of greed down to the remote areas of Chile with their stupid billboards. I saw a bunch on the bus ride.

Alerce trees

2005-10-30T16:37:00.000-08:00

I am staying at a German hostel and not hearing much Spanish this evening...
I rented a car with the guy that I met through friends. It was actually really nice to go with him because he is really into birds and checking stuff out along the trail. The drive was much further down dirt roads than we had anticipated. I think we screwed up in going to the south end of the park instead of the north, but this was discovered much past the point of no return. It is called Parque Nacional Alerce Andino. It is relatively small and encompasses a good chunk of a peninsula just east and slightly south of Puerto Montt. If you are keeping track on a map you'll find Puerto Montt rather easily. The park is probably too small to show up on most maps. I am actually staying about 20km north of Puerto Montt in Puerto Varas. This was highly recommended and after todays trip, I know why. Puerto Montt has very little to offer and we spent about 30 minutes there walking around and deciding that there was not much keeping us there.
So back to the park...
These alerce trees are thousands of years old and super tall. Not Redwoods by any stretch, but getting close. We hiked in about 4 miles next to a river and saw all sorts of crazy plants. That area is so lush!! There were mosses and lichens and liverworts growing on the rocks on the trail. There were also tons of bryophytes and some Chilean proteads - long red flowers that the hummingbirds were braving the rain for. Dont be fooled by the fact that I am in South America, this place is much more like Washington than it is a tropical forest. There are not hundreds of species. You see the same trees and plants and birds over and over...it is just that they are jam packed into this beautiful little sanctuary with super steep hills and lakes galore. The alerce trees are conifers, similar to a cypress. Our mistake in going south was that there are more and bigger alerce trees in the north, but I am not complaining. It pretty much drizzled the entire time. The songs and calls of the birds and frogs there were so bizarre. They need to make a tape and sell it.
I think I am heading to the island of Chiloe, just southwest of Puerto Montt, tomorrow. The bus schedule is up in the air because Tuesday is a national holiday and I don=t want to get stuck on a rainy island when sunny Argentina awaits.
I have the dorm in the hostel all to myself tonight. I am heading to a warm bed and a good book.

Puerto Varas

2005-10-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

Hello
I took the bus this morning from Pucon. A few things of note... The clearcutting in Chile is even more of an eyesore than what U.S. or Canadian companies are capable of. After clearcutting hillsides, they plant row after row of eucalyptus trees. It is horrendous. Not only does it look weird because the new growth is red compared to the intact forests, but I imagine the trees then invade the surrounding forest that hasn't been cut yet. Crazy.
The bus ride went through some very rural areas. The most common bird species I saw in the pastures was a super colorful ibis!! Bright red legs and all. I forgot to mention that I also saw a caracara chilling in Cani when I was there. It isn't uncommon for people with small farms to use plows pulled by cattle.
It turns out that Pucon is more like the Steamboat of Chile and now I am in the Aspen of Chile. If it is possible, everything here is more expensive. The tours to the surrounding parks are at least $60. Right off the bat I met a guy who runs a guide company. He gave me good advice on where to stay and told me that it is cheaper to rent a car in order to visit the parks.
After some lunch in a cafe with veggie sandwiches, which this fine gentleman also recommended, I ran into some people I had met in Pucon including my buddy from Seattle. They had befriended a German guy who is actually staying in my hostel and was trying to find someone to rent a car with him tomorrow. Perfect! We only have to pay $20 for the car and we have it all day.
The park was established to protect alerce trees which are almost as large and definitely as old as redwoods. It was established during the Pinochet era which is remarkable that anything pro/environment happened then. Ill report in once I have some more info.
I plan to stay here tomorrow night and then hightail it to a cheaper locale.
p.s. I changed the setting for comments to only allow registered users because i am really tired of all the spam. If you don't want to register, just email me directly. I check all of my accounts regularly.

Leaving Pucon

2005-10-28T20:19:00.000-07:00

Not much to report. Thursday night being bar night here, I pretty much laid low today. I had my last spanish class this morning. It didn't work out to have coffee at my teacher's house because it was raining all day. It would have been a cold and wet ten miles.
I hope everyone is well!
Tomorrow morning I take a bus to Puerto Varas. Near Puerto Montt but a bit nicer.
I just checked the weather and it looks like more of this cold rain where I am headed followed by a sunny vacation in Argentina.

Monkey puzzles

2005-10-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

It is hace frio en Pucon ahora. Yesterday and today have been really cold and cloudy. Which means I didn't choose the best day to hike around Cañi nature reserve yesterday (but I did pick the best day for the volcano- people today were rained out from going to the summit).
The reserve was really cool. We were literally the only people there. There are so many similar plants to California - especially invasive ones. Tons of gorse, broom, eucalyptus, Monterey Pine, etc. The reserve is pretty much without invasives at this point but there is grazing all around it. The lower elevations have all sorts of South American oaks, laurels, gaultheria, fuchsia and others. The higher elevations is where all of the monkey puzzle trees grow. These things are older than dinosaurs and look amazing in the fog. We hiked up another snow-covered mountain to the top which has a scenic vista. Unfortunately we couldn't see any of the tops of surrounding mountains and volcanoes, but the surrounding valleys were in full view. It had rained the night before which actually meant a light covering of snow on the top-most monkey puzzle trees. It was a winter wonderland.
This stupid computer isn't recognizing my camera, so I can't upload photos just now...bummer!
One more day of Spanish lessons and then I'm leaving Pucon on Saturday morning. My spanish teacher has invited me to bike to her cabin outside of town tomorrow after class for coffee. She reminds me of Renee for some reason... I really like her.
More later! Keeping this one short as I try to make the camera work....

Calendars don't work on vacation

2005-10-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

How embarrassing. I didn't actually forget my anniversary date, I just thought that yesterday was the 25th. Oops!
Thanks to everyone for the well wishes on the blog and by email. Thanks to Jack for the heads up on blood suckers in the rivers. I will use toilets exclusively now that I have this information.
I can't wait for mi esposo to arrive in Chile. 18 days!!
I will definitely try to post some photos soon. I finally found a fast computer with an obvious USB port. I am going to a private nature reserve tomorrow with tons of monkey puzzle trees, so I will post afterwards. I really picked the right day for the volcanoe becuase Sunday has been the clearest day since I arrived. Once you are on top you are above the clouds anyway, but it is nice to have views of the lakes and surrounding area.
Last night some people I met at the hostel and I caught a taxi to some hot springs up the road. The driver waited for 2 hours while we soaked. There were 6 pools built up next to a river. We couldn't see much of the river because it was night. The pools were pretty natural (just built up with rocks and not made into hot tubs or anything) and had some cool little cabins near by for changing. You could walk down a staircase from the cabin straight into the pool. The stars were amazing. Tons of shooting stars - especially when we worked our way down to the less crowded and darker pools. We saw the Southern Cross. Tt one point on the drive home we think we saw a reflection of the lava on a cloud over the volcanoe. Muy muy bueno!!
I really like Pucon despite the prices. I am learning to eat less and buy food at the supermercado. Unfortunately this hostel doesn't have a kitchen because it has a mid-priced vegetarian restaurant with people working in it all day. I've only had a piece of quiche there so far, but plan to have a proper vegetarian slurge before I leave. I have heard great things about Bariloche in Argentina which is just two short bus rides away. I'd stay in San Martin in between buses. It is apparently similar to Pucon but cheaper because of Argentina's economy. The Spanish (they call it castallena) is really different there, but I understand so little anyway that it won't much matter. I will likely leave on Saturday.
It is so weird how many people I have met from Seattle and San Francisco here. One guy lives in Fort Mason (and is from Ireland). Another lives in Seattle but used to live in the Mission. I met another guy on my first day while I walked through the common area wearing a Jerusalem Gardens t-shirt. He went to U of M. Now he is living here but subletting his apartment in San Francisco which is about 10 blocks from our old place. The craziest part is that he is here writing a book about Pablo Neruda (famous Chilean poet and activist) and I had actually heard of his first book of translated poems called 'Essential Neruda'. It is published by City Lights. It is so crazy! Then I met the owner of Ecole hostel and the private nature reserve who also used to work in the Marin Headlands. He is trying to hook me up with the half-working, mostly run down native plant nursery at the Cañi reserve. If it seems worth it, I might stick around to volunteer, but there might be a serious language barrier.
p.s. sorry about the weird spam messages in the comments sections, but that is what happens if people don't have to sign in.... just ignore them.

Ring of Fire

2005-10-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!
Two years ago today most of the people reading this were shaking their money maker on the dance floor at our wedding. 2 years!!! And my hubby and I are on different continents :(
Sad, but true. We plan to postpone this year´s anniversary to November 12 when Dave arrives in Punta Arenas.
So, yesterday was the highlight of the trip so far. I climbed Volcan Villarrica. It was awesome. The top is literally a crater with lava churning and spouting down in it. From one point on the outside of the crater you can actually look down and see the inside of the earth. It was fantastico! It took forever to get to the top because I went with the guiding company that my roommate at the hostel chose. It consisted of us and a group of American exchange students. They had some major difficulties and didn´t know what they were in for. My new friend and I kicked all of their young butts and made it to the top easily while almost a third of them abandoned the mission. This is the trouble with tv and video games apparently. We were definitely the last group to the top due to these slow 19-year-olds and a late start. The climb was about 3800 feet up and not technical or dangerous at all. It was all on snow and parts were steep, so we used crampons and ice axes. Then to come down we slid down using the ice axe as a controlling and breaking mechanism. It was so great! I definitely won´t splurge on many more things like this, but I couldn´t pass this up. The volcanoe is just staring at you from outside of town asking to be climbed. In hindsight I should have paid the extra to ski up and back down but I wasn´t sure what the snow conditions would be like - or the ski equipment for that matter. The guides made us wear these terrible plastic boots to fit the crampons because they didn´t have the kind that fit over regular hiking boots. Blisters were a serious problem. Imagine spending a day in plastic, used, larger versions of bowling shoes with other people´s sweat in them.
The hostel doesn´t have the volunteer forest restoration program I thought it did... oh well. I did start my spanish lessons today with a great local woman.
Some other info on Chile:
In Santiago, a cafe is sometimes a coffee shop and sometimes a skin show. You often can easily tell the difference, but the rule of thumb is to determine if you can see inside the cafe from the street or not.
I can´t wait to show everyone the lava pics! So cool!

The Aspen of Chile

2005-10-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

I am now in Pucon. It is very resort-y but cute. It is on Lago (lake) Villarrica. Chileans come here in the summer and there are lots of cabins and summer homes. Tons of tourists come here too because there is skiing here in the winter and trekking on the giant snow covered Volcan Villarrica. There are tons of guiding companies for rafting and trekking around the area. I´m here during the shoulder season. It is starting to warm up but there is still a serious nip in the air and not yet too many people. It is fairly pricey, especially for South American standards. My hostel is the cool eco vegetarian coop-run deal called Ecole! (the exclamation is part of the name, I´m not that fired up about it.. yet) I´m signed up for Spanish lessons starting Monday.
The train ride here was interesting. Everything was fine and I´m safe and sound, but there was a little scare. Not sure why I´m telling people this because worrying is so not necessary... Anyway the train came to a weird skidding stop about an hour into the trip. Turns out there was some lumber on the tracks...? I´m still not sure because the work that they did to get us moving again (only about 45 minuts later) was under my car which was the third one. The scary part was that the lumber turned up a bunch of dirt and dust which came into the car through the vents. At first I thought it was smoke until it actually had a texture to it. I was starting to freak out and get my backpack on. Luckily a nice guy behind me spoke English and filled me in on what was happening. Unfortunately his English also served to scare me for no reason. Example: I look out the window and it is pitch black so I freak out and ask him if we are in a tunnel. He says yes. The panic rises until I walk around and see lights from another window. Turns out he just says yes to most of my questions whether he understands them or not. It was pretty funny because people literally kept sleeping during this entire ordeal. There was a group of 10 year old girls that chatted with me early on and I figured their parents would keep them safe so I tried to follow their lead. They proceeded to sing Chilean children´s songs while their dad went outside the car to check things out. I went out too. It was the railroad guys, some male passengers and the gringo girl who was about to go through the emergency exit :) My services were not needed so I went back to my seat and read.
The girls were so cute. I tried to speak Spanish and they tried to speak English. One of them asked me how we say the name of the town Temuco in English. I told her that we didn´t have our own word for their town. Her friends thought it was hilarious.
Anyway, the bus ride from Temuco was much less exciting. Probably no more trains for me :) I did manage to get some sleep after the brief hold up. The real bummer about yesterday was leaving my sunglasses at the hostel... ugh!
Thanks for all of the comments on the blog. Hey, who is my landlord - Tim or John? I am not sure what to say when people ask where I am from due to my homeless status. I say California since that goes over better than Estados Unidos and I´d have nothing to say if people asked me about Seattle.
The views here are awesome - I´m off to take them in.

Santiago day 3

2005-10-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

I slept in today due to my new room resembling a cave. It was great. I was successful in locating the correct store and purchasing an electrical adapter for my camera charger. In the US they are not cheap and here I paid one dollar. Sweet. I also tracked down Huelgo which my guidebook calls the continent's best vegetarian restaurant - I'm guessing there isn't a lot of competition. It was yummy. I am starting to do the Chilean giant late lunch and a little snack in the evening. The siesta here is basically an excuse to shop in the middle of the day. The subway is packed between 1 and 3 as are the restaurants and stores.
I went with my Australian museum buddy to the Museo Bellas Artes. They had a Worhol exhibit and some other cool Chilean artists. The building itself is really beautiful. The foyer looks like a greenhouse with a glass roof.
The hostel is nice enough to let me chill here on my down time since my train doesn't leave until tonight. It helped that I booked a room for Dave and I when we come back through at the end of November. This free internet thing is great. I'm thinking my entries will slow down once I have to pay for the internet and once I am away from the big city.
On to the Lake District AKA Sur Chico...
It is at least 20 degrees colder there so I'm thinking I might need to purchase a sweatshirt. I have some warm stuff but it mostly consists of that wetsuit-looking thing. And while it could pass as fashionable here due to the tight Euro look to it, it just isn't comfy.
More later.

Santiago day 2

2005-10-20T20:31:00.000-07:00

So the first night of the hostel was a bit rough. Loud dance club across the street that opens at midnight and some less than thoughtful roommates. No details necessary at this time. I've since moved downstairs to a quiet room.
Last night I went to a lovely dinner on a patio with an Irish girl...a vegetarian one at that. And this morning I befriended an Ozzy to check out the Museo de Natural Historicas. It was nice to have buddies to get lost with. The metro (subway) here is really nice and cheap and easy to navigate. We found the museum and it was a funny mix of displays not updated since before the Pinochet era. Complete with plastic figurines of dinosaurs. Other exhibits were brand new. Apparently copper is a huge export here and the copper people fronted the money for an enormous and new exhibit on the wonders and history of copper. They should include the new de Young museum in it...
The rest of the day pretty much involved hanging out at the hostel, meeting people, watching tv, wandering around the neighborhood and reading in a cafe. Nice and relaxing.
As we were flipping between Laguna Beach and the Simpons in Spanish this walking guidebook of a human appeared at the hostel with tidings of Chilean information. It was nuts. He was talking to a guy about a tour to the mountains this weekend. I started inquiring about some things and the next thing you know he is highlighting maps of the Lakes District and writing down the number of nights I should stay in each place and what hostels are the best. It was two days of internet and guidebook research boiled into 15 minutes with this local specialist. He is also planning a day trip for Dave and I when we come back through Santiago - either the coast or hotsprings in the Andes... awesome!
I bought a train ticket for tomorrow night to head south. I'll end up in Temuco after an overnight train ride and then take a bus a short distance to Pucon where the vegetation-tree hugging hostel awaits. The Natural History Museum today made me want to leave the city and see some things like the famous monkey puzzle trees.

Santiago day 1

2005-10-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

So the thing about Santiago being safe apparently doesn't take into account wild dogs. Not mean ones but yes wild dogs. They sort of just hang out and sleep in the shade and I give them wide berth.
I walked around all day and saw the Chilean History Museum at Plaza de Armas. It was mostly in Spanish but I caught the main points. The Spanish school wants me to start on Monday with a group or pay out the nose for some private lessons this week. I think I'll continue to use my phrase book and look like an idiot for the next couple of days. Then I'll head down to Pucon in time to start a proper group lesson on Monday.
There is a rock outcrop/fortress/church in the middle of the city that must rise up 750 feet in a quarter mile. It is a city park and the top has great views of the sprawling city and the Andes. This city is seriously enormous, especially in comparison to my little 7x7 town of under a million. There is good stencil graffiti and other street art. I have seen "vegetarianos" on some signs but so far I've just had a cheese empanada and some fruit which can't be screwed up through poor communication.
Tomorrow I'm going to find the Natural History Museum and attempt to purchase a power converter for my camera.
Hey, seriously don't worry about the dogs. I'm not hanging out down by the river. Which, by the way, is a madly flowing brown swirl of snowmelt and upstream pollution. The dogs are simply a sign that I am indeed in South America.
p.s. this keyboard is whacky so don't judge the lack of punctuation at times.

Titulo

2005-10-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

I am here! The blog page is now in Spanish so we'll see how this works.
Europe is so overrated - this is it! Especially for West Coast people. The flight is the same amount of time but no jet lag. I just got to the hostel and I'm not even in need of a nap yet. The hostel is great. Info for worryers:
Hostel Forestal. Street address = Coronel Santiago Bueras 120 in the Parque Forestal neighborhood of Santiago. Free internet, it is clean and not many people which is good for sleeping but bad for making buddies.
The smog here is really bad but you can still make out the Andes in the distance. The city is incredibly clean with amazing architecture from what I saw on my shuttlebus ride from the airport.
One of my guidebooks says that this is the safest country in the hemispheres - West and South! I'm going to checkout some museums and a language school in case I decide to stick around here for a while.

Post poned

2005-10-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

I am one week late in my departure to Santiago due to being a total airhead during the move - and catching the bird flu which I then gave to Dave. Don't believe the hype people, it has already jumped to humans and it is the worst.
Tomorrow I get on the plane to Santiago and the trip begins :)
This is just my test page for how the blog will work to cut down on writing e-mail messages to everyone from Chile.