Sweet Mendoza.. wubwubwubwubwubwubwub (now with 100% more photos)

Just a brief note for parental units before reading this, a) we are fine, b) Nick and I didn't do anything too stupid so please don't stress, c) Dad you would have loved it...Party week!

As soon as we arrived in Mendoza over a week ago it looked pretty cool,we met a fake New Zealander (originally from England) and got a taxi together to our hostel, the hostel was great and had a pool surrounded by beautiful people so we were happy and got into the BBQ spirit instantly. We bumped into a bunch of "gap brats" 18 year old gap year students who had more money than sense, plums in their mouth, and zero charm, anyway they seemed to love Nick and I despite our best attemps to be rude to them whenever possible. After two nights at our hostel we moved on to another down the road and they followed us there!

When Nick and I arrived at the new hostel we bumped into our friends we met in Bariloche! the huge group of Californians, who seemed delighted to see us and vice versa, we instantly agreed to go on a wine tour of Mendoza and I ran down the road to let Sophs know we now had a party of 10 and that she was going to get a party over the next couple of days and quite possibly the sex that she was longing for, (by the way she is 32 looking 25!) So the huge group of us got a bus to where we rented bikes and began the wine tour, it was a brilliant day, really hot, lots of wine and cycling, bearing in mind how un coordinated i can be once pissed it was hillarious and i think we all managed to injure ourselves in one way or another be it going over the handle bars, wearing down our crotches with the bike seats, or falling off our bikes in odd ways.

We arrived home after the tour having got lost several times whilst on it, and drank a stupid amount at the hostel and did more zoidberg impressions than you thought were ever possible.

Another great thing about Mendoza was the fact that Emily was there (old house mate) and Dana the Canadian we had been stalking for a while. Emily bumped into us on a night out with Dana and made us feel loved and we went out twice them which was cool. Mendoza has a beautiful tree lined lake and glowing light display at night which looks like a magic mushroom and a cool night market just to show we did actually step out of the hostel despite our week of hangovers.

Various haircuts took place at the hostel, we got rid of Phil's hair and gave him a hawk and Sarah (skunk) cut nick's hair which was a bit of a disaster and I have just fixed it, he looks hot again now. The American's sure know how to do a BBQ and we had several whilst at the hostel each more impressive than the next with more alcohol than the last, and with a smeg head called Jessie providing members of the group with larger and larger quantities of coke, ending badly for some.

Oh and I fell off a bus... they don't fully stop so you get off whilst they are moving I missed judged it and am a bit bruised but I rolled quite a long way in an Indiana Jones esc fashion which was cool. There were several roberies at the hostel which we managed to avoid but quite a lot of people got hit.

The main event of the week has to be our road trip up into the mountains. We rented a van for ten of us which Nick and Seabass drove. We had the ipod blaring, good food, some wine, and Jeff had a fuck off jar of pot that people slowly made their way through. Unfortunately for us there were random police checks along the road and we got pulled over. Skunk speaks fantastic spanish and is very pretty and sweet which helped, he was furious that the van smelt of Alcohol (luckily this had been thrown out earlier) but also that we didn't have our passpots on us, photocopies apparently were not good enough. We had been swimming in a lake earlier and Lonnie, Skunk and Soph all had tribal style clay faces which he didn't seem impressed by at all. After making us stand outside the van he began to check through it, looking through bags, taking off pannels and generally scaring the shit out of us. Sarah did a great job of looking perplexed and when he asked to check the ipod speakers and Run DMC's "Tricky" came booming out he actually broke a smile and some how we got away without him finding the pot. For some stupid ass reason Jeff decided before we got to another police check to swollow the weed rather than chuck it away or anything, he was not a happy bunny later (nick: methinks he was telling porkies - he would have been even more of a mess had he actually eaten it!) Anyway we got to the mountains saw some beautiful views and had a great time, amazed by the fact we escaped a 2 year jail sentence, but apparently most Argentinians don't know what pot looks like, not that we really want to risk it.

Anyway our last few days were spent relaxing and having more BBQ's and more alcohol, we have some great pictures which we can't upload at the moment but I will do so when possible (nick - done!)

Soph has now come with us up north to Salta and we are basically bumming here until we can get to Bolivia in a few days wooohoooo! and there we will hopefully run into someold friends again.

Take care

Flossie

x

Chileno Dancing

Just a short video of some silly dancing in Santiago from a few days ago, keep an eye out for the guy that is:

a) too old
and,
b) waaaay too keen!

Pucon and Santiago

After a brilliant time in Bariloche we arrived in Pucon in Chile. Basically we went there just because they had a big volcano and we thought it would be cool. When we arrived in the town we got a bit lost as the "lonely liar" had an old address for the hostel we were in search of, the hostels owner then came up to us in a pick up van, baring in mind it was pitch black at night and we didnt know who he was, and offered to take us to the right hostel. I instantly said that he must be fucking joking and I wasnt going to get into his creepy van, it transpires that he and his funny looking wife were lovely and being full up for that night, booked us another hostel and took us to it agreeing that they would have room the following night. The other hostel we stayed in had three tiny kittens so i was sold and reasonably annoying as i gulped down my food so I could play with them whilst nick was eating his food in the evening and in the morning, and pined as we had to leave them.

The next day we returned to lovely Herman and Marias hostel, Herman owned an activity store in town so we set about organising our trip for the following day up the big fuck off volcano.

The volcano trip was hillarious for several reasons...

Luckily there were only 4 of us in our group as well as our guide which was great, and one girl had a bad ankle so had to go back down the volcano near the beggining so i was stuck with three boys, Rodrego our guide who loved the ladies lets put it that way, Daniel a yank, and Nick and myself, we each had our strengths and weaknesses and took our turns at being a bit shit at different things. Baring in mind that it took over 5 hours to get to the summit and only an hour to get down you can take a guess just how steep it was. We had to climb on ice using our ice picks to steady ourselves, it was bloody scary at times, and i am so greatful that i dont suffer from vertigo otherwise you would be screwed. Even with factor 60 on we caught the sun and climbing on the ice took ages and was very hard going and a bit demorilising as it took about 30 mins to cross what looked like 15 meters. Other groups were allowed to use crampons but oh no Rodrego would have non of it. I was nearly dead by the time we reached the top and I could have hit Rodrego the amount of times he said Vamos vamos vamos but the view from the summit was amazing and we were right over the clouds.

The smell of sulphur at the top was really strong and Nick did some good gagging and an Isreali girl from another group had a bit of an asthma attack slash panic attack whereby Rodrego leapt up and carried her to higher ground asap... loving the ladies. I got to see some lava though so thats all that mattered really and i threw some volcanic rocks over the side like a stupid big kid, oh and we bumped into Nicks god sisters ex boyfriend, my god that is tenuous, but he is lovely and let me have some ketchup so i recon she should probably ditch her current boyfriend and get back with tiny bearded lovely ketchup dude.

After we had been at the top for about 40 mins I asked Rodrego how the hell we were getting down to which he replied, we slide down, of course you do stupid flo. so we put on our crazy yellow jump suits that were sexy and were instructed how to slide down the volcano. Half of this was done on our asses literally sliding down, and the rest was basically sking without skiis. I loved the sliding but could not stay upright when we were meant to be, after me shouting back at Rodrego several times he just held my hand on the way down basically pulling me allong like a toboggan, a glowing yellow stupid toboggan, which was cool.

It was really good fun and a real achievement and when we got back home Rodrego cracked open a couple of beers for us and some fake non descript pringle things and we were happy chappies.

The next day was recovery day, the boots we had been made to wear the previous day were snow boots and looked and felt ridiculous and my legs felt like jelly. I managed to fall asleep and loose nick for a couple of hours this day but finding him again we agreed to relieve our weary limbs at the natural hot springs the next night.

We were picked up for the hot springs at 8pm and guess who should be in the van but mr lover lover himself Rodrego, who I had already bumped into earlier that day in search of nick and he had expressed his interest in all things ladies, British, and bikinis. Fearing a reasonably embarrassing night we met loads of really nice people whilst wearing next to nothing and had a really good time, to state the obvious the hot springs were really hot but really really nice kind of like really deep rock pools, there were 7 in total of varying heats, probably not at all naturally heated it was dark after all, but i like to believe they were.

After lots of lazing around enjoying the sun we decided to head for Santiago...

We are now at a really nice hostel called Chilli hostel. Our first night was a bit of a challenge as a BBQ was organised and no body there seemed to speak much English but we attempted to speak to them, got ourselves understood, and by way of reward an irish girl arrived at the end of the evening, yey, by the way I cant use any punctuation on this computer as the keys are fucked so image where I would have put things please. Any way Santiago is a bit weird, we have visited itçs beautiful parks and yesterday we went to the poet Pablo Nerudas house which was really really cool he collected anything and everything and his house his like an amzing flo dream world. But the city is covered in smog from polution and makes my eyes sting he he brilliant stuff huh. As it is easter weekend the whole city has shut down and hardly anything is open, crowds are accumilating round a huge statue of Mary in the middle of the city and there seems to be a big live baned rehearsing ready to play on easter sunday. No chocolate eggs for me this year booooo, the chocolate in Santiago is shite, any way we are heading to wine capital Mendoza back in Argentina on Monday and meeting up with Emily so that is something to look forward to, and we may be meeting up with a canadian we met a couple of weeks back to.

Love to all

flossy

xxx

7 days of laziness

So we travelled for 30 odd hours, the bus broke down a few times, and finally got to Bariloche and did nothing for a week and it was fucking sweet!

ok so there's slightly more to it than that but we were pretty fucking lazy however after our 5 day trek i feel that we earnt it.

We stayed in a hostel that had been recommended to us by a girl in El Calafate (thank you freakishly blonde belgian girl) and it was really cool. stayed in dorms again since there was only one double room and it was a bit pricey but we were really glad we stuck around. the first night we went out for dinner and came back and chatted to a couple of english sisters but pretty standard evening really. Until bed time when flo and older sister Imogen had gone to bed and I was still chatting to younger sister Alannah and a few other guys who were trying to persuade Alannah to go out with them for the evening but she said that her sister had gone to bed and that she wouldnt go out without her, the guys took this as a sign to go collect the sister from bed, but allanah pointed them in the direction of our room so whilst she made a bid for freedom, the guys had collected flo and carried her up the stairs despite her protests that she didnt even have a sister.

Middle of our first proper day and a crazy looking long-haired ginger swiss girl came up to us and asked us if we fancied making pizza that night since a load of them were planning on making some. slightly scared, and since we had no plans, we said yes and flo went off with a few of them to collect ingredients from the supermarket.

So that afternoon was spent sorting out all the pizza things (basically chopping shit for us and making proper pizza bases for marco, the swiss ex-baker) and also getting to know all the other guys in the hostel, and finally realising that the girl strutting around in a bikini on a cloudy day was not doing so because she was a little bit too obsessed with getting a tan but because she had a number of insects burrowed into her skin (mmmmmmmm, nice) and the combination of salt and sun would kill the evil little fuckers.

So everyone in the hostel was really nice and the pizzas were really tasty, a bonus.

The next day was the most active we got for the whole week, we rented a car and took a drive around the '7 lakes'. The views from the roads were beautiful, you'll have to look at the photos, and we even got an opportunity to stop at a very remote point for a bit of cheeky skinnydipping!

the rest of the time was spent lazily wandering around the town and eating the tasty chocolate bumping randomly into amanda's ex boyfriends, ok that only happened once but still very random. dave is cycling from tierre del fuego in the south to venezuela in the north the crazy fucker.

we also managed to fit in a couple more communal eating nights with a big barbeque, although i dont think ours was as impressive as the guys who cooked a whole goat before we arrived, and a mexican food night with homemade tortillas, guacamole and salsas (thanks tashina et al.) and a couple of nights out at the bars of bariloche drinking tasty local beers and some dirty quilmes as well (its like an argentinian carling but actually drinkable!)

oh, and flo loved the dog a little bit too much, i think it reminded her of herself (in a good way! before i get hit)

peace out

nick

Comments make us feel loved.

Hello all,

just a quickie to say that the comments seem to be drying up!

and if you've never commented - try it, you might like it!

El Calafate & the Perito Moreno Glacier

18 hours down the road we made it to Rio Gallegos, which is a fucking hole.

20 minutes later we were on a bus towards El Calafate, a small town on the edge of a large glacier-filled national park in the very south of Patagonia in Argentina.

Bizarrely, as you get further away from the wealthy, classy, cosmopolitan north of Argentina things get more and more expensive (much the same in the UK) and so, rather than face the prospect of paying 140 argentine pesos (about triple what we´d be paying thus far), we decided to have our first experience of dorm living at the more reasonable price of 20 pesos per person. The only gamble is what kind of weirdos you end up with as room-mates.

First night we had a perfectly nice and normal woman of vague hispanic origin (ie i forgot where she´s actually from) but she was leaving the next day and was up at the same time as us when we left on our trip to see the Perito Moreno Glacier, in the nearby national park. Which, i will let flo describe below:



That is from the boat trip which made up the first section of our day and the rest of the day was basically an opportunity to see the glacier from a number of different angles and lead to the excessive number of glacier photos that are now on my flickr account! and yes, it was fucking cold, hence the clothes-almost everything i own!

Back at the hostel we thought we were going to be gold when we saw that no one had moved into our room, so we cooked ourselves some dinner (feeling frugal due to the crazy ski resort-level prices) and after chatting to a few people we'd met we made our way to bed at about 11 feeling smug that we´d have the room to ourselves.

Pride, fall and all that, we were beaten to our room by a guy carrying his massive bag ready to move in. This guy resisted all attempts at conversation and we were left to determine that he was Israeli by his hebrew lonely planet. All further attempts at communication were further stifled by his insistence on trying to insert as much of his body as possible into the storage lockers provided for rucksacks. He was gone by morning. No one knows where. (probably just down the corridor)

I cant really remember what we did the following day. not much i think. We did however return to find some new room mates - a very nice and talkative couple of Germans, Daniel and Danielle, very sweet matching names.

so we spent the evening chatting with them and a few more of our new friends about places that they'd been and watching daniel, not the biggest guy in the world, take a comment from his girlfriend that he was drinking a lot as a challenge to drink even more and see off the best part of 3 bottles of wine in a couple of hours.

the next day we left for our first new country - chile!

Puerte Natales in Chile

Hello!

After a great time in South Argentina, and after chatting to quite a few people we decided to head to Chile for a short while and then hop back and forth between both Argentina and Chile. When we arrived in Puerte Natales in a lovely hostel run by a Swiss-German woman and her sister in law (great toddler, cat, and home made bread seem to come as part of the deal, and the most amazing comfy beds) it soon became apparent when I said "so what tours can you offer from this hostel into the national park" that the only reason people come to this place is to take part in SERIOUS trekking either a 4-6 day trek (the W) or a 9-12 day trek (the circuit). Nick had realised this on the journey to the small town and had been keeping it very quiet, scared I think of my response, but having never camped in my life and only treked a bit I was actaully stupidly excited! We began to buy camping food and rent loads of equipment ready for the trip, we even attended a talk done by a freakish american (who became known as the guru, he looks like his bones are about to pop out through his skin, brags he ran the circuit in 18 hours (my arse), and had perfectly hairless legs) whereby he told us what to expect and what to do etc, and before we knew it we were about to leave. We bumped into a lovely girl called Dana from Canada who we had met in the last town in argentina, and went out for some amazing veggie food the night before the big trek (at a place which makes really english food for the home sick traveller like cottage pie, lasagne, cheese cake, hot chocolate, it even has the guardian!) we ate a stupid amount between us and after 3 puddings felt brilliant.

We arrived at the park at mid day and took a boat over to where Nick and I had agreed to begin the trip, (there are two ways to do "the W" west to east, or east to west, but we decided on the former).

On the first day we walked up to the glacier which was beautiful, the trek was cool and the good weather and reasonable ground kept us optimistic and nick put up with me talking inane bullshit for a long time. I hope the photos do it justice because it really was amazing. Our first night was brilliant and I actually freakishly enjoyed our tepid pasta, peeeing outdoors, and freezng tent (this novelty soon wore off)

The next day we went back on ourselves and then headed for our second camp site, the weather was grim this day and when we set up tent I doubt either of us were optimistic of how long it would stay upright. We woke up to torrential rain and began our trek up to the middle of the "W" the path was impossible to find, the rain was coming down heavily, and the wind was knocking us over, so basically we pussied it and went back to the camp site, packed up the tent which was so covered in mud that I got a histerical fit of the giggles that didnt really help much, we then headed onto the next camp site and sat there chatting to other trekkers (not sure if that is how you spell those who walk or whether this is referring to those who love Picard, sorry if the latter)and catching our breath and waiting for the rain to subside... it did not!

Only some of the campsites were free in the park and being stubborn and tight we decided to do a 4 hour uphill hike to the following camp site to get it out the way. The walk nearly killed me, I made some amazing tennis player style noises along the way and felt really really grim but with hindsight it was a good idea. The wind was so strong it lifted me clean off the ground on several occasons, and considering I was wearing my backpack the whole time this was a feat! We had to walk through rivers and streams and climb over rocks that health and safety in the UK would have gone crazy over, but it was kinda fun and after a while we just waded through rivers rather than trying to find a dry alternative because it was time saving and pretty funny.

Nick and I arrived at the campsite we would be spending our third night at, soaked to the skin and feeling pretty sorry for ourselves, the excitement of the first day had pretty much fucked right out the window. Luckily this campsite had a shower which was an amazing treat, and whats more we got chatting to a group of Brits, Danes, and frenchies who made a great open fire which nick and I dried ourselves over (and Nick managed to burn a hole in his shoe by getting too close). Oh one more thing our 2 person tent was the smallest thing in the world, we could just about both fit into it but our bags could not, and both of us had to scrunch up our feet to fit in it, also as you know I am a big claustrophobic mess and this tent did not help! also our burner broke so we had to beg matches of people to get the fire going in order to eat the packet crap we brought with, which actually tasted pretty good.

The next day I dont think either Nick or i made a big secret of the fact that we were desperate to go and see the main attraction of the park(the torres, or towers, three huge impressive rocks whick stand above a great lake and you have to rock climb to get to) and then go home pretty sharpish. Thanks to our 4 hour uphill mission the day before we had time to take it easy this day and we made our way up to the torres, and admittedly they were pretty spectacular, although Nick looked less than impressed when we got to the top after and hour of almost vertical climbing he said "how long do you want to stay here im ready to go NOW!"

On our last night we actaully had the best night in my mind, we got chatting to a Brit, some New Yorkers and a couple of Isrealis in a hovel like shelter which I have taken a photo of, it was freezing so we nearly sat on top of one another to keep warm, and had a real laugh, and one of the guys gave me some of his Snickers bar, so I was the happiest bunny ever!

The next day we set our alarms for about 6 and nearly trampled over each other to get out of the place. We got back to the hostel yesterday and had huge piece of beef last night to make ourselves feel better. Lomo....is there anything it cant do?

Summery:

Big bits of ice are cooler than big bits of rock. Nature is all well and good but only when it is sunny. People who just go round hiking for fun all year round are weird! Camping is fun for a night at a time when it is sunny!!!, I dont like tents, and nick should not go near fires. Chocolate should be carried at all times. I love the lomo!