The end of my South American adventure

Happy new year everyone!  This entry isn't quite as eventful as the last unfortunately, but it has still been a busy week or so so read on!

Mendoza After a comfortable few days in Cordoba in a hostel with air-con and a tv in our room, it was nice to rough it up again in Mendoza.  We stayed in a campsite just outside the city over new year, and you'll be pleased to know that we didn't flood once! The whole of the 30th was spent on bikes cycling round the famous wine region in Mendoza, in 30 degree blazing sunshine.  We managed to visit about 5 different vineyards, with a chocolate and spirits factory thrown in for good measure!  Absolutely great day out, sampled plenty of reds and learned a bit about how to taste wine properly!  One of the girls on the tour (who studied wine-making at uni - now that is a joke course!  still, probably more practical than MORSE...) even managed to get a potential job offer from one of the vineyards!

We did manage to pace ourselves slightly, mainly because we all knew that the following w\day was going to be very messy!  New years eve daytime was spent looking round the city, hunting for alcohol for the evening and splashing around in the campsite pool.  At around 6pm we were served entres and we decided that it was about time we started on the beers (which incidentally cost a pound for a litre bottle - as us spanish speakers say, "fatastico"!).  A few bottles, and a barbecue, later, 2009 snuck up on us pretty damn quickly, and it was soon time to crack open the bubbly and swap new years kisses.

Our previous tour leader managed to purchase some huge fireworks from Bolivia (you know they are going to be good ones from such a stable country!), so our new tour leader managed to find somewhere to set them off to give us all a decent display.  Not to be put off by the taxi-drivers' strike, some of us then headed into town to carry on the drinking and celebrate new years with the locals.  The atmosphere in town was strange - it appears New Year isn't such a big thing in Mendoza, and a lot of the bars and clubs were closed (although we still aren't really sure that we were on the right street, aptly named "beer street" by the local students!).  However we still managed to find bars and clubs to keep us entertained until around 5am when the taxi strike finished!  Now you think I'm about to say "so we went to sleep and had a long lie in to sleep off the alcohol".  Well that ius exactly what was required, but unfortunately we had to be up at 6am to pack the tents away to leave for Santiago, Chile!  So after no sleep whatsoever we packed tents up, and left for Santiago!

The journey, I'm not going to lie, wasn't much fun.  The boarder crossing took approximately 2 hours and the sniffer dogs had to inspect every square inch of the tour bus!  But we did get there eventually, but my last night officially on the tour was very tame and mostly spent in bed.  I did get my new bank card though, so I now have money again :)

Santiago

I'd heard nothing but bad things about Santiago - it's meant to be boring, lacking in character and generally a place that you shouldn't bother with.  Well I reckon that's a load of bollox!  It's one of the nicest cities I have been to, with wide streets, grand buildings, good nightlife and a great location to get to some awesome parts of Chile.  I haven't really done anything here though, to be honest!  Not totally my fault, I have wanted to do touristy things, but have been unable to due to illness, and more seriously, blisters on my feet (on two separate occasions!)...

The first set of blisters that put me out of action, let's call them Blister Set Uno, came about from a new pair of flip-flops - the kind that has the bit between your big toe and your second toe, also the kind I have never worn before, and will never wear again.  Anyway I got them whilst walking round the beautiful beach resort of Vina Del Mar, about 2 hours from Santiago.  Or rather it would have been beautiful if the sun was shining and it was hotter than the 15 degrees that we experienced!  needless to say we sat on the beach for about 30 minutes, after giving the sun a couple of hours to shine through, before heading back to Santiago!

The main event of my time in the city, and possibly my tour so far, was to catch up with Adam and Marc and share our experiences so far.  So when I was sat by the pool at my hostel waiting for them to show up, you can imagine my surprise when Ads creeps up behind me, and decides to take off my sunglasses and break them (I think accidentally) even before he'd said hello!  Seriously though, was great to catch up, and we managed to get on good night of drinking in before I got ill.  We also went out for a meal on their last night at a sushi bar where I accidentally ordered raw beef mince with pickled capers on top using my expert Spanglish.  It was pretty damn disgusting, but it did come with toast which was a blessing I guess!  Anyway I waved Ads and Marc off the following day and I must admit I almost cried a little, until I remembered I'm on holiday for another 4 months and having the time of my life!

The following day I decided I would head off to Pucon, a small town 10 hours south of Santiago where lies an active volcano that you can climb.  It would also be the last opportunity to say goodbye to people on the tour.  It actually felt very strange saying goodbye to them all, we were a really close group and I'm going to miss them all loads.  It also means I've got to remember how to make new friends again...

Pucon

So I had my final drinks with people from the tour, thought about crying some more, then booked myself in for the volcano climb.  First though I had a day to chillax on the volcanic beach in more fabulous weather.  The town itself is very nice - pretty much all log cabins - but also quite expensive to eat and drink.  The beach was free though, and I spent a good 5 hours topping up my ever increasing tan.

The volcano climb was fantastic!  The tour group I had managed to book into was completely full of non English-speaking people, which made things slightly trickier, but the guide spoke English luckily.  We set off fro the town at 7am to get toi the base of the volcano at 8.  The climb is from 1400 meters above sea level up to 2800 meters, which is quite some ascent, and I was wondering how on earth we were meant to do that in 5 hours.  Luckily there was a cable car option for the first 500 meters, which I grabbed with both hands!

before we started the climb proper, our guide had to show us how to use the ice pick/axe to stop us from sliding all the way down the volcano if we fell over.  I didn't have to use it for that purpose fortunately, but i was pretty close on a number of occasions!

The climb took us about 4 hours including some stops for food and photos, and was pretty tough, but nothing compared to climing to dead womans pass on the inca trail.  It was a perfectly clear day, so we managed to get right up to the top (often the cloud is too thick, and you don't want to be walking close to a crater of an active volcano when you have practically no visibility!).  The crater was stunning to look at, but horrible to smell.  The sulphur gases coming from the peak were very strong and on a couple of occasions the wind blew it in my face and eyes and it wasn't very pleasant at all!  Worth it for the views though.

The descent of the volcano was far quicker than the ascent, and SO much fun!  There have been slides cut into the snow so you just slide down on your bum, and you really get some speed!  After the first 3 slides, which in hindsight were fairly tame, I was thinking of becoming an olympic luger, but the next slide put that idea to bed...  When the guide goes "James, you want to go faster?" what am I supposed to say?!  "No thanks, I'm fine going slowly, I hate the idea of having more fun"?!  No, I said "Yeah, of course!" and I lost control...  You were meant to use the ice pick to control your speed, but when I went over a bump, flew in the air out of the slide and hit myself over the head with the pick, I instictively let go!  I landed on the next slide along facing the wrong way and spinning round and round, with no easy way to stop myself!  So I just rode it down, eventually ending up settling for going backwards, and I stopped by digging my arms into the snow and rolling over for a few meters!  Still, was so much fun and I survived it unscathed!  Bet I looked ridiculous though...

Santiago (again)

So upon returning to the capital, I had all the best intentions on doing all the touristy things, but here is where we run into Blisters Set Dos!  I was hiking up te volcano with shoes that weren't my own, and ended up with two huge blisters on my feet, one of which managed to get infected and make my whole foot swell up!  So I have spent the last few days relaxing by the pool, reading and drinking beer.  Can' t be bad huh?!

This evening I fly to New Zealand, where I will be picked up from the airport by a couple from the tour, and stay with them for a few days.  i wil hopefully get chance to go sea fishing with them and mountain biking (death road has given me a new hobby!) before I start the Kiwi Experience trip - a hop on/ hop off bus ticket.  I will next blog after I have done some cool stuff in NZ (maybe even sky diving - don't worry mum, I won't go with the cheapest company...).

Hope you've all managed to keep to your new years resolutions so far,

James x

PS - I have purchased a new camera!  But I only had it in time for Pucon so there arent any pics of Santiago!