Epic adventure, take 2

I finally made it back in one piece to my home away from home here in Concepcion. After about 132 hours (75 with Clare) in buses (yes that’s over 5 days sitting in a bus) and three countries I am home sweet home and can take a little breather before I start school on Monday. What did round two have in store for me? Let’s see!

As I already mentioned after seeing Clare off back to the states I headed to my friend Paulo's house in Santiago. From there we adventured up to Valle Nevado ski resort for some snow time. This was the first time in over 10 years that I have used equipment that was not my own, and also the first time in over 5 years that I have not used my helmet. It was a recipe for disaster, but I lived to tell about it. The snow was not great nor was the visibility, but it was really fun. Skiing in the Andes is a bit different from what I'm used to. Because there are no trees, the snow is easily blown off and has alot of sun exposure. This creates icy conditions unless you hit it on a fresh snow day or close to one. Anyway, I had a great time, and the best part is I didn't hurt myself (except for those damn blisters from rented boots...)

Next up on my solo journey was a quick 6 hour jaunt over the mountains to Mendoza, Argentina, the wine capital of Argentina. I arrived on 'el dia de amigos' (friends day) which is only an Argentine holiday. Since I was without a friend on this day, I searched out my next best option which happened to be a micro brewery close to my hostal. After belly-up to the bar and trying the local brew, I found myself in a nice conversation with an Argentine gentleman whose name also happened to be Daniel and whom also had just set off solo after splitting apart from his girlfriend.

The next day I spent bumming around the city and getting my clothes cleaned as they had about 20 days of Peru on them. The next day I hopped on a little micro bus out to the Mendoza country side where many of the wineries call home. With my map of the wineries and my rented bicycle, I set out for my next adventure. First stop was a wine museum with a free tour and glass of wine. The following several stops were all about the same. They consisted of a tour of the winery and then a tasting at the end. Usually they charged about 10 pesos (3 USD) for the tour and tasting. After reaching the point where most people turn around on their bikes and head back in, I decided I wanted to make a loop and visit a few of the less traveled areas. So back on my bike with my wine buzz it was. The next stop was a small organic winery that was about 3 miles down a dirt road. This was very interesting and the wine was good. However, a little bit down the road, of course, I got a flat tire. So, after riding the bike on the rim for longer than I should have, I arrived into a little town. I headed to the gas station, but the air nozzle on the bike did not comply with the normal air dispenser. So I resigned myself to walking and hitchhiking. After walking for a while, I game across a tire shop. I popped in and the gentlemen tried filling up the tire but it was totally dead flat and busted. I told them of my plan of hitchhiking back to the bike shop and they insisted I would get beat up and robbed. So, they called the bike shop and the owner came out and brought me another bike. I was a bit surprised by this because it was so late in the day and the wineries were about to close. But, there was one other small one I wanted to go to. So, I back tracked it and turned down another small back road, but this time it was paved. At the end of this road was a small family run joint. I was given a little tour of the operation which was so small it reminded me of my own beer brewing operation. I was even able to taste some of the wine out of one of the big barrels that it was in waiting to be bottled. Later, the lady showed me how by hand they label each bottle, and then had me label one myself and also put the top sealant around the cork. I of course bought that bottle after wards, to add to the 2 I had already bought that day. So, back to the bike rental shop it was. There I was joined with several other international people where we enjoyed as much free wine (thanks to the bike guy) as we wanted. This clearly turned into a lot of wine. Afterwards it was back to Mendoza and out to dinner with my new friends. The next day I had planed to get out of the city again, but because I had a bus to Buenos Aires in the early evening I could not swing it. So, I spent the day in a large park, reading my book and enjoying the sun.

I jumped on a bus that evening, and 14 hours later I was in bustling Buenos Aires. BA was by far the biggest city that I had plopped down in without any plans thus far. It was a little overwhelming at first, but I hit up a tourist information place and was given a map with hostals marked on it. A short subway ride later I was checked into a hostal. I didn't really like the hostal a whole lot, but I was super tired and wanted to put down my bags. I spent the remainder of the day walking around looking for other hostals in the neighborhood and just being my tourist self. That evening I hit up a little bar for some live blues. The next day I was off to my new hostal down the street where I stayed for the next three nights. I met a couple of guys from Spain at the hostal with whom I took on the city. One of the guys, a black as night fellow with dreadlocks named Jeli, had a long board. So his friend David and I rented bicycles and we proceeded to zoom all over the city together for the next couple of days. The most exciting time was on Friday evening around 5-6 we were buzzing in and out of all the traffic on the busiest streets in the city. It was great! Two guys on orange single gear cruisers and one guy on a skate board. We were quite a site. We were able to escape all of the madness without any injuries except for a cut on my hand. I was zooming between cars stopped at a stop light and I accidently punched a rearview mirror. Oops. The remaining days were more of the same. One night I went to a small independent theatre and saw a play. It was funny and interesting as it was all in spanish. I went to the Argentine Holocaust Museum, also interesting, but as expected depressing. Tango has a long history in Buenos Aires, and I was able to see a little show in the street one night. I would be very interested in learning that dance; unfortunately my dance partner was not with me. I also ate very very well. As I said before when I went to Argentina the last time, the beef is very good there and cheap. I ate great meat and drank good wine every night for about 10USD.

My trip finally came to a close with one last bus ride, a nice 30 hour jaunt back over the mountains and back down to Concepcion. The second half of my trip was great, although quite different from the first. First off I was alone, not with my little lady. This was significantly different. The hostal situations were very different as well. In Peru, we always had a private room with private bathroom ect and paid a total of about 12 USD a night. It was like having a hotel room more or less. In Argentina, I always stayed in a dorm style room with between 2 and 15 other people, and obviously shared bathrooms. For this I paid about 10 USD a night. This was ok though because I was alone it was a great way to meet new people to hang out with. The experience was sort of schizophrenic, however, because I met people and hung out with them and we had really personal conversations all the while knowing that I would only know them for a day or two.

The vacation was certainly the best of my life so far, and if I had to pick my favorite part, which is very hard to do because it was all so fun and different, I would say the time in the jungle and in the jungle town of Puerto Maldonado. It was really a blessing in disguise to have that 'paro' and trap us there for about a week.

I am happy, however, to be back on the western side of the mountains where I can rest a little and get ready for school to start. Also, my razor is over here, and it misses me! I don't know what or when the next big adventure will be, so stay tuned. I have reached the halfway point to this crazy South American adventure, so things are just getting warmed up!

Following are a ton of pictures that were taken over the last 35 days on the adventure. They are broken up and captioned as best as I could. There is an album of Peru, snowboarding and of Buenos Aires/Mendoza. Click on each picture shown for each album to get linked to the full album. Also you can go to www.photobucket.com/danshirley and on the left hand side select the albums with those names.

I hope you enjoy, and as I said before, please write me with questions or whatever if you want to know more.

Hope all is well.
Dan