There was this thing called an earthquake in Santiago ...

I'd almost forgotten about it, actually (apparently I have a short memory for these things) ... but was forcibly reminded when I showed up in Santiago, Chile today.  I'd made a hostel reservation online, as I've been doing all along, and blithely made my way from the bus station by metro to the address in my Lonely Planet.

There, I found a dark, derelict building with a chain and padlock on the door and boards on the windows.  I double-checked the address -- yup, Catedral 2207, this was the place.  I looked up at the wall of the building and could faintly discern lighter patches, spelling out "H-O-S-T-E-L" against the grime, and a lighter oval patch above; clearly there had been a sign for the hostel which had fallen off or been taken off.

By this time, it was getting dark, as my bus to Santiago had been very delayed at the border in a long, long line-up which didn't move for at least an hour.  (The American guy I was chatting to speculated that they were all taking a lunch break;  sure enough, on the dot at the top of the next hour, the entire crew came back to work and the line finally started to move.)  It was twilight, and the neighbourhood of my erstwhile hostel was becoming quite deserted, and I didn't really fancy wandering the darkening streets of a strange big city looking for a place to lay my head.

So I headed back in the direction of the metro as I considered my options; a few doors down I saw a very welcome sign for the "Chile Inn Hostel" and rang the bell.  Two very nice older women ushered me in and were happy to provide me with a bed for the night for 7,000 Chilean pesos (about $14).  I realized after they showed me to my dorm room that, not only was I the only one in the dorm, but I was the only person staying in the entire hostel! 

It's nice -- quite a bit more stylish than the usual hostel accommodation, for about the same price -- but it's rather spooky being the only one.  I'm just hoping that at least one of the two ladies at the front desk stays here at night; if I'm completely alone in a big old creaky building all night, I just might develop a fear of the dark.  And I don't think they provide breakfast in the morning, which is a South American hostel perk I've grown quite accustomed too -- even if "breakfast" is always too-sweet pastries with dulce de leche syrup to pour on top, and Nescafe instead of real coffee.

But at least it's somewhere to stay for tonight.  Tomorrow I'll figure out a better option -- a few more people around to talk to would be nice.  I enjoy solitude, but less so when it is thrust upon me unwillingly ... and hostels are more entertaining with a few loco Australianos around.

A Visit to the Stone Guardian

I don't know how familiar you are with the geography of Argentina.  I wasn't, at all, till I came here; it still blows me away occasionally how BIG this country is.  It's the 8th largest in the world, after ... let's see ... Russia, Canada, United States, China, Brazil, Australia, and India, in something like that order.  It's nearly 4,000 km from north to south, and 1,500 km from east to west, and I'll have traversed it in both directions by the time I'm done.

And a chain of huge mountains run nearly all the way up the length of the country, forming a sort of spine for South America.  The Andes carry on northward into Bolivia and beyond, but they hit their peak right near Mendoza.  Away to the west, there's a mountain called Aconcagua ("Stone Guardian" in the local indigenous language) that reaches the lofty height of 6,962 metres.  That's taller than any other mountain outside of the Himalayas.

I took a day trip yesterday to go visit the Stone Guardian, with a few other stops along the way.  As you leave Mendoza, heading west toward Chile, it isn't long before the landscape changes from flat desert to foothills to mountains to ... towering peaks the likes of which I've never seen.  The Rockies have nothing on these.   Aconcagua is the highest, and there were a few foolhardy souls heading out on the long hiking trail that would take them to the base of the giant itself, from there to start a long and arduous climb to the top.  Because of the altitude, you can't hike continuously day after day, as you have to stop to acclimatize;  it takes at least 2 weeks to reach the summit.

THAT idea didn't even cross my mind for a second, as I was very happy just to look at it from a distance.  It's still impressive and the landscape was quite literally breath-taking; the viewpoint for Aconcagua is at about 3,000 metres and it's noticeably harder to breathe and hike.  Quite what it would be like at nearly 7,000 metres, I don't even want to imagine!

It was mostly Chileans on the bus with me, aside from a couple of American college students, and they appeared to be equally fascinated by the fact the the little lakes near the viewpoint were frozen over, and that there was snow on the ground, as they were by Aconcagua itself.  They would happily have spent hours, I think, just skipping rocks across the ice of a pond, chuckling to each other at this novelty.  (For a Canadian who grew up with real winters, this was much less fascinating.  But I had fun showing them how to make a snowman.)

Aconcagua was obviously the highlight of the day, but there are a few other oddities around the area that amused me.  We stopped for breakfast (which, for an Argentino, means sweet pastries with dulce de leche) at a little town called Upsallata, proud possessor of the Tibet Bar -- it's furnished with castoffs and souvenirs from the set of "Seven Years in Tibet", which was filmed near here.  Brad Pitt lived in the local schoolhouse during the shoot.

A bit further out from Mendoza, past Upsallata, there`s a late 18th century stone bridge over an icy glacier stream called the Puente de Picheuta.  It was built originally by the governor of the day for the use of travellers on the trade route over the Andes, but it gained its claim to fame from its use by the massed forces of General San Martin in 1806 as he marched against the Spanish.  This year, Argentina celebrates the successful conclusion of that revolution, as it`s the 200th anniversary of their official independence in 1810.

Puente del Inca

Further on still, nearly at Aconcagua, there`s an intriguing stone formation called the Puente del Inca.  Legend has it that the natural bridge was created when the Incan sun god was ailing and needed to access the healing hot springs on the other side of the water.  Loyal Incas formed a human bridge and when the Sun rose again, fully restored, they were frozen in place, there to remain for all eternity to assist others in need of the springs.

The more prosaic explanation is that the mineral-rich water has gradually eroded the stone over time.  But I think I like the legend better.  Either way, it`s an interesting place -- at one point, it was the site of a posh hotel and spa, where guests could go down to the bath house over the hot springs to soak away their ailments.  An avalanche destroyed the hotel, but the bath house remains, slowly being covered up by mineral deposits as the water continues to flow. 

Well, tomorrow I head back out that direction, but carry on right over the pass into Chile.  I`m off to Santiago for at least a couple of days, and -- I think -- arranging for a side trip to Easter Island while I`m in the neighbourhood (or at least as "in the neighbourhood" as I`m ever going to get!).  This is not a cheap undertaking, but this is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime year for once-in-a-lifetime trips just like this.  So I might just take the plunge and go.  I`ll keep you posted.

Red, Red Wine ... and a Couple of Good Whites, Too

Now I'm going to be singing that song all night.  But it seemed like the only possible title for this particular post, since I'm now in Argentine wine country in Mendoza.

I last left you in Buenos Aires, dear reader (aside from a little detour in the last post) and from there I caught a 'semi-cama' bus to Mendoza.  14 hours and NO BLANKET later, I was here; this was my first experience in this particular class of bus and, while significantly cheaper than 'cama', you definitely get what you pay for.  Had I realized when the bus stopped at a cafe-cum-gas-station about 11 p.m. that it was my only chance to buy some dinner, I might've enjoyed it more; as it was, I survived on fruit I'd brought with me.  I misunderstood the attendant's rapid-fire Argentine accent and thought he said we were stopping only for 'seis' minutes (e.g. 6) so I took a quick walk to stretch my legs and got back on, but it was more like half an hour.  So I would've had time to buy a tasty jamon-y-queso empanada, or something.

But it didn't kill me to live on bananas and apples for a night; probably good for my health and my waistline, actually.  I'm already fastening my belt at least 4 inches tighter than when I started out, so a few more food-less bus rides and I'll be doing even better!

But I digress.  I got to Mendoza just fine, and checked into a hostel in a lovely old converted mansion right off the main square, the Plaza Independencia.  After eating (the bus didn't provide me with breakfast either), I headed out to wander the town.  Among the better discoveries was a little wine tasting bar right down the street called the Vines of Mendoza, so I headed back there in the evening to taste a 'flight' of 5 Malbecs.  Scrumptious!   (As you can tell from the smile on my face ...)  I was very tempted by the "Los Iconos" tasting, with 5 of Argentina's best wines, but was deterred by the 600-peso price tag.  (That's about $125 ... I probably wouldn't think twice in my working life, but on the road it's about 10 nights of accommodation, or two long-distance buses!  Or a good chunk towards an Easter Island jaunt.)

The next day (yesterday) I went touring vineyards in the nearby regions of Maipu and Lujan de Cuyo; I decided against the self-guided biking tour because I'm with my sister on this one ... alcohol and cycling is a bad combination!  So I hopped a bus and someone else drove me around; slightly more expensive than biking but still reasonable.  There are very high-end tours to be had, where you can pick your own specific winery stops, or you can hire a car and driver to take you wherever you want to go; alas, these things do not fit well in a long-term backpacking budget. 

But I was equally happy on my bus, full of Argentinos and Chilenos on holiday, and one other backpacker (a sweet young American college boy named Brian who had never actually drunk wine before).  The others on the bus -- mostly married couples -- kept thinking he and I were also a couple, so we gave up trying to explain otherwise and I just smiled when they referred to my "novio" (a.k.a. boyfriend).  Considering he was, at most, 22 or 23, I thought I was doing all right for myself.

The wines were delightful, and I tried some equally tasty olive oils at another stop.  I'd expected to enjoy the wine-tasting part, so that wasn't really a surprise; what did surprise me was the area we drove through.  I'd been expecting, I suppose, something like the bucolic peace of Bordeaux or Burgundy, steeped in tradition and history, or the lush green of Niagara or the Okanagan.  But Maipu and Lujan de Cuyo are suburban, if anything -- we didn't really hit open countryside at all.  The wineries are mostly very small, boutique or family affairs, so there are few grand estates with long sweeping drives and majestic chateaux.

Still, you can't really go wrong spending a day drinking wine, especially when it's fine Argentine malbec and torrentes (the latter is one of the good whites I tried).  Incidentally, did you know that "malbec" comes from the French for "bad mouth"; French wine growers tried and discarded this grape in a huff as unworthy of their attention.  From the dry mountainous region of Mendoza, Argentina, however, it`s taking over the world; those old French viticulturalists might be rolling over in their graves.

You can find other red wines here, too, and I tried a few of those as well.  I`m not sure what it is about the climate or soil or ambience of this part of the world, but Mendoza appears to turn all kinds of red wines on their heads and turn them into something else entirely.  Take pinot noir, for example:  I`m used to this wine as a lighter, easy-to-drink quaff (which it usually is in Niagara), but here in Argentina, I had a pinot noir that was spicy and peppery and `big` like I`d expect from a shiraz or a cab sauv. (What would Sideways make of this?)   I had to double-check the label to be sure what I was really drinking.  Similarly, the Argentine version of a cabernet sauvignon I tried was much softer and mellower than anything I`ve had from other parts of the world.

I had trouble remembering, though, as I drank some fine wines, that I am no longer a hardworking finance professional with ample disposable income and was tempted to buy a few expensive bottles to ship home.  But then the wine fog cleared, and I remembered that I`ve transformed into a backpacker-on-a-budget who would prefer to spend her available cash going to Easter Island, say, than on expensive wine; the wine will still be there and they`ll still ship it to me when I have a paycheque again, but I won`t be as tantalizingly close to the Isla de Pascua (as I must remember to call it here) as I am right now.  It`s just a question of priorities.

This is my biggest argument with anyone who`s told me I`m `lucky` to be able to afford to travel.  They don`t get that anyone can do this, if they`re willing to make the trade-offs required.  There`s no `luck` involved, people ... I worked really, really damn hard for the money that I saved up, and I`m willing to live very cheaply and forego a lot of luxuries to make it stretch to the things I really want to do.  So if you`re sitting there saying, `Well, that`s good for you, but I could never manage it even though I`d love to`, then quit your whining ... and quit your job, throw some stuff in a backpack and c`mon down and join me!

I don´t know what to call this post ... but please send all of your positive vibes this way!

Hi, everyone ... I am surprised and very touched by the number of people who have already sent me supportive messages about this, but I wanted to write a little more about this.  It´s not about me; I am well and safe and healthy, but I need your thoughts and prayers for someone else.

You may or may not know already that someone very close to me has been diagnosed with cancer.  (For his sake, I´ll refrain from giving his name ... I don´t think he wants to be defined by this disease, and I don´t know how many people he has told.)  The prognosis is as positive as it could possibly be; I have done a lot of research about this particular diagnosis since I heard the news, and, intellectually, I know there is very little to worry about.  It´s a very slow-growing, non-aggressive form of cancer that is very, very treatable and he will only have to have radiation, not chemotherapy, so treatment will be (relatively) easy.  Odds of successful treatment are approaching 100%, so, well, if you have to have cancer, this is as good as it gets.

But it´s still cancer, and that word scares the bejesus out of me.  Despite the fact that I know this particular case is different than others I´ve encountered, it still scares me.  My grandfather died of cancer, but I know that was largely (probably) a result of a lifetime of working in Newfoundland, Nova Scotian and northern Ontarian mines, and it was the 1970´s so treatments weren´t nearly as advanced as they are now.  A friend died of cancer late last year; this one hit me close to home because she was very close to my own age and, while her diagnosis was initially quite optimistic, her particular cancer was very aggressive and moved too fast to be cured.  Even my beloved little cat Zoe was diagnosed with cancer in November last year, and it was too advanced by that time for me to consider even trying treatment; I´d have just been putting her through a lot of pain  for something that wasn´t doing to be cured.  (But it still hurt like bloody hell to have to put her to sleep.)

I´m tearing up even as I type this.  I know, I KNOW, this case is different and it is all going to be fine.  But it is hard to be thousands of miles away, even though there is nothing I could do even if I was home.  I know he would feel worse if I gave up my trip and flew home now -- he wouldn´t want me to give up something I´ve been waiting for this long! -- but it´s still hard, even though I think staying here, having an amazing time and telling him all about it through this blog and through emails and random phone calls will ultimately help him more.

So all I ask, whether you´re religious or spiritual or not, and whatever forms your prayers or good wishes may take, that you keep this person I love in your thoughts and wish him well.  He´s one of the good ones ... the universe can´t afford to lose him just yet!

Love
Carol

Step Aside, New York ... THIS is the City that Never Sleeps!

Buenos Aires.  BA.  Paris of the South.  Call it what you will, this city of 13 million people is a complex and overwhelming place.  After four days back in urban territory, I'm right back to being as wound up and impatient type-A as I ever was in Toronto.  I need to get out of here before I completely lose my hard-won peace of mind!

That doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed it, though, because I have.  It's just a little much to take in large doses, after time spent wandering around the largely empty land of Patagonia.

I got back on Saturday, May 1st, early in the morning, dropped my bags at the hostel (the same one I'd stayed at before -- can't beat the location!) and headed back out the door, determined to spend a day seeing the sight of Palermo, one of the trendiest neighbourhoods of BA.  Well, I'd forgotten what May 1st means in Latin America -- it's the "Dia del Trabajo" (Labour Day) and nearly everything is shut.  Including grocery stores, which meant no cooking myself dinner that night unless I wanted to eat only plain rice.

But it's a pretty, green, leafy neighbourhood with huge parks, so I wandered a while and breathed in the relatively fresh air.   And I had a deliciously yummy burger in the park, so ticked off one of the 3 things you must do in BA (well, sort of - the 3 things are eat steak, tango and watch football.  I'm counting a burger as #1, since I'm not a big fan of red meat except in this form.).  To my surprise, the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (more easily referred to as MALBA) was open, so I went in and had a look around; it's kind of BA's answer to MOMA in New York, and has an impressive collection of mostly modern art by Latin American artists.

I got to #2 and #3 on the Buenos Aires "must do" list, too; #2 with a trek to San Telmo on Sunday to browse the famous Sunday market and have lunch at El Balcon, where I also saw a music-and-tango show.  Donation tango shows were also on offer in the plaza; these are "free" outdoor performances to recorded or live music, with a hat passed around the crowd afterward to make a contribution.  Delightful day -- San Telmo is just south of the center, and is a lovely old neighbourhood of cobblestoned streets and pastel colonial buildings.

#3 -- football -- came Sunday night.  You may have already read my previous blog post about this; if not, go back and have a read!  It's an experience quite unlike any other soccer game to see one in Argentina; the fans are legendary for their passion.

So I've done the "must do's" of Buenos Aires (if you'll allow me to count the burger) and am heading onwards with a sense of mission accomplished.  Having earned a little break, I took yesterday to go to Colonia, Uruguay on the very convenient (but slow) ferry from BA's Puerto Madero neighbourhood (akin to London's Docklands).  So nice to have a little breathing room, a break from the urban insanity of BA -- Colonia del Sacramento is a UNESCO World Heritage site for its historic centre that dates back to the late 17th century.  At various times, it's been Spanish and Portuguese and back again, as the two colonial powers in this part of the world struggled for dominance over its key strategic location.  Nowadays, though, it's a sleepy and peaceful little place; I ambled around the town for a while, and then found a spot to just sit and drink in the atmosphere, listening to a Uruguayan guitarist with a warm baritone voice serenade us.

For today, my last in BA (I leave at 8 pm tonight), I headed back to Palermo for the Museo Evita and the Museo Xul Solar. The first isn't so much a museum as it is a shrine to Saint Eva Peron; I left with the impression that she was sort of the Princess Di of her day, beloved by the nation and famous for her stylish wardrobe. A good chunk of the latter is preserved in the museum; she had very good taste in shoes, I'll give her that.

Xul Solar was an Argentine artist from the early part of the 20th century -- among other things, Argentine painter, sculptor, writer, inventor of imaginary languages, and student of astrology and the Kabbalah -- and the museum in his name houses a collection of his work. It's quirky and colourful and quite appealing -- I don't know quite what "style" you'd call it, but think Paul Klee, or Kandinsky.

And now I must start packing up and head back out to Retiro bus station, to try to find my bus to Mendoza in the bewildering array of 75 platforms.  Wine country, here I come ... I promise to have a glass or two of Malbec for you when I'm in a vineyard somewhere.

The Best -- and the Worst -- of Travelling

This is going to be short, because I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open.  It's early by Buenos Aires standards -- barely 1 a.m. -- but hey, I don't operate according to anyone else's schedule but my own these days.  And I had a long travel day, gettimg up early to catch a ferry to Colonia, Uruguay and getting back tonight.

Tonight reminded me of the thing I love most about travelling (well, one of the things -- there are many) -- the opportunity to meet and hang out with some very cool people from scattered places all over the globe.  It also reminded me about the thing I like least about travelling -- the fact that you have to say good-bye to those same people when you move on to somewhere new.  I'm catching a night bus to Mendoza tomorrow, so will be saying good-bye to Buenos Aires tomorrow afternoon.

Email, and Facebook especially, have made it so much easier to stay in touch with people that you meet casually, randomly. briefly ... but still are people that have touched you closely and that you wish to keep in your life in some way.  So I'm glad that technology has made it simpler ... but I still might prefer to keep those people with me, physically, for a few more days at least.

Since that's not going to happen, I'll take what I can.  And, at least, I get a few more free places to crash around the globe .. and perhaps a few more houseguests in Toronto at some point in the future.

Bend It Like Beckham; or "Goooooooaaaaaallllllll!!!!!!!!"

You think you've watched soccer before. You might've actually gone to a game or two, to see Toronto's relatively new FC or some other team. But if you haven't seen soccer (make that "football") South American-style, you've had an entirely different experience.

Argentina's soccer fans -- and that category includes pretty much every male Argentino from the age of 6 upwards, and a fair number of las Argentinas, too -- are in a class of their own. They are completely, utterly, certifiably NUTS in their passion for this game. For a wide-eyed inncocent (a.k.a. tourist) attending a game, it's just as entertaining to watch the fans as it is to watch the field.

(The other really entertaining thing was the number of very beautiful men who play soccer.  But that`s neither here nor there for the purposes of this story.)

I went to a game yesterday in Avellaneda, a southern suburb of Buenos Aires, to watch Independiente host their bitter rivals Boca Juniors for the third-to-last game in the Argentina’s Primera Division. This is the top level of Argentina’s football league, widely regarded as one of the strongest in the world. It was a do-or-die game for Independiente; five points behind the first-place team Estudiantes, they had only two games remaining after this one to make up the difference. With a win counting for 3 points, a tie for 1, and a loss zero, they stood virtually no chance of coming out on top if they lost this game.

I opted to go with a tour rather than try to arrange it myself; you pay well over the odds for your game ticket this way, but once I got there I was very glad I had. It was in a far-flung suburb that would have been a very expensive taxi ride away, and I don’t think I’d have even been able to find my seat on my own, much less track down a taxi once the game was over to get back to civilization. Seating seemed a little random; our tickets all had row and seat numbers, but our guide waved his hand vaguely at a couple of rows of seats and said, “We’re somewhere around here ... I think.”

With neither rows nor seats labelled, it was difficult to tell, so there was a bit of shuffling around before the game started as football fans came to claim some of the seats we were originally in.

Riot police separating the Boca fans

It was quickly clear once we’d sat down that we were cheering for Independiente that evening; to do otherwise would’ve quickly gotten us thrown out of the stadium (at best) or lynched (at worst). We were surrounded by a sea of red (Independiente’s colour – they are also nicknamed “El Rojo”) and Boca’s fans in blue and yellow (see right) were congregated in one end of the stadium behind fences, surrounded by police in riot gear. Fans set off fireworks in the stands, and threw so much stuff onto the field that men with leaf blowers came out to clear off the pitch.

Obviously this wasn’t going to be your average North American soccer game.

There was a preliminary game with some of the young players from both sides; fans cheered for their teams but didn’t seem too worked up. But once the main action started, I saw the true colours of the Argentine soccer fans: they started jumping up and down in unison, chanting and singing their team’s fight songs, waving flags and T-shirts and anything else in their team’s colours, and tossing plastic stadium seats in the direction of the opposing team’s fans. And they didn’t stop, once, throughout the game; they got as good a workout as anyone on the field.

The stadium, an aging concrete structure visibly in need of repair, juddered and quaked with the force of their enthusiasm. We, the tourist contingent, looked at each other a little askance; just how solid was this building, and how much shaking could it take until it collapsed under the weight of all those feet pounding the concrete?  (Needless to say, since I am writing here, it didn’t choose that night to crumble. But I don’t think it’s beyond the bounds of possibility!)

It didn’t take a lot of Spanish, either, to guess what was being yelled at the referees for bad calls, or at the opposing team if they scored a goal. (“Hijo de una puta” came up a lot.) Every fan took it very, very personally if things didn’t go well for their team; a man in front of me was sobbing so hard into his hands that his shoulders heaved, after the referee missed a particularly blatant penalty by an opposing player.

In the end, Independiente lost, 3-1. The sea of red collapsed, overwrought, and was silent for the first time all night as they watched their team file off the field. Boca’s fans, on the other hand, were jubilant, and the sound of those thousands of voices raised in song probably carried back to the centre of Buenos Aires.

Riot police, fully kitted out with helmets and shields, took up positions on the field at the end of the game, and gates were kept closed in most sections (keeping the Independiente fans inside) until after all the Boca fans had departed. From the mood of that game, I think that was wise; while it would make for a good story afterwards, I have no desire to ever end up in the middle of a football riot!

Whew. It’s quite the spectacle to watch, almost primal in its intensity. I don’t know how the fans keep that up, game after game. I’m exhausted just writing about it.   So I'll take a little break and fill you in on the rest of the past few days later.