Still Traveling.

Steak, wine, horseback riding and white water rafting. That was our two days in Mendoza. We went wine tasting for a day. We did half a day of rafting and half a day of riding horses. We left Mendoza at 11:00 pm to arrive in Santiago at 6:00 am hoping to catch a bus to Valparaiso. Then we got a crazy taxi to Quintay, back to Leo’s house.  

It is Easter weekend so everybody is here at the beach. I say “here” because Leo lives pretty much ON the beach. There is a constant sound of waves. When I wake up, I think that the waves are under the house. Yet it is very peaceful. Leo has recently been elected a member of the community board so the first thing that he did was organize a beach clean up. I have blisters from doing manual labor. It was great to see a dozen of the local kids come out and have fun picking up the rubbish. There is constant surf here, but it is cold and a closeout beach break. Giant green walls of arctic water crush me every time I get into the ocean. But there is nothing like being in the water with a friend that is equally as stoked.

The plan for the next few weeks is to head to the Lake District in the middle of Chile for week. Then go to the southern most city in the world, Ushuaia, Argentina. Camping in Torres del Paine and Tierra del Fuego. This is something that I have always wanted to do. 

March 25, 2008: I am living on buses. 13 hours from Santiago to Puerto Montt (1000km south). We tried an little adventure. We were going to take a bus to a ferry to a bus to a ferry kinda deal, but we got halfway there and the next ferry only runs in the summer. So that idea went out the window. Plans quickly changed as we arrived at a bus station at 1:27 and there was a bus going to Argentina at 1:30. We made it on and now it is 7 hours from Puerto Montt, Chile to Bariloche, Argentina. From there, we are going to a smaller town called El Bolson. Our guidebook describes it as:
Hippies rejoice - there’s a must see destination for you in Argentina. Within it’s liberal and artsy borders live alternative lifestyle folks from all over the country who have made their town an ecological municipality. El Bolson is peaceful, plain, and unpretentious, surrounded by dramatically jagged mountain peaks that host activities for nature lovers. Look out El Bolson, here come Danielle, Leo, and Rory!