Hola Argentina

After spending an extra 4 days in Chile, we finally got to Argentina! The bus ride was uneventful but the pic below illustrates the cause of the delay. The pass through the Andes is mostly done at the bottom of a valley, but then there is a crazy ascent on a single highway that runs near Aconcagua (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aconcagua) which contains the highest peaks in the world outside of the Himalayas. Glad I´m not a truck driver.


Our first stop was Mendoza which sits at the foot of the Andes and is home to much of the wine industry. Argentina is the dry side of the Andes and it feels a lot like Albuquerque. It gets warm during the day with cold nights and the soil is excellent for growing grapes and olives. Our first tour was with a company in town that drove you to two wineries and an olive farm. The wine was so-so, the highlight being a 2005 Malbec from Baudron that won some awards. We´re hoping it survives the plane flight home. The olive farm was cool, as the trees make their best fruit at ages of 100 to 400 years. This particular farm was planted over 100 years ago...


We didn´t quite get our fill so the next activity was drinking and biking through the Ruta del Vino, or Wine Road. Depending on how many places you go its about 15 to 20 KM roundtrip. The road is kind of narrow but they are used to tipsie tourists and even on this winter day there were at least 30 other people weaving around town. As you can see the signs make perfect sense.


On the first day we visited 4 wineries, a wine museum, and a boutiqe chocolate shop. Great time, good drink, and some nice exercise. There are just a few problems with the tourism side of wineries in South America that we hope are fixed in the future:
1. Most wineries only pour 1 or 2 wines. Sniff...
2. They tend to pour the youngest wines and most are not remotely representative of the quality stuff.
3. If the winery is famous for something, either a particular vintage or style, they don´t pour that. Many don´t even have the good or reserve tastings for a fee. You just can´t try the good stuff.
4. A number of wineries require reservations. This is not as prevalent in Argentina, but was a big problem in Chile.

Still, we´ve loved wine country in Chile and Argentina and we know they will only get better at the tourism side as the number of visitors grows.


Biking only 20KM the first day was not enough so we went back for a 2nd day. Our favorite company, Mr. Hugo´s, suggested another round of places and we lucked out that a couple of them poured some great selections. The pic below is from Tempus Alba which recently opened a beautiful facility. They charged a bit for the tasting, but it was worth the price for the quality of wine and the great views. Also, their tour was self guided with a few signs explaining what was happening. After 10 tours or so, they all sound the same...


After 3 days in Mendoza we caught an overnight bus to Buenos Aires. BA is too huge and too amazing to summarize here. However, the current highlight was a Boca Junior soccer match. The fans are crazy, the stadium is historic, and the experience is like nothing in American sports. The stadium seats 40,000 but they sell 60,000 tickets. In the general admission sections they keep you locked in for 20 minutes til after the match to allow the opposing fans to leave. Nutssss...

Still Chile´n

Same routine as yesterday. Got up early, got a cab to the bus station, got a cab back to the hotel after finding out the border to Argetina is still closed. They think it will reopen tonight, but they also thought that yesterday. I miss having websites in English or a phone number answered by somebody who speaks English that can tell us if the bus will go or not. I should have taken Spanish in high school like everyone else...Tara is making this trip go smoothly, thanks to her four years of the language.



The good news is that we loaded up on four bottles of Carmenere at Vina Mar Winery from nearby Casablanca Valley. Carmenere is a red varietal, somewhere between a Merlot and a Cabernet. The only place you can get it is Chile, as it was wiped out most everywhere else in the 19th century by phylloxera. While the Andes have kept us out of Argentina, the mountains plus the Atacama Desert in the north and the Pacific Ocean serve as natural barriers to pests and blights. Wine snobs might care http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carménère. It is great to drink, and cheap, like many of the wines here. TD thinks Chile is now the 3rd largest importer of wine to the US and we´re working on finding that in writing.



Promised a recap of the last couple days...

After finding out the bus was delayed again, we did a wine tour of the nearby Casablana Valley. It looks a lot like Napa and the number of wineries is on the rise. Since they are close to the coast, they have conditions more like Oregon and are growing similar types of grapes (white varietals and pinot noir). They´ve been growing grapes here since the1860s, but the tourism portion of the industry is just blooming. There are only a couple hotels in the valley so you have to drink and drive either 30 KM from Valparaiso or 70 KM from Santiago.

The other oddity is that most tours only pour 2 or 3 tastings, unlike the 5+ we´re used to at home. This is actually good for me and my poor alcohol processing capabilities, but kind of a bummer since we can only see a few wineries.



We visited Indomita and Vina Mar, which were both housed in facilities opened in the last 6 or 7 years. Indomita had a very impressive facility in an eyesore of a building. Huge white and mirrored-window structure on a hillside overlooking the valley with a big sign behind it like the Hollywood sign. It would actually fit well in LA. The tour was pretty plain but the wine was pretty good.



Next door was Vina Mar, housed in a slightly more tasteful modern building, complete with helicopter landing pad. We lucked out that we got a private tour with a nice guy named Francisco who has his agriculture degree and is an aspiring wine maker. He had lots of info on the process, shared many of his beliefs about wine, and talked about his own plans to start a winery along with his new wife from Wisconsin! Great to see his entrepreneurial spirit.

The tasting was in the lobby (kind of like drinking in a hotel lobby) and originally they only poured 2 tastings. The Savignon Blanc was solid, but the Caremenere was the best we´ve ever had (and only $10). Francisco also snuck us a pour of Pinot Noir which was great.



Our tour guide was named Marko and he has his own local agency called Adventours...sorry to our friend Graham who might have used a similar name in his endeavors. It was a nice 4 hour tour and it gave TD a chance to practice her Spanish with someone willing to slow down and enunciate. He has family in The OC so he knows how gringos speak...

We´re going to attempt a run on the beach at Vina del Mar (They have exercise equipment here. Circuit training!) and will find a way to amuse ourselves for another day. Tomorrow, we wake up and head to the bus station for the fourth day in a row, crossing our fingers and hoping that the powers that be open the roads to Argentina.

More Chile Pleeeze

So a slight rearrangement of travel plans...
We went to the Chilean coastal city of Valparaiso on Thursday for a couple days in the ¨cultural capital¨of the country. We got in around 11am and had a nice day walking all over town. The rain started late that night, and went on and on and on. It rained for about 30 hours straight, dumping about 4-5 inches. This was the pattern for the whole area, up to the Andes which lead to closure of the border crossing to Argentina. Of course, we don´t have a pager or PDA or even speak the language that well, so we sat in the bus station on Saturday morning waiting for an hour before anyone explained the situation to us. We found a place to stay and buckled down for another day, and then what a sight! The clouds parted, the birds sang, and the stray dogs bathed on the sidewalks in the warm glow of a beautiful day. We then went back again Sunday morning, after our hotel called to verify the bus was a go, but again, the border was still closed. So we went back to the hotel, booked a wine tour, and drank...

In spite of these headaches, the coast has been nice. Valparaiso is an old port city and used to be one of the most important in South America as all the ships going around the tip of SA stopped here. Alas, the Panama Canal and air freight have reduced its importance a bit. However, it is sweet area built on steep hillsides that start within a kilometer of the coast. The hills are a bit like San Franciso, except worse. Picture many roads that look like Lombard Street, except with potholes and rocks and cracks, but with nice ¨old world charm¨.
The city´s claim to fame are the ¨ascensors¨ or ¨funiculars¨, which are little rail cars built on 30 - 60 degree grades on the hills. They sit on rails and are connected by cables and pulleys. As one goes up the other goes down. Most of them are 50-80 years old. They are rickety, but they work.

About 8KM up the road is Vina Del Mar, an up and coming hot spot for the nouveau rich. Very cute, clean, and kinda pricey. If Valparaiso is the touristy version of South San Franciso, then Vina Del Mar is The Embarcadero (or whatever area is nice is SF now). We walked up and down the beach and saw some amazing waves, probably 8-12 feet, breaking right on shore. Scary, and the water is cold, much like Ocean Beach.

We lucked out and there was a wine, chocolate, and coffee expo in town. It was small, maybe 20 vendors, but we got a bunch of chocolate for the $4 admission. Also, we found out about ¨barista school¨in Italy, where you can do 12 hours of certification to become a latte art expert. That will be the next trip.

Alright, we´re going to the bus station again at 7am to see if we get to go to Argentina. More details on coffee and wine, and more pictures next time.

Santiago and Beyond

After a string of small tourist towns, Santiago was quite a change. Santiago reminds us of New York, except everything is in Spanish and the crowd is not quite as international. I was the only ¨rubia¨ (blonde) in town, and that drew quite a few comments and stares. The most frustrating part of Chile is understanding Chilean Spanish - Chileans talk very fast, drop many consonants, and have a strong accent. They don´t usually understand me, and I have an even more difficult time understanding them. However, Santiago is a cool city, especially if you´re a night owl - the city comes alive after dark. Restaurants don´t open until 8 or 9:00 at night. Night clubs don´t open until midnight and people stay out all night. Mall culture has taken the city by storm - There are huge malls EVERYWHERE filled with hundreds of tiny stores (about 50% of which sell specialize in leather boots and skinny jeans - this trend understandably fared better in SA than in the US).

The Chilean wine is fantastic and incredibly cheap. Empanada and sopapilla stands populate every corner. Every restaurant starts the meal with delicious breads and salsas. Desserts abound - heladerias and pastelerias decorate every street corner, and Chileans seem to have icecream cones in their hands at all hours of the day (I don´t know how they fit into those skinny jeans!). And the metro - this beautiful system here is faster, easier, and more efficient than even DC´s metro (not to mention they have NYC beat by a long shot).



We couldn´t visit the third largest importer of wines to the US without soaking up some vino. On our second day here, we went on a full day tour of wine country south of Santiago. We visited Undurraga, a beautiful, formerly family owned winery that produces excellent wines on grounds that rival any Napa Valley estate. We found a new favorite wine - carmenere - which is a grape that only grows in Chile (it was originally imported by the French, but the crop died out there and only thrives in Chile). It has all of the richness and flavor of a cab sav but without the tannins. If you come across this in the US, you have to try it! We also visited Concha y Toro, which is sort of like the Disneyland of wineries. The tour was a bit cheesy but fun.



The Anderson network abounds, even here! We met up with Pedro and Ignacia Jamarillo (for those of you who don´t know Pedro, he was in our class at Anderson). They definitely showed us a good time! We started the night with dinner a few piscolas (Pisco and Coke - the national drink of Chile), then headed to Ignacia´s brother´s apartment around midnight. We hung out, had some great Spanglish conversations, and hit up a Chilean night club until it closed at 5 a.m. What a night! Craig and I were told we danced like Americans. Shocking. Apparently, this is just a typical weekend night out in Santiago.



It´s SKI SEASON here! We traveled two hours on windy mountain roads to reach Valle Nevada in the Andes. The morning fog and snow were so bad mountains that we literally snowplowed down the mountain in a cloud of white. We couldn´t even see the people on the ski lift chair in front of us. However, in the afternoon, the skies cleared and we experienced the most perfect snow imaginable. We were up to our waists in fresh powder, carving out new routes, and it was incredible! They don´t have trails here, or even trees on the mountain. Instead, skiiers just take a lift to the top and choose their own way down. The entire face is open. This makes for some amazing skiing and a lot of room for creativity.

After six days, seven nights in Santiago, we took the bus down to Valparaiso, a hilly, coastal city with a huge navy port. We´ll be exploring Valpo and Vina del Mar (the Malibu of Chile) for the next two days, and then we´re braving a bus over the Andes to Argentina. Pictures coming soon!

Chile Arrival and The Olympiad

Wow, a week flies, especially when you´re waking up at 4am to watch Olympics coverage.

As a brief recap, we left Cusco, Peru on Wednesday, August 7th. It was a long day of travel, with an especially memorable wipeout in the Lima airport. We were rushing to the gate and of course security made me take off my hiking boots. I put them back on but didn´t lace them, figuring i could make it 200 yards to the gate at a careful trot. I tripped and basically did a forward roll through the terminal. I managed to roll over to my shoulder to save my face, and didn´t drop the 2 salads and fries from McDonalds in the process. A stuck landing you might say.

We landed in Santiago around midnight, and thanks to our wonderful State Department and the weak dollar, had to pay a $130 entry fee. They call it a reciprocity fee, as I guess the US invoked similar fees on foreign nationals entering the US. Well done America, well done.

We got about 5 hours sleep and woke up to watch the Opening Ceremonies from Beijing. I guess they´re saying now that some of it was lip-synching and faked effects, but it was grand. The Chinese appear to be great hosts and it is nice to see that a gymnast, Li Ning, had the honor of lighting the cauldron.

We´ve been trying to catch as much of the Olympics coverage as possible, but the Chilean coverage is (1) focused on its athletes, as it should, and (2) is kind of scattershot. Chile won a couple medals in tennis in 2004 and has around 20-some athletes in the games. When not focused on them, the coverage kind of jumps from sport to sport and is probably a joy for the ADD/ADHD kids out there. Add in the time difference and it is a mess.

Props to the US gymnastics teams. The men faced a huge challenge in getting to a medal, especially with Paul Hamm out. The Chinese and Japanese are still a ways ahead, but hopefully this will feed the next generation of male gymnasts in the US and some of these guys will hold on for 2012 to provide some veteran leadership. There is hope for some individual honors, especially Kevin Tan on rings and Sasha Artemev on horse.
Sad to see the ladies get 2nd, but still a strong showing. Shawn Johnson and Nastia will bring home more medals, so all is not lost.
I will be happy to get home in September and have a fast internet connection on which I can read all the commentary and criticism.
Finally, I am somewhat nostalgic for these Games, as this is probably the last set of guys I competed against who will be on the floor. The 2004 team had a number of guys from my age group and guys like Raj and Kevin are just a hair younger. It is very rewarding to see guys who beat you as a kid out on the floor.

Finally, we´ve basically laid out our remaining itinerary. We leave for Valpairso on Thursday, another colonial town on the Pacific coast. We´ll then depart on a Saturday bus through the Andes for Mendoza, Argentina, home to some of the best Malbec in the world. After a few days there sipping wine and kiking, we´ll take another bus to Buenos Aires where we plan to spend 7 - 10 days. We might also take a side trip to Montevideo, Uruguay, only a 3-hour ferry from Buenos Aires. We depart Buenos Aires for LA on September 3...sniff.

Costa Rica Part 1: Quick Recap

We´ve neglected the Costa Rica portion of the trip for a couple weeks now so we´ll start the catchup with a few pics. The trip took us through canopy tours (ziplines over the top of the rainforest) in Monteverde, a volcano hike and waterfall diving at Rincon de la Vieja, and surfing in Samara.

The first couple pics come from the volcano hike. The hike is 6KM through the rainforest and then another 2KM to the summit. The park is compared to Yellowstone. On our particular day, the park ranger advised we not try the summit. It was rainy and windy, with the top being especially gusty. As the sign says, it is difficult and you should proceed with caution. We didn´t quite make the top, but it was a helluva rush.




These pics are also from Rincon de la Vieja. There are a number of waterfalls in and around the park. This one had a nice little cliff and pool.

Samara is a quaint little town of about 1,000 on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. It is a couple hours south of the more built-up Tamarindo and not quite booming yet. Some locals said the current condo developments in the area are selling slowly, so maybe it won´t get mowed down like Tamarindo. The beach is like a 3 to 4 KM long bay with a number of breaks. Feels kind of like El Porto or Pacifica in California, but the peaks are a little cleaner. There are some better, bigger breaks around the corner but you need 4wd to get there in the rainy season and you have to watch for crocodiles as you cross some swamps...nice.

On the western end, there is a small island that you can kayak out too. We did a 3-hour tour, a 3 hour tour....Once you get there, you can snorkle along the reef and the guides bring watermelon and pineapple that they slice up on the beach. You can throw the rinds on the beach and the hermit crabs and iguanas come out and devour them.

Catchup soon...

Tired, so not a full update.

We got up today at 3:30am, started hiking up the mountain at 4, and reached the park gates for Machu Picchu at 5am. We were about 15th in line and once they opened, it was a 1/2 kilometer race across the park to be one of the first 400 people in line to hike Waynapichu (aka Huayna Picchu), another 300-meter climb that overlooks Machu Picchu. Until the pics are up, you can read about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu (it is the large mountain in the background on all the¨postcard¨ pics, including the first one on Wikipedia). We were the 8th and 9th people allowed in and after another hour of steep path and stairs, we had an amazing view back onto Machu Picchu. One of the great things I´ve experienced in life. Amazing views in a historic and beautiful place.



Seeing hundreds of people dash across the park at 6 a.m. to try to get a spot at Wayna Picchu was hilarious. This thing is more competitive than i-banking career nights!

......POWER WENT OUT LAST NIGHT WHILE WE WERE AT AN INTERNET CAFE, SO CRAIG COULDN´T FINISH THE BLOG. TARA HERE ADDING TO THIS......


Today we had the incredible journey back from Aguas Calientes, starting with a hilarious train ride including a traditional Incan ¨dance¨ by a masked steward in the aisle and an Alpaca wool fashion show (Literally. They turned the aisles into a runway!). Some English teenagers on the train decided to draw a phallic symbol on the right cheek of their friend who was fast asleep. The entire car -Americans, Peruvians, Brits, etc. was cracking up at the sight and some tourists even started taking pictures as he awoke. I guess this old college past-time is funny in every culture!

Due to an upexpected twist of events, including driving around Urumbamba for half an hour looking for a hostel that apparently doesn´t exist, and taking a two hour taxi ride with a bunch of Peruvians, we´re now back in Cusco until the 7th.

After some sleep, we´ll update on the last couple weeks and post photos, including:
Pisaq - More Incan ruins, near Cuzco.
Cuzco - One of the neatest cities in the world. Closest major city to Machu Picchu.
Samara - Beach town in Western Costa Rica where we spent 4 days surfing, hiking, and yoga´ing.
Rincon De La Vieja - Volcanic park in Northwest Costa Rica
Monteverde - Ziplines and jungle tours

Tikal, etc.

Tara here. We had a wonderful 2nd week in Antigua staying with the Quizada-Perez family. The grandmother Maria cooked 3 meals a day for us all week and they were amazing. Her family was so helpful and gracious. We will miss them all. Thank you for your hospitality Maria, Luis, Olga and the rest of the family.

After five salsa lessons, our moves are starting to come along. Here we are with our teachers Carmen and Manollo "Mario Lopez".

Our last weekend in Guatemala was amazing! We took an overnight bus to Tikal, (Mayan ruins set deep in the jungle of northern Guatemala)and spent two days exploring. We made friends with a family of monkeys, saw tucans in flight, and witnessed some crazy wild turkey chases. On our first night, we bribed the security guards to let us stay in the park after closing and watch the sunset from the back side (off-limits/under construction)of Temple Four. Amazing! We then got our very own private night-time jungle tour as the two guards, shotguns and all, brought us with them on their night time rounds and kept us safe from the jaguars.

We stayed in the Jaguar Inn, one of the three hotels inside the park. The inn is powered by generators, and the electricity shuts off after 9:00 p.m. After that, it's all candellight! The next morning, we got up at 4:30 a.m. and did a half-hour sprint across the jungle with 50+ other tourists in order to climb up Temple Four in time to see the sunrise. Well worth it!

After Tikal, we took the shuttle-nightbus-taxi-airplane-taxi to get us to San Jose, Costa Rica. We were lucky enough to meet up with Marissa Mazzoncini (a b-school friend for those of you who don't know here) for lunch today at the San Jose Marriott before taking off in our new rental car. We decided to brave the roads here - the only "real" way to see the countryside! We drove through a cloud forest and then maneuvered down unpaved, windy, "under construction" mountain roads to arrive at Monteverdede, a little town in the rainforest that is the headquarters for zipline canopy tours. More adventures to come tomorrow.

Photos of volcano, tortillas

(Craig on it!)

So the big tragedy of the trip so far was my camera shorting out and blowing away my first week of photos. By the grace of Visa and the import taxes of Guatemala, I paid about $100 for last year´s model Canon.

TD was a good sport (and we needed the exercise) so we re-hiked the volcano and got some great pix. We also toasted marshmallows over the vents. There are clearly no lawyers in Central America.

We also visited the local tortillaria near our host family´s house. These woman work about 14 hours a day making tortillas by hand. They have a wood fire and a large metal plate that they hang over all day. There is a rush at lunch and dinner, when everyone in the neighborhood wants fresh tortillas. They are 3 for 1 quetzal. That is 21 for $1 US. Oh, and there are 12 people living in a 2-bedroom place about 20 by 20.

Finally, we had our last salsa lesson today. Took 2 group classes and 3 private lessons in 2 weeks. Our teacher was Mario Lopez from ¨Saved by the Bell¨, we´re almost certain of it. Picture coming soon.

Wrapping up Antigua.....

(Tara posting) Ok, so we haven't been as diligent in updating this blog as we said we would. In fact, we're almost two weeks in and we haven't sent the link out to you guys yet. I think that's a good sign - we've been incredibly busy and we're having a blast!

We signed up with a Spanish school last week and are taking four hours of intensive, one-on-one language courses each morning. Our teachers are great, and the school is run really well. Our Spanish is coming along, but we're still far from fluent. I was thrilled to find out that my Spanish maestro used to be in a rock band and is as crazy about Def Lepard as I am. The guy actually climbed up a security tower to see them in concert on their last trip to Guatemala. Outside of class, we're taking private salsa lessons and working on our salsa and merengue.

Volcano hikes are the main adventure here! We've hiked Volcan Pacaya (the second most active volcano in South America, I think) twice. The hike is about three or four hours in total, and the guides let us walk right out on lava rocks that were just formed the previous day. Toasting marshmallows on the lava flows was a blast! The second time we hiked Pacaya, the volcano was shooting lava sparks out the top and making lots of noise. It was incredible. There clearly aren't many lawyers in Guatemala - this is something that would never fly in the US! Although it's relatively safe and there hasn't been a major eruption since 2000, it's not completely unheard of for a hiker to slip and step a foot into the lava - ouch!

We spent the weekend in Lake Atilan (a giant crater lake surrounded by volcanoes) and ended up in San Pedro, a hippie and backpacker haven with lots of colorful people and a conspicuously absent police force. It wasn't exactly the relaxing lakeside retreat we were looking for, but it was a cultural experience nonetheless and had great hiking. On Saturday morning, we took a seven hour hike up the Volcan San Pedro. This was, by far the most excruciating physical activity we've ever done. On the hike, we were accompanied by two machete-armed guides who bounded up the mountain and the only policia in San Pedro. The first 3.5 hours were straight up hill, unbelievably steep and would put any stairmaster to shame. We lost one hiker along the way, but the rest of the group was in excellent shape and we pushed forward to the top. We were rewarded by a magnificent view and a short rest at the summit, and then faced an equally treacherous hike down, taking turns slipping in the mud and sliding down the steep trails. After this, hiking Pacaya again the following week was a breeze.

This week, we opted for the true immersion experience and are staying with a Guatemalan family. We live in a quaint little townhouse with two grandparents, two parents, and their three children (two daughters and a son, all in their 20's). It's quite the full house and we have to fight for bathroom space, but it's well worth it. We received an incredibly warm welcome when we arrived on Sunday night, and are enjoying the grandmother's Guatemalan-style home cooking, fresh, handmade tortillas and home made fruit juice every day. Thank goodness we're hiking and salsa dancing up a storm to burn it all off!

This weekend, we're off to Tikal to explore the Mayan ruins. More on that soon, and photos to come!

Guac, Corea, Volcan

FIRST POST!!! Tara and I are running around Central and South America for the next eight weeks or so. We´re gonna blog a bit to stay in touch and share the journey.

While we discover amazing things about Guatemala every day, sometimes the basics tell the best story. They grow a lot of avocado here so you can get it or guacamole at almost every meal. It is soooo good.

Fun night on Tuesday. We went to a small Korean restaurant (Corea in Espanol) and met some really cool people. The place had four tables and maybe 14 chairs to go with the five tables. It was called Veronica´s and I assume the lady who acted as hostess, chef, and busboy was Veronica. She had a fridge, a sink, a two burner gas stove and a couple shelves of plates and cooking gear...and a cooler full of beer, soda and shoju. About half way through the meal, two Korean students showed up, and then a couple from Norway, and some guys from the Netherlands and the UK. Great crowd. It was one of the Korean guys´birthdays and the lady went and got him cake from another place. They taught us how to pour and drink shoju. Pictures coming soon.

We´re off to a hike/tour of Volcan Picaya, one of the three live volcanoes in Guatemala. Rad.