The
following are our emails sent during the trip:
*************************
Date:
Mon, 12 Feb 2007
From:
Rick Samco
Subject:
Hola from Patagonia
Hi,
all - We just came out from a 4 day trek in the Argentinean Patagonia (Fitz
Roy) area and staying in-town (el Chalten) before a
day hike tomorrow. this area is absolutely unbelievable ... granite spires
going 8,000' straight up out of huge glaciers.
We have heard stories of people spending days here and never seeing the
peaks because of the roaring 40s storms coming off of the pacific and hitting
the Patagonia ice field, but we had two days around 80 deg F and almost no wind
nor clouds! Our guide (3 yrs. here) had experienced this 1-2 times before! Today 50+ mph winds, showers, and tops of peaks
in the clouds. tomorrow, who knows ... apparently no weather forecasts around
here. Tomorrow evening we take bus back
to el Calafate for the night and gather our stored
luggage. Then on to Chilean Patagonia
with Alejandro, our guide, for 5 day trek in Torres del Paines
National Park. Can’t wait ... having a
blast. Still don't know if we have ferry
accommodations on 22nd from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt ... if not, don't yet know how we're going north –
alternatives are very long bus rides, air flight probably fully booked, or
rental car and long drive. We'll
see. That's it for now ... next update
probably in 5ish days (unless we have a chance in a couple before trek's
beginning).
Love
to all & adios,
Rick
& Martha
*************************
Date:
Mon, 19 Feb 2007
From:
Rick Samco
Subject:
Hola from Patagonia (Part 2)
Well,
we just came out from our second trek – 5 days hiking the "W" trail
in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile.
It rained hard the entire night in Puerto Natales
before we left for the park and we were wondering what we were getting into,
but the morning cleared and we had another fabulous time. Unlike the El Chalten-Fitz Roy trek where we stayed in tents, this trek
was primarily in refugios - dry & warm, good
food, beer & wine (!!!), and (best of all) GREAT fellow trekkers of all
ages from around the world! Every meal
has been accompanied by great conversations.
We had thought that our two month adventure was "rich", but it
seemed that that is short by many of our fellow trekkers' standards. E.g., a few were on year-long,
round-the-world trips; and a great many were on 4+ month adventures – one of
the many ways our perceptions are being changed. Our guide, Alejandro, continued to do an
great job, especially in identifying the
amazing flora, fauna, and geology of the area.
We have never experienced such a huge variety of landscape as you find
in both El Chalten and Paine areas - we've seen
granite of the same class in Yosemite, lakes as overwhelming in the northern
Rockies and Sierras, but never the concentrated diversity of plants and birds
... and never all this together in the same spot ... truly a unique, amazing
place in this world. But we must also
admit that we have ever experienced such wind as on a couple of the days. On one occasion it moved me (Rick) 12 feet
before I got my feet back under myself ... good thing that I wasn't any closer
to the edge of a nearby dropoff! We talked to one group of three who had to
swat on the ground for over an hour to wait for the wind to die down a little
before they could stand up and move ahead on the trail! Quite small lakes had 10 or so feet of mist
being whipped along above their surfaces ... a phenomenon I hadn't seen
before.
Tomorrow
we take a bus south to Punta Arenas for two nights ... we will spend the
afternoon seeing hundreds of thousands of penguins on a island in the Magellan
Straits. Then we return to Puerto Natales because we just learned that ... yes! ... we got
two berths on the ferry northward, up Chile's inland waterway, to Puerto Montt. We are
looking forward to a few days of seeing the scenery go by without self
locomotion :>) We arrive in P. Montt early next Monday and rent a car for further
explorations in the Lake District and further north. Until then ...
Rick
& Martha
*************************
Date:
Thu, 1 Mar 2007
From:
Rick Samco
Subject:
Chile´s Lake District
We
have made our way north from Patagonia to Chile´s lake district ... initially
via 4 nights and 3 days on the Navimag
freighter/ferry from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt. This area is
dominated by the Patagonian ice field and the southern Andes, so there is no
Chilean road route between these two points.
Therefore the only way to see about 1/4 of this wonderful country is via
water! The trip was mostly through
inland waterways, weaving through thousands of islands ... not unlike BC and
Alaska's. There was a 12 hour
"dash" across the open Pacific (Gulf de Penas)
which is usually sea-sickness-producing, but it was relatively calm for us
("just" 3 meter seas). Once
again, the fellow travelers were a highlight. There were about 175 passengers
from all over the world; as well as a hundred or so sheep, a couple of dozen
horses, and a similar number of cattle.
We shared a two bunk cabin with a great French couple – Annik from Paris (with a small cottage on Brittany coast)
and Dominic from French Polynesia.
Martha & Annik are already thinking of a
reunion in France in the fall! After
picking up a rental car in Puerto Montt, we spent a
day on the island of Chiloe – in the town of Castro – finding a great
restaurant, and some good pictures of the stilt homes on the estuaries and
seaweed collectors. Then back north of
Puerto Montt to the lake district ... to Puerto Varas on one of the region's many large lakes with Andean
volcanoes in the background. We had read
about two of the best restaurants in Chile in this town ... so we stayed two
days so we could do both ... yummmmmmmm! One day was clear so we got to see the snow
covered volcanoes, the next rained hard.
We spent a day taking the excursion on Lago Todo los Santos to almost the Argentina border (most go on
to Argentina's Bariloche area via bus and another
lake excursion). Today we drove north
through countryside and small lakeside towns that looked like Bavaria ...
fitting since this region was mostly settled by Germans. We then detoured over to Valdivia near the
coast to sample this renowned small river city.
Finally we have ended up in Villarrica on the
northern edge of the lake district ... on another unbelievable lake with
another signature volcano at one end.
This one is active but it hasn't yet come out of the clouds for us. We are staying at a great hostal
owned by Oregon expats ... overlooking the town, lake and volcano, with an
unreal flower garden and homemade ice cream ... we can't wait to sample the
dinner. We can't believe that we still
have 500 miles ´til Santiago, and it's only half way up this loooooong
country. We´re thinking that there's
another trip in our future down here ... darn :>) ´til the next installment
... probably from the wine country around Santiago.
Rick
& Martha
*************************
Date:
Thu, 8 Mar 2007
From:
Rick Samco
Subject:
Jurassic Park, Vino, and Corrugated Metal
We've
been all over the place since our last email update ... First an aside that we
have been extremely lucky (no planning involved) that the Chilean summer
holiday season has been winding down since we disembarked from the ferry (i.e.,
their schools have been starting up).
Small towns that had been gridlocked by traffic for weeks before we
arrived, we found very quiet. And
excellent drop-in lodging has always been found. The last email left off with our arrival in Villarrica ... We so thoroughly enjoyed the first night at
the Hosteria de la Colina,
and the inn keepers Glen & Beverly had so many suggestions on local
activities, that we unexpectedly stayed two additional nights. One day we hiked on the shore of a smaller
local lake (aka lago) in the morning and then soaked
in beautiful thermal pools in the afternoon.
The baths were a chain of about a dozen pools built into the side of a
steep, hot springs filled, fern-covered gorge, linked by a raised boardwalk
with a rushing creek beneath, and with bright sunlight filtering through the
steam that filled the canyon ... wow!
The next day we hiked into a nearby Parque Nacional Villarrica, climbing
1500' straight up to three lagos set in a granite
basin, surrounded by huge, 1000+ year old Araucaria trees. It is hard to describe these trees - just
think of 200 foot palm trees with 3 foot diameter trunks, with 1 foot bark
plates that looks like reptile scales, and whose "palm fronds" are
instead sweeping monkey tail tree branches at the very top. AND we had bright
green and blue lizards scurrying all around us.
We felt like a dinosaur was going to leap out at us at any moment. Unfortunately we didn't see any of the
fist-sized tarantulas that inhabit the area ... that would have been the
finishing touch.
Then
it was finally time to move north and get down to the business of educating
ourselves on Chilean wines. So we had a
marathon driving day of seven hours to get to the small town of Santa Cruz in
the Colchagua Valley.
This one of Chile's premier and largest wine districts, with best setup
for touring. The valley is a huge, flat
valley that is filled with an ocean of vineyards as far as you can see, with
snow-covered 16000+ foot Andes to the east.
Like all the wine producing areas around Santiago, this valley is an
almost perfect locale for growing wine grapes - almost no pests (including phylloxera), no frosts during the growing season, abundant
water, warm days/cool nights, cheap labor, fertile volcanic soils, etc. And everything is set up for mass production. The Colchagua
Valley primarily produces reds - Cab Sauvignon, Merlot (most everyone here
pronounces the "t"), Carmenère, and Syrah;
most of the wine is a blend of 2 to 4 of these grapes. They produce a little Chardonnay in this
valley which happened to be coming in at some of the wineries we visited (the
reds were 1-2 weeks away from being picked).
We visited 3 wineries; with a private tour at each:
Montgras (http://www.montgras.cl/english/),
one of the larger (over 3000 acres) & better known Chilean producers. The operation was unbelievably efficient -
even though the labor is cheap, they seemed to use very little of it in the
winery. A 5 person bottling line can produce
6,000 bottles an hour. And the number of
VERY large, stainless steel, glycol-jacketed fermentation tanks was unreal
(over 100).
Next
was the Lapostolle winery (http://www.casalapostolle.com/),
owned by the Marnier Lapostolle family in France
(Grand Marnier owners) and we toured their new USD$20M Clos
Apalta winery (my estimate of its cost would be MUCH
higher if built in the US). This is the
most beautiful, over-the-top winery we have ever seen. Think of Oregon's Domain Druhin's
(DDO) winery and then multiply it at least by five. It has five levels supporting absolutely-without-exception
gravity processing. The lower levels
were blasted out of granite which was then quarried for all of the building's
flooring. In one lower area one 35' high
wall is a remaining natural granite wall, rough and exposed and softly
lit. HUGE barrel vaulted oak ceilings
with indirect lighting, giving the impression of walking in a 150 foot long oak
barrel filled with smaller oak barrels.
Absolutely no red stains on the exterior of any of the wine barrels (how
can anyone be that careful?). Custom
apparatus for lifting and moving the barrel used for gravity fed barrel
topping. And like DDO (& unlike
Napa) all of this is only seen by a handful of people a day. This facility is only used to produce Lapostolle's top labels and no expense seems to be
spared. For example, all the fruit is
not just sorted but destemmed by hand! And within a couple of years, all of their
vineyards will be totally organic. We
tasted 3 of their top wines and they were exquisite.
The
third (and last) winery visited that day was Viñedos Orgánicos Emiliana,a small,
organic winery of the larger & well known Vina Emiliana wine producer. We had heard that their wines had
recently started getting a lot of recognition.
It was fun hearing about their organic and biodynamic approach, but
otherwise the tour was not that outstanding.
Tasted their middle tier wines and didn't find them any better than the Montgras or what we had been trying with our meals. Maybe we should have tasted their higher end
labels (assuming that we could taste anything at this point of the day).
As
a general rule, we have found the Chilean reds to be very good ... very well
balanced, never harsh or young tasting.
Their strategy is to produce a wine that is immediately ready to drink
(for what they call "the new world of wine") and that seems to
work. We're generally not Cab or Merlot
drinkers and we find them more enjoyable than many such US offerings -
especially in the USD$8-16 range that we're paying for these wines down
here. However, in general, we find them
a little sedate, seldom do we go "wow". But remember that we're not Cab or Merlot
drinkers, and for the most part these wines are inexpensive. But there was the high-end Lapostolle experience, but it is much more expensive
(starting in the USD$40s and going up) than anything else we have drunk. By the way, it is hard to find the wineries'
high priced labels down here ... apparently it is all exported. We have loved
the Chilean whites. We had a superb Gerwurtz one night before dinner and really like their
Sauvignon Blanc, a grape we usually don't much care for. Haven't sampled much of their Chards. More tasting to come. We will probably be able to squeeze in a
couple of days of touring other valleys.
And we're especially looking forward to getting into the Argentinean
reds in Mendoza in a couple of weeks. We were surprised by how much we liked
their Malbecs during the first few days of this
journey. Enough (for now) on wines ...
After
leaving the Colchagua Valley we drove over to the
nearby world famous surfing town of Pichilemu for a
quick lunch and view (surf was small but you can see where it has an amazingly
long break when conditions are better).
Then a long, slow drive up the coast to a string of unexceptional beach
vacation towns near Chilean poet & national hero Pablo Neruda's beach house
at Isla Negra.
We stayed in an awful hotel, but had a great dinner and really enjoyed a
tour of Neruda's house the next morning.
He loved the sea and collected many, many amazing associated things - bowsprites, seashells, glass floats, ships in bottles,
etc. And the house itself was very fun -
incrementally built in an organic manner, on a beautiful rocky sea bluff,
etc. We then headed north for the city
of Valparaiso - travelers we have encountered coming south have raved about
this city. We had heard that it is a
port city, with extremely colorful houses, built on a set of very steep
hills. Well, we had no idea of how steep
the hills were, and how difficult it would be to navigate the city via
car! We somehow managed to find a
recommended hotel and it had room for us.
Thank god since I'm not sure that either of us would have gotten back
into the car and tried to get to other alternative(s). And we are again talking to each other,
although the driver+navigator roles haven't been
retried. We have been here two days and
just extended it for another two (maybe because we don't want to try to drive
out of this city :>) But this city is
absolutely unbelievable - great old buildings, many restored, most painted in
incredible multi-colors, more stairs than sidewalks, "ascensors"
(aka funiculars in Europe) where too steep for stairs, cobble stoned streets,
lots of art schools with art students drawing/painting everywhere, more wall
murals and interesting graffiti than we have ever seen, .... Throughout Chile we have seen much use of corrogated metal on buildings (especially churchs) - not only on roofs but also as siding. Well, a
great many of buildings in this city have it as their external surfaces - so
the bright colors on top of that texture is amazing.
Well,
it's time to conclude this longer-than-intended report. Back in awhile ...
Rick
& Martha
*************************
Date:
Fri, 16 Mar 2007
From:
Rick Samco
Subject:
Hasta luego Chile
Well,
we´ve left amazing Chile :>( Since
the last email, we made it (without driving or interpersonal incident) out of
Valparaiso, visited the wine areas of Casablanca (best whites) and Maipo (oldest wineries), met our friends Steve and Cathi in Santiago and explored that beautiful city, and
then took an incredible seven hour bus ride over the Andes to Argentina´s
Mendoza wine region, where we are now.
In
thinking about what we've already told you, we realized that we hadn't yet
described the most amazing Chilean characteristic - its people. They are probably the most friendly, open,
& helpful people we have ever found on our travels. For example, not a day went by without at
least one (usually many more) long, spontaneous encounters. Just a few representative examples:
·
Santiago
man who, upon finishing his dinner, casually exchanged pleasantries with us
which led to a 3 hour conversation (joined by his wife and daughter). We
covered a huge range of topics, but the most interesting was Pinochet - he is
pro-Pinochet, with the waiter and us anti-Pinochet.
·
We´re
lost in Vina del Mar, looking for the Alamo car
rental location, we pull over in front of an internet cafe whose door is open,
owner comes out to see if he can help, he knows where we need to go but can't
express it in English, hops in his car and leads us through streets of Vina, gives a big smile and thumbs-up as he motions us into
the Alamo driveway and then drives off.
·
We
drive into a quiet winery, without a reservation, and Christian walks out to
meet us in the parking lot. We just
start walking through the winery´s garden and vineyard, talking, and ending up
on an outside patio leisurely tasting their wines. Over the two hours we learn that Christian is
an ex ad agency exec from Chicago (dropping out of that life 15 years ago, now
better with Spanish than English) and he learns about us and some of our travel
adventures. We finally have to say
goodbye in order to go get something to eat ... he recommends restaurant down
the road and gives us his card with handwritten note to restaurant's owner to
give us special treatment. [e.g., other similar winery one-on-one experiences:
young mother guide who not only shares her passion about wine but also about
Chilean educational systems; 19 yo guide from UK who
has been critically tasting wines since 3 (father is famous UK wine critic),
now earning $ for an around-the-world trip; ....]
·
We
quickly got to know Hector, the night clerk at the very small Valparaiso hotel
we stayed at for four days. In fact,
upon returning from a late dinner the first night and asking for our room key,
we spent over an hour in conversation before (barely) making it up the stairs
to bed. For the next three nights, it
was the same story ... regardless of time (or initial desire) we couldn't get
by Hector without at least 45 minutes of lively conversation. We were as sad to leave Hector as beautiful
Valparaiso.
We
could go on and on about such experiences.
I (Rick) have never felt so sad to leave a place. We didn't know how far north we'd get in
Chile ... and in 5 or so weeks we only got half way up the country. So we're already planning to return and start
in the Santiago area and go north, probably trying to get into Peru and Bolivia
as well. Our next email will probably be from Buenos Aires - describing our Mendosa wine discoveries and BA.
Rick
& Martha
*************************
Date:
Sun, 25 Mar 2007
From:
Rick Samco
Subject:
Final Travel Chapter
We
leave South America tomorrow and we are having real mixed feelings. We are homesick for family & friends, and
getting a little tired of the same clothes (not to mention living out of a
suitcase). But at the same time, we are
really going to miss this part of world, especially its people.
Since
the last email, we spent 3 days tasting wine around Mendoza. We hired Alejandro and his taxi to take us to
some chosen wineries the first day. We
quickly learned that he had a great palette, and therefore great knowledge
about local wines. So we ended up with
him for 3 days, deferring to his recommendations. The highlight wineries were Zapatta, Salentein, Zucchari, & La Rural.
Like Chile, lots of money and expertise going into their wineries and wine
making. And on our last day the clouds
lifted and we discovered that the snow-covered Andes were seemingly an arm's
length away ... awesome. And we
confirmed that, in general, we much prefer Argentinean wines than Chilean. Whereas we found it quite difficult in Chile
to find lightly oaked wines whose character wasn't blended away, in Argentina
it wasn't nearly so hard -- lots more well made, single varietals. We found cabs and merlots that elicited yummy
sounds, and we found that we like the Malbecs even
more. And, though we prefer the single
varietals, we had many good bottles of blended "tinto"
wine.
And
in our opinion there isn't a better place in the world to enjoy such reds
because of the ubiquitous excellent REALLY cheap meat. For example, massive steaks for under
(sometimes way under) $10USD. One final
word on wines (I promise), both Chile and Argentina are starting to make Pinot
Noir (our favorite), but they have a ways to go. First, almost without exception, they serve
it cold, really cold!?! And second, it
is usually pretty unexceptional, even after hugging the bottle or glass until
it warmed up. So, after all of this hard
work :>), the four of us flew to Buenos Aires and have spent the past week
exploring this amazing city. Think of
Paris filled with Italians who speak Spanish and drive like Mexicans. Areas that rival NYC's Fifth Ave. for high
end shops and others that rival Tijuana for squalor; lots of districts each
with a unique character; parks everywhere filled with monuments & people;
incredibly beautiful and wide, tree-lined boulevards (also with
monuments). And this city has some of
the widest streets in the world. For
example, we counted ten lanes on one one-way street, and that doesn't take into
account that, on average, every two lanes can and do accommodate three vehicles
abreast.
I
guess this is an appropriate place to talk about the taxis ... in a lifetime
we've only experienced a couple of taxi rides that rival the many thrillers
that we've experienced here. The four of
us would play a game of musical chairs getting into a taxi ... the loser got
the frontrow, I mean front, seat and its more
intimate relationship with pedestrians, bicycles, red lights, unsigned
intersections, undersides of truck & bus bumpers, etc. And then there is the walking experience ...
we have learned to embed ourselves into a group of Argentineans when attempting
to cross a busy street -- the goal being to look bigger that the largest
threatening vehicle. And thank god right
turns on red are not allowed, otherwise it would be impossible to step off of
an intersection's curb.
Since
lunches take 2 hours regardless of size and dinners at least 3 hours, it seems
that we have spent most of our time here eating (& of course
drinking). At least we have learned to
walk between our meals -- both to make some room for the next meal (wouldn't
want to have to miss one) and to see some other sights. And we have made two daytrips out of town ...
one via train to the Rio Plata's delta on the city's northern outskirts where
we hired a small boat to explore that area's waterways, which are full of
resorts and second homes. And another
via ferry to Colonia, Uruguay -- a beautiful, quiet, little, 300+ year old
Portuguese colonial town.
It
seems that Argentina is only just now starting to really recover from their
2001 financial crisis that saw something like six presidents in two weeks,
banks closed for weeks, over 50 percent unemployment, and 50+ percent currency
devaluation. For example, only in the past
few months have mortgages been available for home buyers -- it was cash-only
before then! Of course, the poor state
of the economy makes travel here incredibly inexpensive. Most taxi rides costs between $1 and
$2USD. A really high-end dinner, with a
really great wine, is $40 per person; and great dinners can be had for $12 per
person. Despite (because of?) the recent
economic crisis and numerous earlier political crises, the people are
incredibly helpful, friendly, and passionate ... a real joy to be around. In fact, without a doubt, the highlight of
our entire two months has been getting acquainted with the people of south South America.
Once
again we've gone on for too long, so let us close with this wish ... we hope
that our stories have given you a desire to see this part of the world and that
someday you are able to!
Rick
& Martha