Beginning Bolivia

       Crossing the border into Bolivia, we felt the country greet us with a riotus, “WELCOME BACK TO THE DEVELOPING WORLD!” The streets were inundated with ice cream, peanut, and jugo de naranja carts pushed by colorfully dressed Quechua women in brown bowler hats and the competing shouts of minivan owners soliciting passengers to our night’s destination, Tupiza. Over the next 4 hours we took the ‘2 hour drive’ to Tupiza, bumping along on back roads next to a local doctor who shared his take on local customs, politics, and recent national change. Upon arrival, he escorted us to a seguro y económico hostel, positively cementing our nascent impressions of Bolivia.

       After a sound night’s sleep at 10,500 feet, we began our first full in-country day by putting down our camera lenses in order to defog our cultural ones. The morning involved a marginally successful attempt at jogging at altitude, which ended at the local school where we watched uniform-donned kids hop out of the back of truck beds to join the ranks of their friends crowding around the building gates. For lunch, we followed our noses to the community’s market, where our eyes widened at stalls filled with flowers, papayas, bananas, tubers, bags of popped corn/rice/wheat, goat cheese rounds, 50 lb bags of pasta, spices, llama meat, and the chatting—4 and a 1/2 foot tall—female proprietors. Upstairs we found women stirring bathtubs of simmering soups, sautéing pans of veggies, chopping chicken, serving tripe (recommended by our doctor friend), and piling plates with rice and quinoa. We eagerly joined the milling masses pointing to their chow of choice and happily settled at the group table next to indigenously dressed women and men in taking their hour (or 3 hour, as seems to be the custom) lunch break. Our evening bookended the day with a short walk up Jesus’ Heart—a nearby hill named for the promontory cross marking the summit—where we overlooked the adobe brick city as the sun set across the valley. It was a laidback city day, beginning our acclimatization to the unseemly elevation as well as the cultural norms of this new foreign territory. Other successes of the day included: getting our laundry done, calling home, and securing seats on a Land Cruiser for the 4-day tour of El Salar de Uyuni.

       By 7 the following morning, our backpacks were bungeed to the top of the vehicle and we were buckling our seatbelts (not literally) for the whirlwind excursion of a lifetime. With Ushin behind the wheel, our cocinera (cook) Cecilia beside him and 3 French students sitting next to us, we embarked upwards into the Bolivian alitplanos. The next 4 days were filled with daily 4-6 hour drives over winding, steep roads with dozens of stops in one outlandish environment after the next. In an effort to avoid thesaurus.com-ing the words ‘incredible,’ ‘awesome,’ and ‘unbelievable’ 2,000 times, I’m going to upload many of our INCREDIBLE, AWESOME, and UNBELIEVABLE pictures and include as explanatory and succinct captions as possible.

Las Sillares: the name comes from silla, or chair, because the 200 ft rock formations resemble seats. 

Llama action. We learned there are 4 llama-esque animals in South America: llamas, guanacos, vicuñas, and alpacas (of which we've seen all but alpacas). Llamas are the largest, they're domesticated and their coats range from dark brown to pure white. 

These guys are vicuñas. They're all wild, more slender than the llamas and guanacos, and are all this golden color.

Our cocinera, Cecilia, with her butt-length braids coming out of her bowler hat. Also, compare her height in the doorway compared to Megan.

This dead baby llama was found at our lunch stop along the road. Our guide, Ushin, strapped it to the top of our Land Cruiser and brought it here to our hostel. About a minute after I took this picture, Cecilia hoisted the llama over her shoulders and brought it to the hostel owner's dog. 

Night 1: Sunset view. Those mountains look hill-like, but they're about 15,000 ft tall.

These beautiful mossy grasslands follow the glacial creeks off the mountains.

Flamingos! 3 species live in these lakes: James, Chilean, and Andean. They get their pink color from microorganisms and minerals in the lakes. 

Looks like the side of a building, but this is actually natural layers of rock. 

Geysers! I wish pictures could capture the accompanying sulfuric smells, the blasting wind, and the warm steam the covered your body when you walked through the cloud. 

Bubbling geyser mud.

Arból de piedra. Created by volcanic rock and then eroded over millennia in the desert.

More flamingoes... they wade around in the lakes all day dragging their beaks through the mud.

Check out the mountain's reflection!

5 am sunrise on the salt flats. The flats used to be a saline lake that dried out. Now, the salt flats extend 100 meters into the earth alternating 10-30cm layers of salt bricks with layers of water. Here, a puddle of water covers the flats (left over from the rainy season) creating a perfect reflection of the horizon.

       Also, on the BIG NEWS front, I’m 20! Don’t worry, the decade change was celebrated in style with lasagna, chocolate, and a candled heart-shaped cake. Maybe more notable than the unexpected culinary delights were the Megan-inspired reflections of the significance of this new age-era. After contemplating the end of my teenage shenanigans, I came to the conclusion that being The Big 2-0 doesn’t delineate the beginning of life-altering influences and decisions, but instead inches forward over the line of me (and my fellow bi-genarians) taking the initiative to choose which influences we decide to embody. It comes back to the words that have been intimated to me since I was a 5-year old stepping on my mom’s toes, “Be conscientious.” So, keeping that in mind, we’ll continue onward into a new country with a revitalized mindset of awareness, conscious actions, and self-fulfilling our desired futures.

Chocolate on Chocolate on Bikes: A day in Bariloche!

The beginning of our (incredibly successful, but very short-lived!) hitchhiking adventures brought us first through El Bolsón – land of baggy-pants-wearing, artisanal jam-loving-hippies! – and then to Bariloche, the wildly beautiful (but also very touristy..) capital of Argentina's Lakes District. Three days of outrageous awesomeness (interspersed with some lake-gazing, bike riding, and waaaay too much chocolate eating.. if that's even possible..) ensued!

The most notable of these three days of EXTREME EXCELLENCE included ALL of the aforementioned activities. We began with a wildly early morning wake-up, followed by an English lesson with our hostel’s owner over a classic South American breakfast of... bread! Then, we hitchhiked out of town to a bike rental shop, where we geared up with ancient mountain bikes, helmets, and bucket-loads of sunscreen before embarking on el Ciruito Chico, the much famed loop through tall evergreen forests shading dozens on dozens of pristine mountain lakes in el Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi.

What followed involved a lot of heavy breathing (as we navigated the very windy and HILL FILLED back roads of the Parque), many, many stops to gaze in wonder at the gorgeous, lake-y panoramas, an incredibly tasty lunch of the Lake District's local specialty of trucha (trout) (there was a brief and necessary digestive nap after this particular stop.. Argentine portions are what some would refer to as ENORMOUS!), and just general enjoyment.

Six hours later we found ourselves slightly dehydrated, very exhausted, and outrageously pleased with both our aerobic and scenic accomplishments. We arrived back in Bariloche (courtesy of Carlos and his large and empty jeep!) just in time to stumble upon the opening celebrations of the 2^nd Annual Bariloche Chocolate Festival! Woohoo! (Easter week is definitely not something you want to miss in Argentina.. So much chocolate... So much time to do nothing but eat chocolate!) Our unintentional first stop was the largest chocolate Easter egg in existence, which we followed promptly (and also accidentally... being lost and confused in foreign cities is one of our specialties. Evidently happening upon chocolate festivals is another. It's only happened once so far... but our fingers are crossed!) with limited views (due to the absurd numbers of spectators thronging the sidewalks) of the largest chocolate bar in the universe. We literally stood by as no less than 50 PROFESSIONAL CHOCOLATEERS poured molten chocolate into a multi-block long mold of what would soon become the MOST GINORMOUS CHOCOLATE BAR IN THE GALAXY. 120 meters long. 700 kilograms in weight. TRULY AWESOME. At least it was until we somehow went home too early and missed the free samples.. WHAAT??

The next day found us cooking up tupperwares full of lentils and rice in preparation for our marathon of bus riding (we got bored of hitchhiking. Though we definitely  standing on the side of hot, dusty, POLLUTED roads, waiting fruitlessly for a kind soul to stop and pick us up, we decided that a 38 hour bus ride might be slightly more practical..) to... BOLIVIA!

Bike break #1, next to a 5 star hotel and manicured golf course

Happy faces after lunch and before the long (and treacherous) uphill to the viewpoint

Worthwhile viewpoint. You can see Lago Perito Moreno, Lago Nahuel Huapi, and some other impressively azul Lago whose name we cannot currently recall...

At the scene of the longest/heaviest/largest chocolate bar in history's birth!
TOO MUCH CHOCOLATE EXCITEMENT

Happy Easter! Biggest Choco Egg on Earth

Farm Living

At the beginning of our tour of South America, we joined WWOOF Argentina with the triple intent of settling down in one area to get to know it, living with an Argentinian family (and benefitting from the cultural experience and language practice), and saving some mula. After reading bios online of different farms, we settled for LA CHACRA DE ZORRO, a small organic farm in El Bolsón. So, after a month of hiking, backpacking, and exploring nature in the southern tip of the continent, we made our way back north to begin our farming experience.

Farm life began with a BANG, or maybe it was more like a subtle plop followed by rigorous pounding, what am I describing?? The sound of a black sheep COLLAPSING onto the green lawn and then the delivery of CPR (including mouth to mouth, my friends!!!!) by our veterinarian hostess, Ines.  The dead sheep was then hoisted over Ines' shoulders and brought back to the house for a proper burial, cross covered grave included. The respect for life mixed with bouts of hilarity proceeded to be the theme for our weeklong stay. 

We were surprised to learn that 'our farm' was also the farm of 16 other backpackers. This meant the Argentinian lifestyle was slightly diluted by the presence of so many AWESOME foreigners, so we decided to cut our two weeks in half and just enjoy 7 days. 

Our time was filled with painting boards, picking apples, digging for potatoes, chopping gathered wild mushrooms, making juice, kneading bread, and--a majority of the time--CRACKING WALNUTS. The word on the farm was that they paid for our food with the nuts, and apparently we were eating a LOT OF FOOD because we were gathering, cracking, and peeling them ALL DAY, E'ERY DAY. 
We prided ourselves in REVOLUTIONIZING the nut gathering system, instead of passively picking them off the ground, we were proactive in creating an abundance of nuts to collect. We'd climb the trees and then SHAKE the limbs profusely until a maelstrom of nuts were plummeting to the ground. (This was all done in the back of the property, where the owners were less likely to notice the small amount of damage we were incurring on their trees.) Cracking the nuts was the most time consuming part of the process, and therefore most social. Sitting around wooden tables, next to the indoor open air fireplace, we heard stories of backpacking the Appalachian Trail, Ireland in the winter, and practiced French pronunciation ("BU-BLEH-BU-BLEH-BU-BLEH!! You hear zee deeferenzz??"). While conversing, we'd switch between English and Spanish depending on the fluency levels on the people present, using every opportunity to teach and learn by incorporating Spanish words. 

The end of our week was celebrated in style with an Argentinian barbecue, an ASADO! Arriving back at the farm after our morning off, we made our way to the bonfire with the required utensils: a mason jar for drinks and a steak knife. There we found 4 metal crosses stabbed into the dirt around the fire with flayed LAMB CARCASSES wired to each of them. On our sides the neighboring gauchos (who arrived ON HORSEBACK) turned rosy cheeks from the fire's heat and the wine-filled animal bladder they passed around. Meanwhile, we watched the meat smoke to perfection with grumbling stomachs. Soon (an hour=soon in tiempo Argentino), we were being handed hunks of bread, queuing to pick our preferred chunk of meat (and I mean hunks and chunks), and eating a cabbage salad with forks from a communal bowl. The food was delicious and plentiful, but before food coma fullness could set in, the fiesta picked up again and there was dancing and accordion playing to be had. This was 4pm, and the party continued until 4am. THEY GO HARD!! 

All in all, a fabulous week. Not the small time subsistence we were looking for, but nevertheless the friends we made and fun we had made for a bittersweet goodbye. But the beautiful Lake District of Argentina called, and I'm not one to ignore that sort of invitation.... so here we go, hitch hiking onward!!

PS sorry about the paucity of pictures, our photographer took a week off

Dead sheep #1

Dead Sheep #2

Some of our FRENCHIES gathered around 

The gauchos carving away... and yes that is a home knit sweater vest

Glaciers Part II: Fitz Roy

Hi all,

After some excellent glacier-gazing days in the southern part of Los Glaciares National Park, we moved to El Chaltén, a tiny town on the park’s northern edge to continue our trend of sweet hiking in the most BEAUTIFUL MOUNTAINS EVER! We spent four days exploring the park and enjoying incredible views of the epic granite monolith that is Mt. Fitz Roy. By far the awesomest of these days (and maybe even one of the awesomest days of our trip!) was the day that we hiked to the wildly turquoise glacial lake at the base of Fitz Roy itself. SO AWESOME. Nine hours, a 3,000 foot scree-scramble, and 4 apples later (we clearly did not realize the scope of our undertaking when packing our lunch...), we were thoroughly exhausted, sweaty, and EXTREMELY PLEASED with our day’s accomplishment. Instead of describing the wildly UNREAL scenery for the next 10 paragraphs (which I totally could), I’ll just include some pictures, which can speak for themselves (and are more fun to look at than a lot of typing anyway!).

Celebrating awesome-ness at Lago Torre

Lago Torre!

Too soon after an intense uphill slog...

...but the climb was definitely worth it! Hello, MONTE FITZ ROY!

Trees.

Post- Fitz Roy madness, we packed up for our grand move north to Farmland! And only two solid days on a bus later, we had arrived in an Eden of sheep, walnuts, jam, and 16 other young people from around the world intent on learning the ins and outs of subsistence living. More to come.

P.S. Our e-mail inboxes are always open in case anyone feels like telling us news. We would love to hear from any and all of you!

Argentina: Glaciers on Glaciers

Argentinian Planos

Perito Moreno

Smiles over Perito

Lookout!

34 KM LONG!!!

AWESOME glacial blues!!! 60 m high

Hello Again!
 Last you heard we had finished our trek in Torres del Paine and were heading east towards Argentina, and THAT WE DID!! Waking early we found our way onto a bus heading towards the boarder. For two hours we drove into the daylight through grassy plains, admiring the craggy mountain faces in the distance until we reached the Chile departure checkpoint. In a typical Megan/Jihelah fashion, we galloped across the border whooping with JOY AND REBELLION, before conforming into the back of the line to get our passports stamped (Question: Why do they always stamp ON TOP of other stamps when you have 20 blank pages??). Then journeyed through no-man's-land until we were stamped into Argentina. The views of plains and mountains continued, and in the late afternoon we arrived at the edge of an inlet of the Pacific in the small town of (invoke Machismo voice) El Calafate. A quick turnover of hostel locating, money exchanging, and post-lunch snacking left us with enough time to jump in a Carlos’s taxi and take the hour drive to Parque Nacional los Glaciares for sunset. Our evening destination was Perito Morena, a 34 km long by 5 km wide and 60-meter tall glacier. The stats we read before our visit primed us to imagine the enormity, but again the reality proved TOO GREAT for our imaginations!!! Following the wooden paths, we viewed the 5 km terminus of the glacier from multiple viewpoints, pausing to gaze in rapture at the iridescent blues of the frozen walls or to calculate the height of a given jagged ice spire. Peace-shattering booms resounded as room-sized ice boulders broke off of the glacier’s edge and crashed into the ocean 18-stories below. Startled—our conversation would stop as we listened to the ocean’s response as waves slapped the glacier back and whooshed into the cracks in the ice. Hours in a bus forgotten, we reveled in the dual sounds of the silence of frozen time and the thunderous force of the dynamic being. As the sun disappeared over the surrounding mountains, the glacial chill set in, herding us back to Carlos (and the Latin club sounds of Rigatón) for the drive back to El Calafate. From border crossing to glacier gazing, our hours continue to fill us with excitement and appreciation for this journey and the earth we’re exploring. Stay tuned, MONT FITZ ROY IS NEXT!!!!!!

Torres del Paine!

Our first day in Torres del Paine was marked with a long wait in a longer line of foreign park visitors in the tiny park entrance hut, followed by a short shuttle ride through EPIC scenery to the trail head (grimy window views were full of pampas plains, herds of fluffy, still-life guanacos (Alpacas), and jutting, rocky thumbs of mountains)! Our afternoon of hiking to our first camp was easy - though the steep uphills were painful on our sore legs (our boredom on the ferry resulted in an afternoon of countless deck lunges. Definitely a poor choice before a week of hiking loaded down with packs heavy with... oatmeal!) - and gloriously sunny! Many a nap and long lunch break was enjoyed in the grassy plains we were traversing on our way to the backside of the Torres range, which we would eventually circumnavigate on our 8 day “O” route!

We awoke well-rested after a peaceful night in the outdoors (the infamous rains/winds of Southern Patagonia had not yet been introduced to us) and ready to continue our circuit with a long day of hilly hiking through yet more pampas plains. Glaciers, mountains, and heavy clouds all loomed impressively in the distance, but our hours on the trail were yet again beautifully sunny and comfortably warm. A lunch of canned tuna and stale bread (our meal planning skills are not yet up to par... a brief lapse of judgement caused us to leave Puerto Natales without renting a stove... so our meals of bread, beans, and salami were enjoyed cold or not at all. Luckily we had many a snickers bar to tide over our hunger!) was followed by yet ANOTHER excellent afternoon nap in the sun! After which we enjoyed more hiking, more INCREDIBLE VIEWS, and just more general excellence!

Day 3 brought with it the first rain of our trip, but the damp air and our damp tent did little to dampen our spirits! The trails were still mysteriously (and very pleasantly) absent of other backpackers... so we continued our trek in our usual manner - laughing wildly, looking at waterfalls, and whooping with joy! The rain cleared up briefly for an afternoon of majestic peak gazing, but resumed it’s rhythmic pounding as soon as night fell. We awoke to much drenched gear (our used tent was not what you would call waterproof...), including one of Megan’s boots, which was somehow left outside of the tent. But after a morning of attempting to dry out equipment in front of a barrel fire in a yurt filled with other badasses from around the world (the median age of the other trekkers we met was approximately 60. We fit right in.), we decided to continue on with our biggest day yet (a pass crossing was on the itinerary) regardless of our thoroughly rain-soaked status. And our decision was not a mistake! The hiking that followed could only be described as THE BEST OF MY LIFE. The hours we spent chugging up and over a snowfilled/windpacked pass were rewarded with UNREAL views of the famous Glacier Grey, which we proceeded to hike along for a long afternoon of AWE. 14 miles, one 4,000 foot pass, and two deep ravine crossings (we had to carefully shimmy down and then back up hundred foot ladders precariously bolted to loose rock cliffs) later, we found ourselves at Refugio Grey (the first of the many lodges on the front side of the Torres mountains which cater to day hikers, making the popular 4-day “W” trek accessible to the wider world of those who prefer bunk rooms and prepared meals to wet tents and cold oatmeal!), thoroughly exhausted and slightly put out by the sheer numbers of other hikers at the lodge.

The next morning, under (thankfully) clearer skies, we proceeded to the Grand Paine Lodge, where we were planning on stopping for a brief lunch. The warm sun gave us a good place to dry out our drenched gear, and a public stove in the lodge allowed us to eat a hot meal... so instead of continuing on to the French Valley, where we were planning on making camp, we ended up just pitching our tent among dozens of others outside the lodge.

Our disappointment with the hordes of hikers we were suddenly encountering as we transitioned from the empty backside of the circuit to the bustling front side only grew as the crowds continued to swell – so instead of finishing up our trek by hiking the “W,” as we had originally planned, we instead took a rest day at Grand Paine Lodge (where the spectacular Cuernos Mountains shot up in stark relief to the sea-level elevation of the lodge, and the glassy surface of the glittering turquoise Lago Pehoe, on the banks of which the lodge was built, reflected every movement of the clouds), and then proceeded to hike what is referred to as the “tail of the Q.” It was a long day of hiking (we traversed the flat plains from the foot of the Cuernos, all along the edge of Lago Pehoe, and out to the administration building), filled with EVEN MORE breathtaking views, and the pleasant warmth of the sun.

Our time in Torres del Paine ended with a late evening bus back to Puerto Natales, where we spent a full day taking care of laundry (so many dirty socks!), returning our rented gear, and making plans for the next leg of our adventure: Argentina!

Preliminary views of Glacier Grey just after summiting the pass!

Glacier Grey

The view of Los Cuernos at Grand Paine Lodge

Trail nap.. Sleeping bags and all!

87 Kilometers later. BAD. ASS.

Final views