Museums, More Wine, and Goodbye Santiago!

The next day, we decided to check out a couple of the museums of Santiago.  The first one was the Museum of Memory and Human Rights.  This museum is dedicated to preserving the memory of the thousands of people who had their human rights violated (executions, torture, imprisonment) during the time of Chile's military dictatorship.

The dictatorship was began with a military coup in 1973 in which an army general Agusto Pinochet assumed control of the government.  His reign as dictator lasted until 1990.  Numbers vary, but they estimate that around 3,000 were killed, 20,000 imprisoned, and 30,000 exiled during this time period.

The museum explains the events of the coup, as well as the subsequent turmoil, and eventually resistance to this military regime. In 1988, a plebiscite (vote) was offered to citizens to support Pinochet or not.  The "No" vote won, and Pinochet transferred power to a democratically elected president in 1990.

Like all of the museums we've been to similar to this (in Germany and Hungary), it was heavy with human suffering and loss. Kudos to Chile for working very hard to bring justice and truth to light in a very dark situation and presenting it for future generations to remember.

We also visited the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art to see lots of VERY old artifacts from the native people of South America.  Scott particularly likes these cool hats that they wore.

We had a delicious dinner at a local restaurant to ceremonially end our trip abroad. More reflections on that later.

The next day was technically a flying day, but since we didn't leave until late at night, we decided to take advantage of one more wine tour!

We visited Vina Undurraga.  This vineyard is also located in the Maipo Valley but produces much more wine than the previous place we visited.  One interesting thing we learned about on this tour is that to tell the grapes apart, you have to look at the lobes of the leaves.  For example, in this picture the leaf on the left is from a white (no deep lobes), and the right is from a red (deep lobes).  Now, go impress all your friends!

We had several tastings (no fancy one this time) that we enjoyed and even decided to take the risk and put a couple bottles in our luggage for when we got home!

Our final stop was to ride the funicular up San Cristobal hill for an overhead view of Santiago. 

We really enjoyed our Santiago days, especially getting in a few more days of summer before heading home for winter!  Many more recaps to follow, maybe when our heads stop spinning after adjusting to the time (and life) back in the U.S. of A.... and of course start skiing!

Cousino Macul Bike and Wine Tour!

Scott and I were pretty excited for the Bike and Wine Tour we signed up for on another beautiful, sunny day in Santiago!

We headed out the Maipo Valley, which is located just east of the city of Santiago.  Once we arrived at Cousino Macul Vineyard, we were assigned our trusty green bike cruiser.

The bike ride was led by a guide through the vineyard.  It was a pretty easy stroll on some dirt/gravel paths, although, I tried to convince Scott that I would claim it as my first mountain biking experience.

As we pedaled along, the guide would occasionally stop and teach us about the types of grapes being grown, and the history of the winery.  The winery is still family owned and has been around since 1856. One interesting fact we learned is that the Carmenere grape was brought to Chile from France, and after decades of mislabeling it as Merlot, it was "rediscovered" after the French thought the variety was extinct.  Because of this, Carmenere is almost exclusively grown in Chile.

As we continued biking, we got to stop for a tasting among the vineyard.  This was a surprisingly (in a good way) dry tasting Riesling.

Once back at the winery, we got to see how the production was done back in the olden days (now they use stainless steel vats).  This is where you would see the people actually stomping the grapes in the giant barrels.

We moved on to three more tastings inside the main showroom.  All were delicious, although many of us wanted to get a taste of their most premium wine, Lota.  Lota is a limited production red wine that is aged longer than most of their other wines.  It costs between $50 and $200/bottle. Fancy.

Anyway, we had a very ambitious and friendly (duh) Canadian lady in our group who got a group of us together to split a bottle for tasting.  Scott and I thought "Why not?" and opted to join the group.

Now, let me say that Scott and I cannot claim to be wine experts by any stretch of the imagination. Honestly, I was wondering if I could taste the difference.  Well, I did.  It was very good!

We really enjoyed getting to combine something active with the wine tasting. Win-win!

Banos Calino Hot Springs and Andes Trip

Shannon and I had seen a lot of the Andes from the Argentinian side in Bariloche and Southern Patagonia so we couldn't resist the opportunity to see the range from the Chilean side.  We went on an organized trip with a group of about 8 other folks.  The trip started with an early van pick up and a long, occasionally bumpy ride up a long valley to the base of the San Jose volcano.

We started our adventure on a quick hike.  We immediately learned that many of our trip partners were in... less than favorable shape... or maybe we've become fast hikers?  Probably some combo of both.  We ended up making it up to a beautiful meadow where we relaxed, took in the mountain views and waited for the others.

After heading down from the volcano we headed to the hot springs named Banos Calino.  For us, the springs were the main attraction since we'd already done so much hiking.  We soaked in the mineral water and slathered mud with awesome Andes views.

After our return to Santiago we went out to eat and got a local dish we'd seen all around town, Chorrillanas.  It's french fries, with onions, eggs, and steak on top.  Heart attacks imminent.

We saw some great street dancing in the our neighborhood (The Brazil District) park.before returning to our hostel for the night after a full fufilling day.

Goodbye Bariloche! Hello Chile!

After 2.5 very beautiful weeks, it was time for us to head out of Bariloche.  We relaxed on the beach and packed for our trip on our last day before a great dinner at La Morilla, our favorite local restaurant.  We had fantastic steak and venison.... I already miss the abundance of quality, inexpensive meat from Argentina... mmmmm...

Our travel day to Santiago, Chile was uneventful.  Lots of waiting, a few cab rides, and an after dark arrival brought us into Chile.

The next day we headed out on a walking tour of the sights and sounds of Chile. which started at the impressive La Moneda palace where the President works.  Here we started to learn about recent Chilean history.  The military performed a very violent coup against the communist leadership in 1973 and then formed a repressive, human-rights-violating government until approximately 1990 when the people voted for a more democratic government.  Chile (and other places like Argentina, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) have reminded us how so many places in the world have very volatile recent (current?) histories and how lucky we've been to live in a stable country.

We continued to explore the city which felt very modern and eventually made it to famous poet, Pablo Neruda's house.

We had a nice dinner with some live music and headed home to prep for our adventure day-trip from Santiago to the Andes on Friday.

Cerro Catedral and Sailing!

After a couple days of recovery, our legs were finally ready for a little more hiking.  (Key word: little)  We headed up to Cerro Catedral (the ski area), where we rode a gondola and chairlift to reach nearly the top of the ski resort.

From here, a short trail leads up to the top of the ridge.  It actually turned out be a rare cloudy day, but the views from the top were still great.  Of course, Scott visualized all the great ski terrain available on a winter day.

I underestimated my layering, hence wearing Scott's shirt.

Looking across to the summit of Catedral.

The next day, we signed up for a sailing trip on Nahuel Huapi Lake (this is the main lake Bariloche is located on).  Bear in mind, we have watched the lake for DAYS and it has always had a medium to high amount of wind on it.  On this particular day, not much wind at all.  We actually had to motor out to the center of the lake to catch the little bit of breeze that was there.

I kind of like slow boats. 

We finally got the main sail up and actually picked up a little bit of speed on the way back to the peninsula.  Despite the lack of wind, the weather was absolutely beautiful!  We enjoyed the sunshine, great views of Bariloche, chatting with our fellow passengers, and a very relaxing sail.

Scott enjoying the view from the front of the boat.

Overall, it was a great way to spend one of our last days in Bariloche!

Steak! And Cerro Otto

The day after our hiking trip we slept waaaaaaaay in and relaxed and recuperated around the house. One of the best parts about our long trip is that we don't always have to be rushed into a week or even two week vacation and it felt great to take advantage of.  

We did head out to dinner with our AirBnB hosts Samantha and Randy.  We're living in their beautiful finished bottom floor and they've been really great hosts.  We had some drinks and then went to a great steak place.  If you've been to Argentina, you understand that the beef is just great.

The next day we headed up Cerro Otto to eat in the (drumroll please) REVOLVING RESTAURANT.  We went to one other revolving restaurant in Switzerland and have discussed making this our future vacation mission.  Of course, neither of us have eaten in the one in the Space Needle, so we have a ways to go...

Anyway!  The gondola was rickety but quick and we had nice sandwiches with a (revolving) view.

After our late lunch, we just relaxed on the beach by our house, read, and enjoyed watching the Argentian summer scene.

Laguna Negra Traverse Day 3

Our last day on the Laguna Negra Traverse was a straightforward exit from the high country so we had to relish the glassy reflection on Laguna Negra.  The day before we had walked down along the ridge in the center of the photo.

Eventually the time came to leave and we captured a few last high country moments...

... before really dipping into the trees.  We would trek about 14 kms this day (almost 9 miles) and probably 7 of those miles was an easy descent along the river.

We made it to the bus stop with great timing to get back into town.  We were tired and a little beat up but felt very rewarded after our three day adventure.

Laguna Negra Traverse Day 2

The middle day of our Refugio Lopez to Refugio Laguna Negro traverse was... well... a doozy.  The "trail" was marked on the map but calling it a trail was a vast exaggeration.  Really, boulders along the way had red markers which we used to connect-the-dots for 8.5 grueling hours up, over, and around the mountains.

We started off going straight up Cerro Lopez and immediately discovered what we were in for:

This picture speaks for itself.  Shannon having "fun".

About halfway up, we hit a little alpine tarn.  While we worked really hard all day, the views like this made up for the work time and time again.

As we finally reached Cerro Lopez' ridge, we had stunning views in all directions.  First to the watery world of Bariloche.

And in the other direction to a world of alpine rock.

The next segment would be the toughest of the day as we descended more than 1,000 feet of loose scree, shale, boulder, etc.  It literally felt like the mountain was crumbling underneath us.  This section banged up our legs pretty well resulting in some... choice words.  At the bottom we were very happy to look back knowing we wouldn't return that way.

We descended the chute in the center...  dicey...

Our path forward looked spectacular as we would dip a little lower and then climb over the next ridge passing through the high saddle left of center in this photo.  Views like this kept us going and excited.

Fast forward a few hours and a lot of sweat and we arrived at that saddle and soaked it in.

Then traversed across yet another boulder field.  This gives you an idea of how the trail looked for about half the day.  That red marker to the right of Shan lets you know... yup... this is it...

Finally, we bumped over one more ridge and happily saw LAGUNA NEGRA!  We made it!

Or did we!?  It turns out the lake is big, lined with cliffs and the refugio is on the opposite shore.  This traverse tested our mental limits one more time with a heart-breaking battle around the lake complete with rope aided cliff passages.

So close... yet so far... the refugio is the red building in the... distance.

Finally we DID arrive and got settled into the very full refugio.  With it's lake-side location and an easy access trail (we'd use this the next day) many youth from Buenos Aires were relaxing and lounging at the hut.  We caught up with new friends we'd met in Lopez the night before (Pablo, some Europeans) and had a great time playing some dice games, having a bottle of wine, and listening to a guitar concert under a beautiful starry sky before collapsing in the loft of the full refugio.  A great way to finish an exhausting day!

Laguna Negra Traverse - Day 1

 On Tuesday, Scott and I started out for a three-day hike.  The first day was a relatively short (but steep) hike to Refugio Lopez.  This is a pretty popular day hike, but our plan was to stay at the Refugio as we were connecting to another refugio the next day.

We had a little bit of a bus snafu (meaning, the bus didn't stop to pick us up despite frantic waving), so we ended up taking a taxi to the trailhead.  We immediately started climbing, climbing towards Lopez.  The trail does not waste any time taking you upwards.

Along the way, we enjoyed great views of Lago Nahuel Huapi (the lake below) and the surrounding mountains.

Once we reached the hut, we arranged for our sleeping and eating accommodations.  Since this is a popular day hike, the hut was not as crowded as our last one.  Most people do not spend the night here.  This hut seemed to be in a little worse condition than most of our other hut experiences.  But, hey, a warm place to spend the night on top of a mountain is still pretty great.

We enjoyed our spaghetti dinner (and Scott his Isenbeck) and got well rested for our big hiking day the next day!

Bariloche Weekend

Before our next big hike, we did various activities around town. On Saturday, we headed up one of the town chairlifts called Cerro Viejo, where you can go down a "Tobagan Gigante" or as they're called in German "Rodelbahn", or in English "Alpine Slide".  In any language, this is one of Scott's favorite things to do!

Unfortunately, since he is so much faster than me, there are no pictures of Scott enjoying his slide.  He tends to "open the throttle" a little more than me. :)

 On Sunday, Scott headed to the local ski area, Cerro Catedral for some mountain biking.  And, let's face it, he wanted to check out the ski terrain.  He knew he was getting in for some excitement when the people at the rental place offered him the full armor (spine protector and shoulder pads).  However, he decided to keep it mellow and stuck to just the full-face helmet.

Overall, Scott describes the riding as "good, tough, and fast". 

On Monday, we prepared for our next big hiking trip by running a few errands in town, including, of course, a chocolate stop.  This time we tried Rapa Nui.  Review: excellent chocolate/coconut bars, meh marzipan.
 

We had a relaxing weekend and looked forward to our next three-day hike!

Tronador - The Going Down Part

We had another day of wonderful weather on our way down from the slopes of Tronador.  After breakfast, we enjoyed some last alpine views before heading down.

Home away from home.

The light was a little different on our way down and the waterfalls coming of the glacier were pretty spectacular complete with rainbows.

Of course, all good things must come to an end and we eventually returned to the forest and down... down... down... 

Finally we arrived at Pampa Linda with time for a cerveza before getting our bus back to Bariloche.  Tronador was a great first hut trip in South America and we were tired but smug about our adventure!