a dorm in pucón

last night:

guy in our dorm: how was your day, mate?
me: good... do we know you?
guy: nope.
me: ah righto no worries. just wondering. you are obviously australian.
guy in dorm: yep. where are you girls from?
me: xxx
guy: yeah me too. well, actually from xxx.
me: wait, we DO know you! weren´t you in bariloche, at hostel 41 below?
guy: nope!
me: oh.
guy: no, i was there for dinner.
me: oh, haha... please dont tell lion, she will be so depressed. she was so disappointed to meet someone from her hometown in south america! and now you´re here again...
guy: well thanks a lot! some women would be STOKED to see me here! i mean i follow you all the way here... sorry i didn´t bring FLOWERS!!
me (laughing): yeah sorry i guess that was a bit harsh huh

I was quite amused by this conversation.

tomorrow i will have been away from home for two months :O :O :O it doesnt feel like very long, but i am a little homesick today (it doesnt help that the weather is so bad). i am not complaining though (i would expect you to be disgusted with me if i did complain!)... i am loving this whole travelling dealio to be perfectly honest with you all! :D

Una Noche en Bariloche

Actually we are back here for two nights. The title comes from a deeply strange conversation we had with Pablo two of the staff members at Rey Sol a.k.a. Little Israel. I suspect they had been indulging in a little of the herb. Well, Pablo at least. Jonah is only 14 so hopefully he is studying hard at school and not curing his brain in depressants. Up until this moment I had assumed Pablo was a sweet and quiet Argentinian boy who spoke no English. My only contact with him had been when I was washing dishes next to him in the kitchen, and he muttered, ¨Tu nombre?¨

¨....lina,¨ I said, since it is easier for Spanish people to pronounce.

Then he said something quietly and I could not quite make it out. ¨Ahhhh... lo siento,¨ I said embarrassedly, ¨no entiendo, mi español es patetico.¨ He kindly offered, ¨Ahh, mi ingles es patetico tambien,¨ and we smiled shyly. These were the only words I heard him speak in my first couple of days at the hostel.

Anyway, on Tuesday night we ran into Pablo and Jonah down the bottom of the stairs, who began to giggle wildly.

Jonah: ¨El trabajo es triste!¨
We supplied him with blank looks.
Pablo and Jonah: El trabajo es muy muy triste!¨
I look at Ro in confusion. ¨Are they just saying, the work is sad?¨
Jonahs sweet little face lit up. ¨Si si si! The work is sad!¨
Ro and Lion: ¨What? Es triste... para tu?¨ Para tu means, ¨for you¨.
Jonah: ¨No no no!¨
Pablo: ¨Es triste para TODO!!!¨ Which means, it is sad for EVERYONE! We still had no clue what they were talking about. But they found it very amusing.

Jonah: ¨Where do you go next?¨
Ro: ¨Bariloche¨
Pablo, gleefully: ¨Una noche... en Bariloche!¨ Jonah found this extremely amusing.
Lion: ¨Oh wow, that could be the title of a really great song. Una noche...¨
Everyone, singing: ¨...en Bariloche!¨ At which point Pablo and Jonah collapsed at the hilarity of it all. It was quite funny actually. There is a terrible Chileno band called ¨La Noche¨ and ¨Una Noche in Bariloche¨ sounds like something they would call a live album.

I am looking for a picture of them but I can not find one. Which is a shame because Kate at least would appreciate it.

Anyway, that was a prelude to a most magnificent evening, which I intended to write about before I got distracted by recording that ridiculous conversation. But Ro is pestering me to go to the pub with her. Classic Ro; truly a lady of the sauce. So perhaps you will hear about it later. Here is a teaser: I conquered one of my deepest fears. Far out!

Tonight we take Bariloche; tomorrow, Pucon.

Love love love
Lion

A serious post

Hello internet! This is just a short note because I am feeling lazy.

For the first time in exactly one and a half months, we are not surrounded by Spanish. That is because we are surrounded by Hebrew! We are staying at a wacky hostel just out of El Bolson which is a little hippie town two hours south of Bariloche and everyone here is from Israel. Actually a guy from Michigan arrived last night, which was quite a rush, but apart from that it is muchos Hebrew. It is pretty interesting and I have learnt a LOT about Israel in the last couple of days! So many exclamation points!

Fun things we have done lately: rode child-sized bikes along bumpy road to the supermarket, picked wild blackberries, played guitar, laid in hammocks, played UNO (actually not very interesting), found Twinings vanilla tea in the supermarket in El Bolson (man I can never find this tea ANYWHERE, I thought it was discontinued, I have not had it in three years!), went for a hike to a lake LED BY A DOG. Seriously you guys, the dog showed us the way! Tonight they are throwing a bonfire party kind of thing in the bush, and they are roasting a lamb! (Revolting!) But there will also be music and other fun things, so it should be good times!

We have also met some seriously excellent people lately! Here but also in Bariloche. Seriously.

Gotta go. Guitar to play, hammocks to lie in.

Love love love
Lion

School pictures

Since I am currently not really able to post my own photographs, here are a couple I have stolen from the La Montaña Facebook page. So that you know I am really in Argentina! I suspect that some of you were having your doubts.

Here is Ro with Gordon from Scotland, engaged in some intimate salsa.



And here I am rockin´out with J.P. from Holland. Jean-Pierre is perhaps not the most naturally adept of dancers, and the fact that were able to execute this move at the moment of photography is a sheer miracle of chance/synchronicity.




You may observe that my hair does not possess the luxurious length that has won it praise and fame in the past.

I am extremely fond of this photograph. Click on it to see a larger version. Matt from Oregon (blue shirt) is clearly regaling us with some kind of wonderful story. I am staggered and Nicolas (green shirt), who is the kind of main dude/teacher at La Montaña, is completely impressed. (Nicolas is an excellent human being. He has a wonderful habit of explaining something in Spanish, then pausing, then saying, So, and proceeding to expain it in English. Why is this so wildly entertaining? I´m not sure.) Otis (black shirt), also from Oregon, and travelling with Matt, has heard the story a million times before but is waiting with vague amusement to see our response, and Ro evidently doesn´t have a clue what is going on and is just smiling dazedly.




Alright I gotta do my homework for the last day of school!

I realise that these photos don´t show you anything of Argentina whatsoever! Sorry about that!

Love love love
Lion

La concha de la lora

Hellllooooooo fiends!

How are we all? Bien, muy bien, fatal, fenomenal?

Well I am just great thanks for asking. I´m STILL in Bariloche. And still at school! Honestly, it´s great to be back at school. In fact class is probably ten times more amusing than university, what with there being no assignments or grades and never any homework that I can´t do over breakfast. And a million times better than being at high school school because our hormones have settled down at last.

On the weekend we went walking in the mountains. Muy lindo! Oh I´m lame. Anyway we went for a wonderful little hike up Cerro Lopez. You can click here for a nice little picture of the refugio where we had lunch, if you like: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY3eJ9WfzCcV0Al5Jil2BGrmvk64EfrKTog5dL067IDhnkcFwrCX8EESlW3gyZl4sVWQtJMbMkrW6l6D6HJD1wXf8ssscuaIhjaUmqSGiIxfTPZrYIllzckc0IZSbF7xn3PkTyoF1VqDYe/s400/refugio.JPG

Sorry. HTML coding on this keyboard is sort of difficult. So is forming parentheses.

Bariloche is lovely and lakey. And mountainy. People seem to think it is touristy and the city is not so pretty, but I really like it. It reminds me a tiny bit of Fremantle, in terms of size and layout. Only on a lake, not a port. But it has a bit more of a ski resort feel. Everything hell of alpine. Woody as all heck. Still, it isnt laid on as thick as in El Calafate. I think most of the touristy stuff happens out of town. Sorry for lack of punctuation, there is something horribly wrong with this keyboard.

My homework for today is to write about my routine in Australia. So I will probably have to write about my last job. How depressingggggggg.

Yesterday at school we met the new students for the week, and one of them was an engineer from Perth who basically lives on the same block as Ro. Since I cannot work out how to get an exclamation mark, I will say in lieu: oh my goodness. This is our first instance of being Perth`d thus far. Last week we befriended two excellent Oregonians called MATT and OTIS, the latter being a most pleasing name, and were sad to see them go. But luckily there are some interesting folks who have signed up this week. Tonight we are going out for St Patrick`s day. Muy Argentinian. Apparently it is a fairly big deal here despite a virtually nonexistent expat population. Way to go Argentina.

Anyway the lack of punctuation is irritating me deeplyªªªªª. They were supposed to be exclamation marks. But it just sounds like I am writing in a cynical monotone.

Chau chau
Lion

(Or Lina, since it seems to be easier for people to pronounce. You don`t get the first bit of my name in case of stalkers, but you know what it is.)

spanish class, day two

i have a very strong urge to write as much of this as i can in spanish but i feel that might be a bit pretentious since my readers obviously don´t speak it? however please note that while writing this I´m really struggling with english grammar, after concentrating on spanish all morning!!

spanish class: it´s really fun having structure in the day and using our brains again. caro and I are in different groups, because I did night classes in Perth before we left.

on day one I was put in a class WAY above my head. I couldn´t believe how hard it was. the teacher tries to speak in spanish as much as possible during the lesson, and when someone is explaining a concept to you that is a level beyond what you have learnt, using vocabulary you don´t know, and talking about grammatical concepts you don´t understand because australian schools don´t teach grammar... it´s pretty exhausting / demoralising.

I did actually learn a few things, to my surprise, but it was a hellish process.

today was much better. I am in a private class now, since there is nobody else at my level (I pay the same but I only get three hours a day rather than four). it´s pretty sweet.

we have a good set-up at the moment: decent hostel (with a guitar!!!), nice town, meeting some cool people, learning spanish. we´re thinking of staying a bit longer and doing another week´s spanish here. this will suck a bit money-wise, but after a month of struggling through with our Very Average spanish skillz it is also a very attractive concept.

there is a vegetarian supplies shop in town (and a vegetarian restaurant somewhere), also a million parrillas (grilling bars? it´s an argentinian thing, lots of meat basically). we´ll go with some of the other people from our spanish class to a parrilla sometime this week, cos (even though caro doesn´t mind going) I don´t want to be the only one at our table being served some 0.5kg of meat!! (not a joke.) caro can have chips or something.

also: the lonely planet told us ¨bariloche is very touristy¨. well... I guess so, in that ¨there is tourist stuff here¨ but to be honest it´s really quite nice. el calafate (el hellhole) was heaps worse on the tourist factor. maybe it gets bad in winter during ski season, or something?

and then onwards to... we are not sure. bariloche was the extent of our planning...!

Back 2 Skool

Hello! Today I went... Back 2 Skool.

Yes that is completely correct, yesterday Robo and I enrolled in a one week Spanish course. Actually we only enrolled in four days, since we arrived here on Monday after class began, but they didn´t charge us for the first day. The classes run between 9-11 with a little break halfway through, when they give us tea and coffee and medialunas.

The other students are pretty alright from what I can see - everyone is super friendly. I´m in a class with three others - a guy called JP (Jean-Pierre) from Holland, another Australian called Kerry and a dude from Nottingham/New Zealand called Jonathon. Takes all types to build a world, no? (I don´t know what that has to do with anything.)

Tonight we are going to una cerveceria. To drink una cerveca (I´m guessing). I guess if you stop and think about it, it is kind of cool to go to a brewery on a school trip. Last night we took a salsa lesson, which was a neat trick since we weren´t actually paying for Monday´s classes. I was less incredible than you might have expected. The fact that it was all in Spanish didn´t help though.

Our hostel is cool too. Our new Belgian friends Jurgen and Oliver, whom we met in Chalten, recommended it to us. It´s a nice mix of social and not-full-of-drunk-Australians - in fact most people are Latin American so far as I can tell. Also it has a cubby house with a slide in the backyard. A slide! I´m not sure if we are allowed to use it. The only bummer is that they don´t serve you breakfast. This is pretty crap to be honest.

The weather is warm again! Like a lovely early summer´s day in Perth. Why, I am wearing a skirt as I type this very sentence. Also my Leonard Cohen shirt. DID YOU KNOW?! I love Leonard Cohen.

Somewhat incredibly, I´ve already done my homework for today, but even more incredibly, I am now off to revise a little. Although I shouldn´t get too congratulatory because really this is just an excuse to buy another notebook and some pencils. Stationery!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I like stationery.

I´ve been away for a month today, if you can believe it. I can (why wouldn´t I?)

Love love love love love
Carolion

PS. Yes I know I haven´t finished writing about the hike.

el chaltén, cowboys, break-ya-heart sunrises

hola chicos!

so we are en... crap this is english... we are in El Chaltén now, and it is basically a collection of hostels, hotels, small supermercados, panaderías and tourist cafes/restaurants in a small valley surrounded by mountains in a national park. there is no bank or atm so I am carrying enough cash to last me until saturday and a bit more for emergencies, which makes me quite nervous, but there are also occasionally guachos (cowboys) to be seen cantering along the streets just out of town, which makes me happy.

it is a beautiful place, but I am frustrated because my knee, while not really a big deal, is still not back to normal after the hike and so I can´t really go on any of the 10-hour hikes or whatever. there are some great short hikes around the town, but even on those I have to be careful and I don´t like it much!!! we might go for an hour or so walk to see a waterfall this afternoon and then i´ll ice my knee for the rest of the day to compensate, argh.

to amuse myself I bought a copy of ¨Soy Rock¨ (Literally, ¨I am (intrinsically) Rock¨ but I think they mean ¨I Rock¨ in the english context, although either translation is pretty funny) and I translated articles about Bruce Springsteen and Amy Winehouse yesterday to ¨improve my spanish¨. it may have had some positive effect...?

I just realised we haven´t written that much about the people we have met so that will have to be my aim from now on.

we are staying in a four-person dorm with two guys from Belgium at the moment, and they´ve been our best buddies this week. yesterday the four of us undertook an ill-fated attempt to climb to a mirador out of town and see the sunrise... the theory is that you get a stunning view of mount fitzroy and other such striking rocky mountains, as they reflect the vivid red colours of the ¨unique patagonian sunrise¨. um yeah to be honest our experience was a bit more ¨very very cold wind¨, ¨very very early¨, ¨so cloudy we can´t actually see mount fitzroy at all¨ and ¨whoops turns out you don´t have to get up at 5am because the sun doesn´t get over the mountains in the east until 8am¨. hahaha oh well.

I took our camping stove and we had coffee at the top, and when we eventually came back to town we had hot media lunas (sweet croissants) from the bakery, porridge and more coffee. then we went back to bed and did very little else that day. I was proud of us for trying.

I was going to write about Leon as well, who is a classic character we met while we were watching the glacier francés drop avalanches into the valley below (he was running the five-day W hike and completed it in two days) and whom has been one of those people you´ll never forget in years to come, and stories about him will probably esclate in the ¨it was THIS BIG¨ kind of fashion, but Caro is waiting for me to finish so you´ll just have to use your imagination.

I found the BEST opportunity yesterday to take a photograph to send to Rory with the caption, ¨Surprise, Rory... I bought you a house!¨ (the chances of him ever reading this are slim to none but oh well)

okay that´s it for you all. I´m heading back out into the cold streets of laredo...

Rad Chile!

¡Hola amigos y familiaaaaaaaaa!

You´ll never guess where I am!!! Actually I am in El Calafate again; what an overpriced dump. Apparently it is one of the most expensive towns in BsAs. Thank goodness for that; otherwise I would have had to found some sort of cult in order to finance the rest of the trip. Luckily we only arrived a couple of hours ago and we leave in another couple of hours, to go to a smaller (still touristy and expensive but more charming, apparently) village called El Chalten, in a little valley in the mountains, to chill out and do some hiking. I hope I see a cowboy!

Anyway! I am sure you are all desperate to hear about my adventures hiking in the Patagonian Andes!

Well, we had a grand old time. The bad news is: Ro hurt her knee a bit! Also she got some horrible blisters. So we wound up coming home a little earlier than we otherwise might have, and curtailing a little of the trek. But the good news is that we still spent four nights and five days in... The Patagonian Andes!!!

Rookie Mistake No. 1 - We accidentally tried to hike the W backwards.

Yeah so the bus that was supposed to take us to the start of the trail took us to the end of the trail and since we are rookies we just got off and started walking. I mean, we were aware that we were starting the trail from the end but it didn´t seem to matter that much. So instead of doing the ¨W¨ I guess you could say we did the... ¨Backwards W.¨

The first day was outrageously difficult, oh my goodness. We started out with a relaxed glide over a charming bridge and into the rolling Patagonian countryside. THEN WE CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN. Well, basically we struggled uphill with our ludicrously heavy packs for a good hour or two, each thinking to ourselves ¨Why are we doing this oh god what have we donnnnne.¨ It was by far the toughest hiking I have ever done.

And then we walked some more and had lunch. God, it was tasty. We ate at a refugio, which is where people stay when they are too soft to carry their own tent and food. (Alternatively: where people stay when they don´t want to kill themselves in the process of climbing a mountain with a week´s worth of food and shelter on their back). We were too hard for the refugios, though, so we walked on a couple of hours to our camp. It was a bit easier. Then we set up our tent.

Then we chilled out for a bit and left our packs in the tent while we climbed up to... the Torres del Paine! That means ¨The Towers of Pain.¨ Actually it means ¨The Towers of Paine¨ and I have no idea what ¨Paine¨ means, sorry. But it probably means ¨Pain¨ because that is what I felt for the hour it took us to get up there. It was basically vertical and I was clambering over rocks and sand and scree (I have no idea what ¨scree¨ means, probably ¨rocks and sand¨) like some kind of godforsaken daddy long legs.) Approximately once per minute I thought ¨This completely sucks and I am going to turn back.¨ I didn´t though. I was hoping Ro would suggest the same thing first and I could consent in a warm and kindly manner that suggested I was nobly hiding my disappointment.

Luckily the towers completely kicked. They were awesome. From a distance they looked cool and all, I guess, but man it was actually worth that ridiculous joint-wrenching climb. They were the most delicate pale stripes of silver and blue and white and the glacial lake underneath all shimmering aqua from the particles... ahhhh. Brilliant. We sat there for half an hour, three quarters of an hour... a pretty long time anyway. I took one million photos and they all look like a dog´s breakfast, nothing remotely resembling what we saw. Actually I am glad. It´s nice to have some things to hold close to your chest. And if I showed you the photos you might feel as if you had already seen all there was to see, and you wouldn´t bother doing the climb for yourself if you ever get there... so you´re better off that way, as Avril Lavigne is currently singing over the PA. Trust me on this one.

Then we cooked dinner and brushed our teeth and went to bed and I don´t want to pay for any more internet so that´s all you get to hear about the hike for now!

FACTS ABOUT CHILE!

-Puerto Natales has a number of kickin´ rad mom-and-pop style diners that make incredibly tasty and comforting cheap meals. I ate the best sandwich of my life there, at a brightly painted place called El Bote. It was huge - my first proper post-hike meal - and contained lettuce, tomato, cheese, guacamole, mayonnaise, mindblowingly tasty pickles... it was like magic. A magical sandwich.

-Supermarkets in Chile sell textured vegetable protein (TVP), but they call it ¨Carne de Soya¨ - meaning ¨Meat of Soy¨! How odd! Since it is vegetarian! Also it is cheaper than in Australia.

BONUS! MORE FACTS ABOUT ARGENTINA!

-I have heard ¨Total Eclipse of the Heart¨ twice since arriving - once in the airport and once in this very internet cafe. Pretty excited about this, both times.

-I have heard that ¨I´m Yours¨ song four or five times too. I´m actually starting to like it. Reggae is a pretty big deal here.

Okay! That´s enough for you!

Love love love
Lion