36 - Argentina - Bariloche, Mendoza, Salta, Buenos Aires

From Pucón, Chile I took a bus across the border into Argentina. Argentina is huge, and I only had a little bit of time left in my trip, so my last couple weeks traveling in South America involved some serious bus riding.

My first stop in Argentina was Bariloche, which is in the northern part of Patagonia. Bariloche isn't in the glacial part of Patagonia, but the area is beautiful because it's surrounded by lakes and mountains and lots of trails to hike and enjoy the view. One day I hiked around a lake and up a small mountain. Here are a few photos from the hike.




Another day I went on a really fun bike ride around a bunch of different lakes. It was such a nice ride.


After Bariloche I headed north on an 18 hour bus ride to wine country, Mendoza. On the bus we watched 3 movies, ate two meals, and played a great game of bus BINGO. Yup...that's BINGO on a bus. The bus attendant gave out little cards, and then called out numbers on his microphone. The prize was a bottle of chardonnay, and guess who won. Yours truly. Sweet! Best game of BINGO ever. If only we had T BINGO while riding the T in Boston.

I only spent a couple of days in Mendoza, but man was it fun. A very popular tourist attraction in Mendoza is renting bicycles and biking down one main road from vineyard to vineyard trying all the different wines. We (two Kiwis, a Brit, a Canadian and I - we all stayed in the same hostel) rented our bikes from Señor Hugo who kindly started our trip off by giving us several glasses of cheap red wine. We left Señor Hugo's very happy and ready for our biking wine tour.
At our first vineyard we found a nice sunny spot in the middle of all the grapes to enjoy our vino.
We did a tour and tasting at our second vineyard.
Here I am doing some fun bike tricks while biking to our next vineyard.
In total we visited four vineyards, and we ended our day back at Señor Hugo's where he again topped us off with some more red wine. What a great day, but boy did I fall asleep fast when we got back to the hostel.

From Mendoza I took my longest bus ride yet. 20 HOURS north up to Salta. Now all these bus rides might sound horrible to you, but I actually looked forward to them. Bus rides were a great excuse to finally get some rest in between all the adventures, and they're the best way to get lost in thought and reflect on everything I had been doing.

In Salta I met up with my friend Mari Folco. Mari and I have known each other since 8th grade when Mari moved from Argentina to Brookline, MA. We went to high school and BU together. Mari had been volunteering in Chile for about 5 months, and now she's working a few months in Buenos Aires. We kept in touch the whole time I was traveling, and we finally worked it out to meet up in Salta, Argentina. I was with Mari for the last 10 days of my trip, and we had a great time together.

Mari and I took a bus to the northern part of Argentina just near the Bolivian border. One of the highlights of our time up north was going to Cerro de los Siete Colores, which is a mountain range with rocks of all different colors.


Look at all the colors in these mountains.


We also went to Las Salenas, which is a different salt flat from the one I went to in Bolivia, but just as much fun to take pictures.










One day we hiked to La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat) where we saw this beautiful waterfall. We packed a picnic lunch and ate it at this spot.
The Devil's Throat
Here I am taking a picture of the beautiful clear blue sky.
And this is the photo I took of the sky.
This is a picture of me with all my backpacking gear. This is all I had with me for my 8 months of travel.

From Salta Mari and I took a 2 hour plane to Buenos Aires. I stayed in Buenos Aires for about 4 days going to museums, famous cemeteries, amazing restaurants, and basically just enjoying my last few days in South America.

This was the most ornate cemetery I've ever been to. The tombs were nicer than most of the houses I've seen.

One night Mari and I went out for a romantic dinner to a restaurant with asado, which is basically like barbecue. I learned that America does not know how to do barbecue. We have a lot of learning to do from the Argentines. Mari and I shared two types of sausage, steak, wine, and flan for dessert. That night I ate the best steak that has ever past my lips. I still dream about that steak.

May 31st was my last day in South America. Stay tuned for my final blog entry where I'll give a wrap up of my incredible 8 month adventure.

35 - Chile - San Pedro, La Serena, Santiago, Valparaiso, Pucon

My first stop in Chile was San Pedro de Atacama. If you remember from the last blog entry my three day tour of the salt flats and lagoons in Bolivia ended by dropping me off at the Chilean border. From there I bussed about an hour to San Pedro. Chile and Bolivia are completely different, and it's amazing that they share a border. Bolivia is really undeveloped while parts of Chile could be confused for Europe or the United States. I was in a Bolivian market one week looking at cowheads and live chickens, and the next week I was in a megastore in Chile staring at hundreds of flat screen TVs. The only similarity between the two markets was the plasma (hahahaha). Talk about culture shock.

San Pedro was really beautiful. I did a nice tour of the valleys surrounding San Pedro. At the end of the tour we watched an amazing sunset over Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley).

I stayed in San Pedro for a few days, and then I took an overnight 17 HOUR bus ride south down to La Serena. La Serena was a nice town on the coast, but Chile is getting into winter, so it was too cold to go in the water. Instead I went to the circus.

The circus was great because the girl I was traveling with and I arrived a little before the show began and we got a backstage tour and met all the performers and the owner. Then during the show the performers kept looking over at us and giving us the thumbs-up. I think I could have joined that circus if I wanted to. It would have been fun, but I had to get on my way to meet up with my mom in Santiago.


From La Serena I took another overnight bus to Santiago. My mom wasn't arriving until the next day, so I took the time to go to a small town outside of Santiago where I ate a delicious 1/2 kilo empanada for lunch.

The following day I was at last happily reunited with Momma Cermak.

Happy mom and daughter.

My mom was in Santiago for the World Federation Occupational Therapy conference. This conference only happens once every four years, and this year it just happened to be in Santiago, Chile, which worked perfectly for me because I got to be with my Momma again!

She presented one day at the conference, and I was lucky enough to get to watch. Great job, Mom!

One day my mom played hookie and skipped the conference. We went on a nice tour around Santiago, and took a funicula up to a mirador that looked out over the whole city.

Once the conference was over we (me, my mom, and two of my mom's friends/colleagues, Missy and Noomi) headed on a road trip to Valparaiso on the coast.

Here we are stopped at a great fast food joint along our drive. We ate steak sandwiches smothered with tomatoes, guacamole, and mayonaise. Mmmmmm. If you're wondering, "How is Amanda eating all that food without getting fat?"... I'm not. I am getting fat. But it's worth it. Every bite of that sandwich was amazing.

Our first day in Valparaiso (Valpo) we took a short boat ride around the harbor. We saw lots of sea lions, and got a great view of the city.

Valpo is built in the hills, and the whole city is narrow streets lined with beautiful, colorful houses.

On Mother's day we did a tour and tasting at a nearby wine vineyard.

Mom, Missy, me, and Noomi in the wine cellar.

Noomi, me, and Mom with the vineyard behind us.


It was a really pretty vineyard with the mountains in the back.

They gave us lots of good wine to try. What a wonderful day with the three moms!


Our last day in Valpo we drove up along the coast and stopped at really nice viewpoints.

After Valpo we all headed back to Santiago, so the mom´s could catch their flights home, and I was off on my own again. Thanks for a wonderful time, Mom, Missy, and Noomi!


My last stop in Chile was 11 hours south of Santiago in a small ski town called Pucón in the lakes region of Chile. Pucón reminded me of a mix between Colorado with the beautiful rocky mountains and fall in New Hampshire with the changing color leaves. One of the most popular things to do from Pucón is to hike Volcan Villarrica.


Volcan Villarica is the most active volcano in the Chilean Andes. The hike to the top was about five hours. For the first hour or so we hiked along this chairlift.
Then we hiked up through the clouds.
The second half of the hike was on glaciar, so we had to put on crampons and use an ice axe.
Up and up and up... what a work out!

And five hours later we finally reached the top!
This is the crater of the volcano. We saw lava a couple times when it exploded out, but I wasn´t able to get a photo of it. Really cool though.

This is a picture of the view from the top.





And this is a video showing how we got down the volcano...

Hiking the volcano was incredible, but man alive was I sore afterward. Good thing I had already booked a tour to the thermal hot springs for the evening. That night I soaked in the steaming hot natural pools underneath the starry sky. Just another amazing day in South America.