A Week in Mendoza

We’ve spent the last week of our travels in the city of Mendoza in Argentina.  The city is a quite a large city on the western side of the country around halfway up.  The city is actually only an hour or two away from the border to Chile.  For travellers, there are really two reasons to visit Mendoza: the wineries, and its proximity to Aconcagua – the tallest mountain in the world outside of the Himalayas.   Apart from these two attractions, the city is also quite a beautiful city just for walking.  The city is full of parks and plazas, restaurants, cafes, shops, and the like.

We arrived in Mendoza after a long bus ride from Bariloche.  The ride took us around 20 hours or so through the Argentina countryside, and again we saw some beautiful scenery.  The bus system in Argentina (and I hear most of the rest of South America) is quite popular.  It is the main choice of transportation for travellers and locals as well.  The buses are all very comfortable, relatively cheap, and quite well organized.  Each city has a large bus station where you can purchase tickets to pretty much anywhere. We expect to be using the bus system a lot over the coming months.

At the bus station in Mendoza we were met by a friendly local hostel owner who offered us a room at his hostel.  Usually hostel owners that wait in bus terminals are kind of shady, but this guy seemed OK, so we went with him. The hostel was only a five minute walk from the bus station so we got there quickly and got set up with a room.  The hostel was kind of run down, but the people there were all very friendly.  This was the first hostel we’ve been to where there was a number of English speaking travellers, so we were looking forward to some good socializing with other people.  Most of the trip so far we haven’t met any other English travellers, so we’ve been pretty much a bunch of loners.  We hooked up with a guy from Belgium who had just come off the bus with us, and we set out to explore the town.

As we walked around town we came across a lot of city squares with small parks and big water fountains and monuments.  After walking around for an hour or two, we stopped at a sidewalk restaurant and had our first Mendoza meal - steak and wine of course.  The steaks here are fantastic.  Big, thick, and grilled to perfection.  The wine too, was fantastic.  This was our first bottle of many in Mendoza. Afterwards we walked around in the giant park on the opposite side of town.  The park (Park San Martin) is huge.  It is probably at least 50 square kilometers, and it contains a zoo, a few stadiums, a golf course, and a small mountain, that we ended up climbing later in the week.

As we walked back we picked up some more bottles of wine from the supermarket along with some pasta, and we cooked up a big meal at the hostel and shared the food and wine with the other travellers at the hostel.  We had a great night drinking wine, and telling travel stories. Along with the guy from Belgium, we also met a fun couple from Slovenia, and another from the US.

A day or two later we all got together and went on a tour of the local wineries.  We took a city bus out of town to the wine region, and rented bikes and spent the day biking from winery to winery sampling their wares and having a great time.  We sampled wine, olive oils, chocolates, sauces, liquors, and more, but the highlight was definitely the wine.

The Mendoza area is famous for its Malbec wine.  It has actually been our favorite wine back home for quite some time, so it was nice to see where it comes from and to taste all the different varieties.  We were able to sample all the different variations: new, old, aged in oak barrels, blends, and more varieties of grapes.  All of the wines that we sampled at the wineries were good, but our favorite was one of the ones we got at a restaurant downtown.  It was a local wine called Santa Julia from the Zuccardi family winery. If you can find that at the LCBO back in Canada, I suggest you try it.  That winery was a bit further away, so we didn’t visit it, although I’m sure it would have been good.

It was around 3 or so days into our stay in Mendoza that we started to notice a bit of a problem with the hostel.   I mentioned earlier that the hostel we were at was a little run down – but we were willing to deal with that as the owner and guests were all very friendly.  When we woke up one morning I noticed a large number of insect bites all over my body.  Joh also had a few.  All over my back and arms, and even a bunch on my face.  It was pretty bad.  Due to the heat we had left the window open all night, and we guessed that a swarm of mosquitos had come in and had a feast.  But after 24 hours or so the bites didn’t look like mosquito bites.  We guessed that it was bed bugs.  Not really that surprising.  The bedrooms and beds were not that clean.  We had put up with it for a few nights, but now that we realized that it was bed bugs, we decided to leave and find a new place.  We booked into a nicer hotel and stayed there the duration of the week.

The last few days have been spent kind of lazily.  We’ve been very indecisive as to where to go next, so we ended up procrastinating and staying a few extra days.  We wanted to go see Aconcagua, but all the hostels, hotels, and cabins were all booked.  Then we wanted to go to another small town nearby, but that also was booked.  It seems that this is a bad time of year to just travel day-by-day.  Almost everywhere you need to book many days in advance.   Eventually, we made our decision and we booked another bus ride and a hostel in Valparaiso, Chile.

Valparaiso is a city a little ways away from the capital of Santiago.  The city was recommended to us by some other travellers and we’re looking forward to it.  We’re not quite done with Argentina yet.   After a little time in Chile, we’ll be back to explore the northern regions of Salta and Iguazu Falls.  We just figured that if we head up north now, we would end up missing Chile, which would be a shame.

So now we’re on a bus taking us across the border into Chile.  This promises to be the most picturesque ride yet, as we need to cross directly through the Andes.  It’s possible that we may even see Aconcagua.  We’ll try get a photo or two.

As usual, Joh will post an album of photos from Mendoza soon…

Photos from Cerro Catedral

Pictures from our mini trekking adventure:)

Blog Bariloche

Bariloche

As we drove into Bariloche, we were in awe of the beauty of this city.  It is situated at the bottom of a number of mountains, nestled up against a large lake.  We approached the city from the other side of the lake, so as we got closer and closer we were treated to some fantastic scenery.  As we stepped off of the bus at the main bus station we immediately noticed the drastic weather difference.  It was cold and very windy.  Not at all like the 30 degrees we were used to in Buenos Aires.  As true Canadians, we sucked it up and dug into our packs for our sweaters, long pants, socks, and shoes.   After being in Canada just a week or two ago in the midst of winter we were used to the cold, but a little disappointed that we had to bundle up again so soon.  In anticipation of a warm summer season in Argentina, we only packed one long-sleeve shirt each, so either we were going to have to do some shopping or we’d have to wear the same shirt every day for the foreseeable future.  So we hiked down the road a little ways and found our hostel that we had booked ahead of time.  It was easy to find because the town was quite small and we knew that the bus station was just down the road from our hostel. 

The town of Bariloche is very much a tourist town.  It seems to exist to support the skiing and snowboarding during the winter and the trekking during the summer.  The town is very similar to a typical mountain village that you would find near the ski-hills.  There were countless shops that sold hiking gear and a lot of expensive restaurants and hotels.  We quickly realized that staying in this town would put quite a dent in our budget.  The hostel we stayed at was twice as much as a similar hostel in Buenos Aires.

We were a little tired after our long trip, so we went out for a quick dinner, and then went for a nap at around 4:00.  We must have really been exhausted because neither of us woke up until 3:00am the next morning.  We decided to sleep for a bit more and then get up early.  So we got up sometime before 7, had breakfast at the hostel. 

Every hostel seems to have the exact same breakfast. Buns, jam or dulche de leche, coffee, and if you’re lucky they might have croissants.   Not the most nutritious breakfast, but we’re getting used to it.  Some eggs or fruit would be awesome, but so far no hostels have provided that.  The dulche de leche is really good.  It is very common everywhere we’ve been.  It is basically a milky caramel that they use to flavor almost all their sweets.  It’s in ice cream, cookies, pies, candies, and they use it as a spread on sandwiches. We’ve really enjoyed the dulche de leche ice cream.

The next day we needed to find another place to stay.  The hostel that we were at on our first night was unavailable, so we had to find somewhere else to stay.  We looked online for an hour or two, and not finding anything, we  decided to take a city bus to the center of the town to the area where there were a number of hostels.  We jumped on the bus and started towards town.  The bus became fuller and fuller until it was completely packed.  There must have been over 150 people on that one bus.  We couldn’t move an inch, and we could barely see out the window.  We had no way of finding out where we were so we ended up driving by the bus stop without realizing it.  After a few minutes later we realized our mistake, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it. There was no way we were able to get anywhere close to the doors to get off.  We had our big packs with us so there was no way we could get our bags and ourselves past the squished crowd to the doors.  We decided to stay on the bus as it had to turn around sometime.  The bus was driving along the lake and we could see some pretty amazing scenery so we just looked at it as a scenic bus tour through the beautiful city of Bariloche. After an hour or so of driving the bus made it back to the center of the town, and we got off.  Another interesting bus ride.  I think this is beginning to become a constant theme on our trip.

The problems didn’t end there.  We still needed to find a place to stay.  We walked to hostel after hostel and they were all booked up or extremely expensive.  We kept walking and walking and getting more and more frustrated . Apart from ski season, this is apparently the busiest time of year in Bariloche, so pretty much everything was booked up and the prices were more than double that what we were expecting.  We finally decided to check how much a hotel would be for the night.  Hotels are typically at least double or triple the cost of a hostel, so we doubted that we’d find something within our budget.  We walked into the cheapest looking hotel we could see and asked for a room.  They gave us a price that wasn’t too bad – it was cheap for Bariloche, but still a lot more than what we really wanted to pay.  We decided to bite the bullet and just go for it.  The room wasn’t any nicer than your average hostel room, but it would do.

By then the day was already more than half over so we decided to spend the rest of it exploring the rest of the town.  We found right away that Chocolate is Bariloche’s specialty.  They had chocolate shops everywhere.  Huge stores filled with all kinds of chocolates.  Joh was smiling from ear to ear as we browsed and checked out all our chocolate options.  Our preference is usually for the really dark stuff, but they mostly had milk chocolate and it was still really good. 

We had a nice dinner a pub, and made some plans for a hike the following day.  We got some directions, and stocked up at the grocer with lots of snacks and water.  The next morning we got up bright and early to leave for our hike.  We went out to get the early bus, but missed it due to being at the wrong bus stop, so we had to wait another hour for the next bus. We should have known there’d be another bus mishap.  So finally we arrived late to the mountain to start our hike. 

We had initially planned to hike all the way from the bottom to the top and back down again, but because of our late start we wouldn’t have enough time.  So we cheated and took the chairlift up most of the way.  The mountain we were at was Cerro Catheral.  During their winter it is a big busy ski resort.  At the top of the chairlift there were hundreds of tourists, so we were a little disappointed, but we took off up to the top of the mountain, and at the first difficult slope pretty much all the tourists gave up and turned around.  We however, were not going to be stopped.  We got up the slope with only a little difficulty and then made our way up to the top.  What a view.  From the top you could see the entire town of Bariloche, a number of lakes, and more huge mountains.  We took some photos and hiked further along the mountain ridge for another hour or so.  The mountain was quite wide, so the top part stretched on for quite a while.  We stopped for a nice lunch at a refuge on the peak and then headed back down.  Our plan was to hike all the way down, and from the top it looked like quite a hike.  After walking down for a ways, we realized that it goes quick.  We were at the base in less than two hours.   I think we probably could have done the whole thing even if we had started late.  Oh well. There will be other mountains.  Besides, we both pretty tired and we had some pretty serious blisters anyways so it was probably best that we were done early.  I had a nice cold refreshing Stella cerveza at a café at the base of the mountain, and I gotta say, it was probably the best tasting beer ever.

That night we went out in Bariloche for a nice steak and had a really good bottle of wine.  Not a bad way to end the day. 

So that brings us to today (Saturday).  This morning, we woke in our hotel and started making plans about where to go next.  We thought it would be best to leave Bariloche so that we wouldn’t go broke.  We were planning on working our way farther south towards El Chalten and finally Tierra del Fuego, the southern tip of South America.  We went out to check out bus tickets, but they were really expensive.  We also looked at the prices of the hostels down south and quickly realized that to continue down south for the next week or two would end up costing us a few thousand dollars – and then we’d  still need to get a flight back up to northern Argentina, which would cost us even more.  We would also need to buy some winter coats and some more warm clothes – which also aren’t cheap here.   We needed to  think about this.  We had a lengthy discussion on whether or not it would be worth it to continue south. There were places that we did want to see, but it was difficult to justify the cost.  We debated whether or not we’d regret skipping it.  At the end, we decided that there are plenty of other places that we’d like to see too.  We won’t be able to go everywhere, and sometimes we will have to make decisions like this in order to see more latter on.  By skipping this we might be able to add somewhere else later on. Maybe New Zealand or something like that.  

Anyways, so now we’re on a bus back up north.  We’re going to Mendoza.  From what we know about it, it’s the main wine region of Argentina, and there are more mountains and beautiful national parks there that we can explore. It’s also warmer there, so we can ditch the jackets and sweaters, which will be nice.  It’s also a lot less expensive, so hopefully we can spend some more time there.

We’re excited about Mendoza. It should be really nice.  We enjoyed our time in Bariloche, and it would have been nice to spend more time there but it’s time to keep moving.

We hope everything is well with you all back home.  It’s great to hear from you.  We love reading your comments. Keep them coming...  

Joh will post some pictures of Bariloche soon...

Photos from Week One

Pictures from our week in Buenos Aires and a few from before we left.

http://picasaweb.google.com/joh.vanderhorst/BuenosAiresArgentina?authkey=Gv1sRgCOuFhZ2CodGcEA&feat=directlink

Pictures from our 23 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires to Bariloche.

http://picasaweb.google.com/joh.vanderhorst/DriveToBarilocheBlog?authkey=Gv1sRgCObo4v3Ky5TSKA&feat=directlink

Buenos Aires

We’ve just finished a week in Buenos Aires.  The city is huge and very populated.  We spent the first few days walking through the different neighborhoods and checking out the sites.  Buenos Aires is not really famous for specific landmarks or tourist spots, rather it has a distinct vibe and way of life that was evident during our walks.  As we walked through plazas we encountered couples dancing tango. We saw countless sidewalk cafes, and spent time there reading, and having a few drinks.  They had some great food too.  We especially enjoyed the empanadas and the local wine.  The wine was delicious, and you could purchase a bottle of the local good stuff for less than 3 dollars.

They also had some great meat too. We went to an all-you-can-eat grilled meat place, called Siga La Vaca.  They had a huge grill with pounds and pounds of freshly grilled meat roasting.  All we had to do was point and they’d slice off a huge portion for you.  The meat was fantastic.

We stayed in a number of different hostels in different areas around the city.  Most hostels were very busy so we needed to leave after a day or two to make way for those who were smart enough to make reservations. The hostels were quite interesting. Included was a small bedroom just slightly larger than the bed it contained.  They had common washrooms, kitchens, and lounge areas.  Pretty much all of the guests spoke Spanish so it was tough to meet and talk to too many other travellers, so we spent most of the week together with just the two of us.

After a few days of this, we eventually settled down and  took a few days to just relax.  The last few days were just spent reading and relaxing.  The busy city can be a bit much after a while.  We are getting anxious to move on, and we’d like to get out of the city and spend some time out in nature.  I think we’ve realized that big cities are great for a few days, but they can get overwhelming if you’re there too long.  We’ve experienced this before.  Big cities like Toronto or Buenos Aires are fun and interesting for a few days, but unless you’ve got a lot of money to spend they aren’t the nicest places to spend a significant amount of time.

So we’re moving on.  On Tuesday morning we went to the bus station and bought tickets to Bariloche.   Bariloche is around a 22-hour drive south of Buenos Aires.  We’re on our way now as I’m typing this blog entry.   According to what we’ve researched, it is a  smaller town close to a number of mountains, lakes, and national parks.  We’re hoping to do some hiking or camping or whatever other options they have.  We’re pretty excited.

We’re currently around 18 hours into our bus ride.  The buses here are very nice.  Plenty of leg room, seats that recline, food served to you every few hours, and movies.  Quite an improvement over some of the nightmare bus rides I’ve taken in other countries.  I can remember 18-hour bus rides in Vietnam that were absolutely horrific.   We scored the front seats on the upper level of the bus, and we’ve got these big massive windows that allow us to take in the scenery like a giant IMAX film.  The scenery has been unbelievable. After leaving the city, we drove through hours of farm land, with cattle everywhere.  I think there are more cows in this country than people.  Then as the sun fell, we drove through a dry and flat desert-like region, and after we woke in the morning, it was the same, although slightly less flat.  Now, almost noon, we’re starting to see the foot hills of the Andes.  We drove by some canyons and cliffs that were breath-taking.  We’re really looking forward to more of this.  Hopefully Bariloche will provide more awe-inspiring sights. 

Subscriptions

Apparently some of you have had some problems with the email subscription.  I have removed the old link, and replaced it with a new link in the sidebar to the right. From that link you should be able to subscribe by email or RSS.  Please let me know if you have any problems. Thanks.

Arriving in Buenos Aires

Stepping off the airplane in Buenos Aires was a great relief.  After travelling for over 24 hours it was great to finally arrive.  We were quite excited to be there and at the same time we seemed to have a bit of a nervous “Now what?!?” feeling.  The warm air was quite nice after a month or two of winter weather, so off came the shoes and socks right away, and on went the flip-flops.  There’s just something about wearing flip-flops that make you feel like you are on vacation.  I don’t plan on wearing shoes and socks during this rip unless I absolutely have to.

The next thought was, ok – where too now?  Joh had tried to book a hostel online right before we left but we had gotten an email back saying that the room was unavailable.  We didn't have any other addresses written down other than this one hostel, so we figured we’d just go there and see what can be done.  If they didn’t have any room, I’m sure they could just refer us elsewhere.  So, with an address in hand we now had to determine how to get there.  There were taxis and buses.    The taxis would be the most convenient because they would take us straight there without getting lost. The taxis were $40 -however; the local buses only cost 50 cents.  The local buses would get you there but you would need to figure out which bus to take and where to get off.  The easy option was of course the taxi, but being a couple of frugal dutchees, the 50 cent ride was too cheap to resist.  We need to think about each dollar we spend if we want this trip to last as long as possible. Besides, we were sure the bus ride would be more interesting anyways… well, we were right.

So we went to the information booth at the airport, and inquired on how to get to our hostel with the buses.    In half-English, half-Spanish, the woman there managed to convey to us that we would each need exact change, and that we would need to take the #8 bus for an hour and a half to 3300 Avenida Rivadavia, and then walk 5 blocks away.

 

So, plan in place, we set out looking to get some change.  The ATM in the airport only split out 100 peso bills, which are the equivalent of around $25 Canadian.  We each needed a 2 peso coin.  We went to vendor after vendor looking for someone to give us change – most didn’t understand what we were asking and the others seemed to laugh at our request.  I guess getting small change was going to be a problem.  Finally, we just went to McDonalds and ordered two small ice-cream cones and gave the cashier the 100 peso bill.  At first they didn’t want to take it, but after calling the manager over, and explaining that the 100 peso bill was all we had, they decided to accept it. The change for the cones included a 5 peso bill, which we then needed to change too. The manager begrudgingly made change for us, and finally hurdle number one was cleared.

So we walked down to the bus stop and found the #8 bus and got on it.  Now this was definitely a “local” bus.  The other passengers stared at us two gringos lugging our giant backpacks onto the bus and nervously taking a seat.  I’m sure they were all wondering what the heck we were doing on their bus.

So now we just had to be on the lookout for Avenida Rivadavia.  After an hour or so of driving around we saw a sign for the road, and we attempted to confirm with another passenger that we indeed needed to get off here.  The other passenger enthusiastically told us that we should get off.  So we did.  Big mistake.  As we started walking down Avenida Rivadavia, we realized that the street numbers were around 15000 – nowhere close to the 3300 number that we were supposed to walk from.  We decided to “hoof it”, but it soon became obvious that this was a really long street.  With the aforementioned giant backpacks on our backs, there was no way we were going to make it.  So we stepped into a small shop to ask how to get to 3300 Avenida Rivadavia.  Not knowing any Spanish really didn’t help.  All we could do was point at the address we had written down and say “donde?” which we were pretty sure meant “where?” and we also said “bus” – we weren't sure what the Spanish word for bus was. Eventually the guy figured out what we were asking and sent us to the bus stop and told us to wait for another #8 bus. Duh… We should have figured that out. Oh, and we needed change too – so another difficult English/Spanish conversation asking him to give us change for the 20 peso bill we had. Eventually we got the change, and waited for the bus.  A #8 bus came right away, and we moved to get on it.  The shopkeeper (who had been watching us) ran over quickly and yelled No, No!!  Apparently there are a bunch of different #8 buses.  We needed a different one.   The correct bus came a few minutes later.  We got on it and figured we were good. Well… not so much.

We bused down the road, and got closer and closer to 3300. 7000, 6000, 5000, 750… What???  Where was 3300?  We got off at the next stop and tried to assess our situation.  We walked around trying to find where the number trail went.  After scouting it out, it looked like the numbers just started changing.  We saw 5000, and then the numbers changed to a completely different sequence.  We had no idea what to do. We walked around for a bit to see if we could find anything that made any sense, but there wasn’t anywhere to go.  We needed a map.  We stopped at a kiosk, found a map book of the area, and then attempted to locate ourselves within the map book.  Now, I’m usually pretty good at maps, but I do need some sort of reference point to determine where I am – especially in a 50 page map book of all of Buenos Aries.  I tried asking the clerk to help me find where we were right now.  Again I asked “Donde?” and then pointed at the ground.  He had no idea what I was asking.  This wasn’t working.

By that time it was starting to get dark and it was starting to rain a little.  We decided to forget the frugal Dutch attitude and just get a cab.  We found one right away and he punched the hostel’s address into his GPS and drove us straight there within 10 minutes or so for about 20 pesos (around $5).

So this was all well and good, but we just went through all this and we still didn’t know if the hostel was going to have a room for us.  Fortunately they had another room available – just with two single beds instead of a double.  That would have to do.  Neither of us were too excited about the process of locating another hostel.

So… lessons learned:

1. LEARN SPANISH!!!  Very few people we’ve met here speak any English at all.  If we’re planning on being in South America for 8 months, this is going to need to be a priority.  Joh and I have resolved to spend at least an hour every day studying Spanish from now on.
2. If you have no idea where you’re going, just take a taxi.  Yes, it may cost a few extra dollars but it is probably worth it.
3. Taxis at the airport are expensive.  Our taxi was around 5 dollars.  The airport ones wanted 40.  It’s probably worth it to take the bus into downtown and taxi from there.  Even after 2 bus rides and a taxi ride, it only cost us 13 dollars instead of 40.
4. As soon as possible, get a map of the city you’re in and study it. Find the airport, find your hostel, learn the major roads, etc.
5. Whenever possible, use up your big bills right away.  Get small change. It’s precious!

All things said and done, I’m actually happy about the way we got here.  It would have been far less exciting to just take a cab from the airport.  We got to see more of the city and have some fun exchanges with locals.   We also would never have learned those 5 lessons.

Santiago Airport

This post was written yesterday, but we haven’t had a chance to post it until now.  We’re currently in Buenos Aries.  One of us will post about that later.  I think we’re going to be a day or two behind on this blog quite often.

So, I’m sitting in the airport waiting area in Santiago Chile, and while I’ve got some time here I figured I’d share with you what it’s been like to fly over to the other end of the world.

We left yesterday afternoon from Toronto, flew to New York, then got settled in for a flight to Santiago.  Unfortunately, and hour or two into the flight something malfunctioned in the plane and we needed to make an emergency landing in Miami.  So we spent a few uncomfortable hours in the middle of the night in Miami’s airport lounge.  Finally we left at around 2:30am, and we arrived over 10 hours later here in Chile.   We’ve missed our connecting flight, so we need to wait around here for a while until the next flight leaves.

Needless to say we’re both quite exhausted.  Airplane seats and airport lounge seats leave a lot to be desired.  It has been pretty much impossible to get any sleep, so we’re both pretty groggy and we’re ready for a good night’s sleep tonight.

Reading what I just wrote, it seems as though I’m complaining a lot, but it hasn’t been all bad.  Some of the views from the plane flying over the Andes this morning were absolutely amazing.  Giant snow-capped peaks and other mountains were right underneath and all around us.  The Pacific ocean coast was visible out the western windows.   The mountains are quite beautiful.  They’re really different from the mountains we’re familiar with in B.C..  From the plane, they look almost like how you would imagine mountains on the moon or Mars.  It’s all quite greyish brown with little to no trees or other greenery.    This view will likely change once we get out of the planes and airports and actually get up and close to the scenery.  I really am looking forward to some world-class hiking.

Joh and I just finished our first meal away from home, and I was really looking forward to some really nice Chilean food.  Unfortunately, the airport had all the typical American offerings – Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Ruby Tuesday, etc.  We ended up spotting a decent looking sandwich shop, so we decided to have some food there.  Chileans must really like avocados and mayonnaise.  It seemed like everything on the menu was loaded with both.  We love avocados and hate mayo, so we tried to convey that to the Spanish server, but we ended up with neither – oh well.

We've arrived!

We've arrived in Buenos Aries safe and sound and we're settling in.  Sorry we haven't posted yet, but we were exhausted after yesterday's travelling.  We'll post more details later.

Goodbye

Our last days in Ontario flew by very quickly.  We had countless errands to run, not to mention closing the house sale, selling the cars, and packing everything up.  These tasks kept us busy, and before we knew it, it was Monday, and time to leave.

It was difficult to say good-bye to all our friends and family, but we had a really nice send-off, with a bon voyage party on Friday night with a big group of friends, and the again another nice evening together with our families on Sunday night.  Saying farewell to everyone can take quite a toll.  It is difficult knowing that we may not see everyone again for quite some time.  We will likely be missing family events, the birth of my niece/nephew, the birth of children from friends, not to mention birthdays, possible weddings, hockey games, other parties, and a whole lot more.

Looking at this in perspective though we shouldn't really complain.  This upcoming trip will also be filled with many memorable moments as well - just not with the family and friends that we are so close to.

We would like to thank everyone who helped us out in these last few days.  My parents have been great, helping us with moving, storage, hosting parties, and providing a place for us to stay for the weekend. Also, all our other family members and friends who helped with moving, and giving us a great send off.

So thank-you everyone, and good-bye for now.

T-Minus 3 Days

So, it is official, we are jobless, homeless and living with our parents. SweetJ

The countdown to departure is down to a couple of days!!! All that is left is to pack up our bags. Gone are the days of electric toothbrushes, blow dryers, hair straighteners, make-up, hair spray...you get the point. You can see why I am having difficulty figuring out what I actually need to pack. Do I need a rain jacket and a long sleeve shirt and a sweater, how many shorts and how many underwear...a little stressful. I am sure I will be throwing out half the stuff that I have in my backpack before the end of next week. Oh well, I will learn my lesson really quickly once I am hauling that thing all over the world.

Anyways, we just wanted to say goodbye to those whom we will not be seeing this weekend, our last good-bye on Canadian soil. We love you all and please send us an email whenever you get a chance.

Bucket List

One of the common questions we get when we tell people about our plans (other than “are you guys nuts?”) is “what are you are you going to do for a year and a half?”  We know that just walking around sight-seeing is going to get a little stale long before the year and a half timeframe is up.  After seeing countless museums, cities, parks, and historic sights, I’m sure they will start to all look the same and not hold as much intrige as they should.  If we rush from one site to the next and not spend time on other activities we will get burned out and we won’t be able to enjoy it in the way we’d like. On the other hand, if we just view the whole trip as just a big long vacation, it would be a waste of an oppurtunity to enrich our lives.

While there will be a lot of “sight-seeing” and “vacationing” moments on this trip, there needs to be more to it than just that.  In a year and a half there are over 500 days.  If, in every one of those days, we get up late, check out a few sites, then sit back and take it easy for the rest of the day, we will come back extremely lazy and unfulfilled.

Some of you have no doubt seen the movie “The Bucket List” starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson.   In the movie, these two older men come to the realization that they don’t have much time left, and they decide to make a list of things they still want to do before they “kick the bucket”.   They end up going travelling and visiting a number of places and doing most of the items on their list.  In the process, they become great friends and ultimately discover the joy in life. 

When I watched this movie a few years ago, it inspired me to come up with my own bucket list.  The list has been around for almost three years and in that time I’ve only accomplished one of the items on that list - “get married”.  While that list item was a biggie, there’s still a long list of items that remain undone. The reasons for not getting the other items done are all the typical obstacles: Not enough time, not enough money, laziness, etc.   Doing this trip will hopefully remove most of those obstacles.  We now have a lot of free time on our hands, and it would be a shame not to use it to get a bunch of those items done.  As for the “not enough money” problem, that is still somewhat of an issue, but after selling my house, and saving for a long time, there is now enough to pay for some of the more expensive items. 

After getting engaged, Joh and I discussed the concept of a bucket list and my individual list dissappeared and we started working on a new list together. One of the items that came up right away on both of our lists was to “go travelling”.  So we started to focus on that first.  Going travelling would enable a lot of the other items on the list to get done as well.  We started to change the bucket list into a list of activities and challenges that we could accomplish on our trip.  A lot of the items in the new list are travel-specific, such as; visit Machu Picchu, eat sushi in Tokyo, or hike to the top of a mountain, but others are not.  There are other goals and challenges as well, that don’t really have anything to do with travelling.  There are goals in the areas of: education, faith, fitness, personal development, reading, and a lot more.  A lot of the items from my original bucket list made it onto this list too.

So we’ve accumulated a list of tasks that we will attempt to accomplish on our trip. Similar to the Amazing Race, but without the time constraints, competition, or the million-dollar grand prize.  We fully realize that we won’t be able to accomplish all of the items on the list, but we will try our best.

So without further ado (man that was a lot of ado...) here is our list – in no particular order:

1. Walk up a tall mountain from the very bottom to the absolute top.

2. Go to a professional cricket game.

3. Drive a car in a country where they drive on the wrong side of the road, and the driver's seat is on the right instead of the left.

4. Pull an all-nighter and watch the sun come up over the ocean.

5. Eat meat from an animal that you've never eaten before

6. Go on a long-distance hike - 100km or more.

7. Rent or buy bikes and go on a long-distance bike ride - 300km or more.

8. Pick a random foreign wine we like from the LCBO, and locate and visit the winery where it came from.

9. Learn to surf

10. Swim in all 3 major oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian)

11. Find an ice hockey rink and join a game of shinny.

12. Learn Spanish

13. Learn a martial art

14. Skinny dip in the ocean

15. Learn a cultural dance

16. Get a job on a farm/winery for at least a day

17. Skydive

18. Learn how to Meditate

19. Volunteer somewhere

20. Rent an apartment in a foreign city for a month and live there.

21. Find a christian church in a foreign language and attend worship services

22. Get invited to a local's home for dinner

23. Go to a train station and hop on a train to a destination that you've never heard of.

24. Scuba Dive or snorkel

25. Stand on the equator

26. Learn to juggle (at least 3 balls)

27. Do 100 pushups

28. Do 200 situps

29. Run for 2 hours without stopping

30. Ride a boat down the amazon

31. See Everest

32. Throw a dart at a map and visit that place

33. Eat sushi in Tokyo

34. Eat curry in India

35. Eat asado (grilled beef) in Argentina

36. Eat pad thai in Thailand

37. Eat pho in Vietnam

38. Drink Yerba Mate in Argentina

39. Spend a night on a deserted island

40. Swing on a vine in the Jungle

41. Get a Thai massage

42. Visit Copacabana beach in Rio

43. Visit Machu Picchu

44. Collect a souvenir spoon for Jack's mom from each country we visit

45. Walk on the great wall of China

46. Ride a horse

47. Draw a portrait of each other

48. Swim in a waterfall

49. Go to a karaoke bar and each sing a song

50. Sleep under the stars

51. Go snowboarding in the Andes or Himalayas

52. Find a traveler that has been to Burlington

53. Go camping at a national park

54. Eat at least 10 fruits we've never had before

55. Take a mud bath

56. Help someone learn English

57. Try 100 different types of beer

58. Try 50 different bottles of wine

59. Walk across an entire country

60. Rent a campervan and take a long distance road trip

61. Read 50 books each

62. Learn and get good at Yoga

63. Completely quit smoking

Aside from the above list we also have a number of other goals that aren’t really specific enough to include in a list of tasks.  These include:

1. Write often in this blog

2. Keep in touch with family and friends back home (not just through this blog)

3. Get better at writing – it takes me forever to write.  I keep on reforming sentences, second-guessing what I want to say, and rambling on when I don’t need to.

4. Read and study the Bible often

5. Meet other Christians and discuss our faith

6. Stay healthy and fit

7. Keep learning – read educational books and the like so that we’re able to be of some use in the business world when we return.

8. Meet and talk to as many locals as possible

9. Try not to be a typical tourist.

10. Develop a more “open-minded” view of the world and it’s people and ideas

11. Help as many people as possible via volunteering oppurtunities

12. Become a better person. I know this is rather vague, but I do recognize shortcomings in myself and I need to improve upon them.

We’ve come up with this list ourselves, but it would be great to get additional challenges from family and friends as well.   Think of some things that you would have on your bucket list and would do if you were in our shoes.  As long as it is realistic, we’ll consider it.

Task rules:

• Each task must be something that can be accomplished somewhere in either South America or Asia.

• Each task should be something that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time.

• Ideally it should be something that can be accomplished on a modest budget.

• Not every task will need to be performed by both of us.  Some will be more suited for only one of us.

After we complete each task, we’ll take a photo as proof of completion, and we’ll write about the story behind it.

Welcome!

Hello everyone!

So this is our travel blog. We'll be posting all our our travel stories and pictures here, so stay tuned and we'll soon be adding some more content.  The flight to our first destination - Buenos Aries, Argentina, leaves on January 10th. Until then, check out the "About Us" page (the link is in the sidebar to the right) to read about what we're up to.

If we have some time in the next few days, we'll add some more blog-posts to tell you about our pre-trip planning, and get you some more details on what we plan on doing.

If you want to make it easy to follow this blog, I suggest you subscribe via email or RSS. You can do so via the link in the sidebar on the right.

We would love to hear from you!  Please comment if you have any questions or advice.