Back to the Wild, Wild Western Hemisphere

Hello everyone.  I realize it's been a long time since the last blog and I wish I had a good excuse.  I don't.  I'll make up for the lapse by making this ridiculously long and boring.  Here goes...

The last blog was written on our way to Cape Town which was the end of our South African adventure.  The final drive to Cape Town was amazing.  It included a 9km stretch of highway along the Atlantic Coast between Noordhoek and Hout Bay that was absolutely stunning.  The drive has Chapman's Peak (a small mountain south of Cape Town) to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the west.  It is one of the most beautiful drives I've ever taken.  We arrived in Cape Town later that evening and headed straight for a hostel as it was getting dark.  Being out after dark is a very bad idea in most of South Africa.  You might think that we're just pampered tourists by saying that, but even the South Africans were scared of the dark.  We had multiple warnings throughout our time there, including a radio announcement advising people not to be out after the sun goes down and the criminals roam freely.  In fact, most of the stores close by 7pm and the people are usually in bed by 8-9pm.  We only had one bad experience in the night, and that experience led us to spend several hours in the Cape Town police station.  Luckily, we weren't present for the incident.  Our rental car was broken into and the radio was stolen.  Of course, it happened on the last night we had the car.  We're still waiting to see how much it's going to cost us.

Other than the break-in, our time in Cape Town was enjoyable.  The city sits on the Atlantic Ocean and is surrounded by mountains, making the scenery gorgeous.  We spent a day climbing Table Mountain which was just 2km from where we were staying.  Now I have to brag a little...we did the climb in roughly half the time the guides suggested it would take (and Steph was admittedly slow).  It wasn't that long of a climb, but it was very steep.  The rest of our time in Cape Town was spent wandering around the city, visiting museums, recovering from the climb (I'm 31 now...getting old), and hanging out at our hostel.  Time for continent #5.

Our Malaysia Airlines flight across the Atlantic was really nice (similar to Steph's description of Qatar in the last post).  We managed to get some good sleep on the plane after studying our South America guidebook and were suddenly found ourselves wide awake with the 50-100% inflation and a $140 "reciprocal" fee each upon arrival.  I guess our year old Lonely Planet guidebook is already obsolete.  We flew into Buenos Aires and instantly loved it as we shuttled our way to a hostel.  The old and new architecture (European and other) combined together was really nice and the city just gave off a great vibe.  After dropping our stuff we walked over to the Sunday Antique Market and found ourselves engulfed in people and handicrafts.  The market is a once-a-week deal and it was amazing how many people came out for it.  The main street of the market was at least a mile long and was crammed full of people.  Our walk through concluded with a couple doing a free tango show in the middle of a plaza.  I may have to take some dance lessons soon because Steph was really loving it.  I'd hate to lose her to one of these long haired, fancy-footed Latin American guys.

On a side note, Steph and I both took a couple years of Spanish in high school.  We haven't really had a problem communicating with people in any other places yet and we weren't expecting a problem.  South America has proved the hardest place to communicate yet.  In the other parts of the world we visited there was usually a good amount of people who spoke enough English to get by.  Most of the people we've come across in South America don't speak English at all and they talk so fast that we can't understand any of their Espanol.  Plus, it's a lot different than the Mexican Spanish we attempted to learn.  Wish us luck.

Argentinians and the young backpackers seemed to be on the complete opposite sleeping schedule as we were.  Our jet-lag prevented us from the usual BA schedule of eating dinner anywhere from 10pm-12pm and then dancing the night/morning away until 6am.  So, I guess we didn't get the full BA experience, but we did get our money's worth for the beds we were paying for, unlike everyone else.  We left BA after four nights and took a bus to Puerto Iguazu.

Puerto Iguazu is the town closest to the Argentinian side of Iguazu Falls, which is a group of massive waterfalls that are said (by Argentinians, of course) to dwarf Niagara Falls.  They were as spectacular as advertised, however the weather didn't hold out too long for us.  On our way to the top of the Argentinian side of the falls the temperature dropped severely and a thunderstorm broke out.  We traversed the long walkway over the river and out to the top of the falls anyway.  We stayed just long enough to get a few pics and made our way back to town completely drenched and frozen.

Another overnight bus ride took us to Cordoba, which according to Lonely Planet, is supposed to be the cultural heart of Argentina.  We spent most of a day there (my 31st Birthday) then decided to hop on another overnight bus to Mendoza which is on the western side of the country.

Mendoza is a really nice city and it's in the middle of Argentina wine country.  We decided that a trip to Mendoza wouldn't be complete without a wine tour.  We splurged and booked a gourmet wine tour that taught us all about the wine making process and ended with a 5-course gourmet lunch paired with wine.  The tour was great and the food and wine pairings were even better.  After a few days there, guess what...yep, another bus trip.  This time we crossed the border into Chile and were dropped off in the capital city of Santiago.

The bus took us through the Andes and we enjoyed some beautiful mountain views and even some snow.  Santiago was nice, but we were a little more cautious as there were several universities near the area we were staying and the students have been protesting and going on strike off-and-on for a little while.  I guess the strikes have been met by the government with some brutal treatment, so we decided to just take it easy for a couple days, see a few things, and then make our way to the coastal town of Valparaiso.  Hills jump right out of the coast in Valparaiso and most of the city is built into the hillsides.  One traveler said that it reminded her of San Francisco, but we've never been there to confirm the comparison.  The hills made our long and steep walk to find a hostel from the bus station very interesting.  I was really feeling good about the Table Mountain hike before, but Valparaiso has humbled me again.

We had our first "small world" experience in Valparaiso with the above mentioned traveler.  She happened to have graduated physical therapy school with our good friend, Fuzz (Kristin Johnson), and was traveling South America after working in Peru for a year.  The girl she was traveling with was from Minnesota (who had also lived in Portland, OR which was another connection with Steph) and her college roommate was from Cedar Rapids.  We became instant friends with them and had a great couple of days hanging out before we parted ways.  It's a small world.

I guess you're lucky, this blog wasn't as long as I thought it would be.  It's probably as boring as I thought though.

We're leaving Valparaiso tonight and taking another 20+ hr bus ride to the desert in the north of Chile.  Soon we'll find a way over the Andes again and into Bolivia.

It shouldn't be as long of a gap between blogs next time, but if it is it'll be Steph's fault.  

Don't forget to check out the pics!  I want to get my hair cut because I think it looks ridiculous, but Steph disagrees.  Let's be democratic here...cut it or keep it?