Valparaiso Pics!

Pata Pata Hostel Patio (Where we had an asado with new friends and had the best cooked pork I have ever had!)

Another Patio shot, stay at the Pata Pata if you go to Valparaiso, it is amazing.

Amber walking to our hostel with the flags is front. The street was extremly steep like S.F.

Just chillin on the fridge, one of my favorite appliances. 3D or 2D can you tell?

Valparaiso is famous for there different color homes built in the 1600´s!!!

We found probably the only vegetarian restaurant in Valparaiso, Bambu. We had some authentic chilean food, yum!

More colors of the houses that make up the entire city of Valparaiso on the bay.

Another fountain in the center square. This was one of my favorites because of all the plants growing on it.

So Valparaiso is known for its graffiti art. It was amazing and the best part of the city. These artist are so talented and we heard that people travel from all over the world to paint here.

Creeping in a gate, but I found out is was closed, oops!

Ascendor view going down.

Because the city is built on such a steep incline the city has these really old ascendor which takes you up the hill. They are like a counter weight system where one goes up and the other goes down.

Another fountain in one of the oldest squares.

This was one of my favorite paintings because it reminded me of Dia de los Muertos. I realized I like skeleton art.

Yeah Chile, we love it here. You can kind of see how the city is built around a port in this picture.

This was an old look out built in the 1500´s to protect the port which was a stopping point for ships coming around the tip of South America before the Panama canal.

A shot of the colors of the houses that paint the hillside of Valparaiso. This city is a World UNESCO site and no building can be torn down.

Ambers photography skills being put to good use in this picture, these flowers are amazing! All the colors.

Another one of the old buildings in the city. The architecture here was beautiful, but worn down after 400 years.

The best hostel in Valparaiso!!

Chile Update

Just so you all know we are doing good, I mean great. Super Pumped! We are disconnected from the world on a little beach called Ritoque in Chile. It is beautiful here and we are staying on the beach. More details later but we will call when we are connected. Ciao!

Pucon, Chile

So we settled in Pucon, Chile in the lakes district. It is a beautiful area that is surrounded by old valcanos and one that is still active. The volcano was huge and covered with snow, while the town is very tropical. The lake was pretty big and not too cold, on the last day we were able to chill on the beach and cool off in the water. The beaches are all black sand from the volcanic rocks, it seems like a mix between Hawaii, Guatemala, and Lake Tahoe. A ton of outdoor activities but we just stayed in town trying to save our money. The town was very tropical and we liked the scenery. The Cañi trees are also around and they are the largest in South America, like the Redwoods in Cali. We really liked Pucon, although there were a ton of Americans who lived there, like an American oasis in South America. We liked the people, but it was one of the most expensive places that we have stayed. We found a few great restaurants, like Latitidue 39, a gringo restaurant (with great nachos, chili, tortilla chicken soup, and chicken thai pasta, even great burgers) we ate their a few times and loved it. We also had some sushi and hit up a happy hour for mojitos and cheap tacos! The first two days it was raining a lot and finally the last day we got to hang out on the beach and enjoy the hot sun. We did not get the job at the eco hostel that we were trying to get because we were to late into the tourism season. But thatś okay, everything happens for a reason! We spent a lot of the time in Pucon talking about our expectations during this trip and what actually happened and we are really happy with the way everything has played out. We got to see a lot of Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. We have been able to improve or Spanish,not fluent but much better, we will continue to practice. We found two places that we really think we could live in the future, Bariloche and Pucon. And we still have a couple of weeks to see a lot more, were are on the move. After a lot of talking we have decided to come back to the states by the end of this month and make some more money. We are greatful for the families help and can hopefully stay in the apartment in Garberville for a couple of months. We are going to road trip to see our friends in cali and then maybe go to costa rica for a month  in April or maybe visit Isabel in Hawaii, or our friends on the east coast. Who knows what the future has in store for us?? We were sad about leaving sooner than expected, but now we are really happy for what we have accomplished, learned about these countries, and learned about us as travelers. We will share it all with you when we see you in a few weeks. This has been the greatest experience of our lives and we know no matter when we come home we will be travellers for life. This experience has made us grow closer and become greatful for what each of us bring to the relationship. Travelling like this is not hard, but now we can see how rewarding it is. We are still enjoying each moment as it comes, and not stress about the little things. We are now in Valapariso Chile, a really old town. We are about to visit some churches built in the late 1400ś (more details and pics to come). So we hope you are all well and we are really excitied about seeing you all soon. More stories though before we come home, we have some of the best places coming up so I am sure the tales will be legendary. Again thanks for following the blog, we miss you all! Ciao from the South.

Us at susnet on the beach of Pucon.

Another shot of the lake, between rainstroms! If it rained on our trek like it rains in Pucon we would have been screwed, it pours here!

Our room at ¡ecole! We were next to a dorm of teen boys, the walls were thin, the sleep was scarce. One tough thing about hostels is how loud they can be.

Duck & Dog, classic right? Right?

The Chile flag, I have wanted to come here since I did a report on Chile in the 5th grade.

Another sunset shot!

A true profile picture of Amb

Chocolate and Tools, Amber knew that both of our dadś would love this. Oh man the chocolate is good here!

More flowers, these were all over Pucon. The ones in the front we even saw growing wild on our trek in Torres del Paine.

The Volcano, can you see the smoke?!?!

The town with the volcano in the background. A obvious caption, but it gets hard being creative towards the end of this blogging stuff.

Soaking it all up!

Finally a sunny day at the lake, it was so hot and the lake was cold and perfect for cooling off. The beach was packed with locals.

Sushi at Pachamama, bomb before a 12 hour bus ride.

Hereś an example of the buses that we take! This was one of the nicer, but still a 12-20 hour bus ride is not easy, good thing we are young and can recover quickly.

Just an update...

So we are now exploring Chile for a couple of weeks and are in Pucon. We thought that we may get a job here but in fact they are harder to come by than we thought. Many places have already hired because it is now in the middle of tourism season and the place we had a connection with is already full with employees. So we are trying to figure out what to do. Funds are getting low and we are trying to be realistic with the length of time we can last down here. So like our new years resolution we are taking each moment as it comes but we might be comin back sooner than expected. We will be in touch with you the family over the next few days. Off for a run and then mexican food again, yes! Tomorrow we are off to a national preserve to see south Americas version of the redwood tree, only found around Pucon. We do miss some of the comforts of home and are excited to return, but we will miss this place. We need to take care of some stuff there though, including getting more vaccinations and then we will be back. More details to come, we are trying to figure it all out. Peace.

Bike ride around the lakes!

So on New Years Eve we spent the day on a 15 mile bike ride around a few lakes in Bariloche. We rented the mountian bikes, sweet helmets and radical reflecters from a local bike company and went on the famous chico circuit (check out our swanky style below). The scenery was awesome, it looks a lot like Tahoe in the summer here. Really forested, with a ton of wildflowers and a lot of snow covered peaks. The water is an awesome clear blue, as you can see in the pictures. The ride had some hard parts definatley, but overall it was´nt too bad. We are not too sore today, but when are they going to make a bike seat that actually is comfortable so your ass doesnt hurt the next day?!?!? During our ride we stopped at an awesome beach and spent a couple of hours picnicing and I went for a quick swim in the water, pretty cold. I think that one of the best feelings in life is to work up a sweat outdoors and then jump into a snow melt lake, it can be shocking but it one of the most refreshing parts of life. You can see below that I was feelin´it! The beach was beautiful and the landscape is picturesque- really a lot like Lake Tahoe except with even more lakes. This ride was an awesome way to end the year of 2010, in the outdoors. We really like Bariloche and I think that this is the first place we could see ourselves living in South America. Their are a ton of outdoor activities in the summer and winter, there are pine trees and plants everywhere, the outskirts of town are pretty clean and the people are your classic nice and friendly Argentines. We have had more besos (kisses) here than any other part of South America. The town is also not as touristy, more Argentines on vacation than other countries. Plus we found a really awesome health food store and a real Mexican restaurant. We can eat other food than meat and pasta (even though those can really hit the spot)! We are obssessed with the Mexican restaurant and spent our entire New Years Eve here, unlimited food and margaritas, what more can you ask for in life? New Years Eve was awesome and we were really glad to spend it together just the two of us in a whole new place. This is the first time we have spent it with just us two and no friends and family. We kept it pretty chill and toasted with the locals in the restaurant with some good champagne. It´s funny, there is more of a countdown for Christmas than New Years down here, but we love the new traditions. We walked on the lake after New Year and then came back to our hostel for karoke with a host that looked like Paulie Shore from Son in Law, I mean an exact replica, it was wait for it.....legendary!!!!! I tried some Black Label Scotch for the first time, is scotch suppose to be warm?? I think I will stick to Tequila, beer and red wine :) Today we are just chillin around in the 88 degree weather, and might go for a swim in the lake again. Just relaxing before a long bus ride to Pucon Chile, I think that bus rides are way overrated by the way. But we are glad to be going to another lake town by a volcano. Hopefully we are going to get a job at an eco-hostel that Julia hooked us up with. So I will fill you in with all that in a couple of days. Happy 2011 to all of you and we hope to have some great experiences with you in the next 12 months. The end of 2010 was hard for a lot or family and friends, but we wish peace and some clarity to those who lost someone in the last couple of weeks. Our thoughts are with you. Also heres to the new years resolutions, hope you all made one. Finally we hope that 2011 can bring about some much needed changes with our government and the world environment. Listen to Democracy Now as much as you can and let others know about the issues that you think are important. If enough of us know about the true issues change is bound to happen. We love you all and will hit you up from Chile. If any of you see Cuz in the next week tell him DONT!

 

Enjoying the outdoors at the end of 2010.

Here is an awesome picture to show the water color, it was so clear. Amber is feelin´ it!

What is more refreshing in life?

Me jumping in  the lake in my skivies (sp?)

The simple life, just taking it all in.

Our beach picnic view, amazing!

The top of a long up hill, we made it. I had to rep the helmet even though Amber told me to take it off, again repping the swanky bike style!

This is Amber modeling 2011´s new reflector style, work it with that view. Tyra would have to say fierce!

Another view of the lake from our ride, now can you see why we could live here. Looking at property prices for the future.

Again with the helmet style and the crystal clear light blue water.

A hot warm day in Bariloche in December! I want to be here for every New Year, screw the cold!

Our hostel right next to Moto del Sur. I took this pic for you Duffy, moto seems to be big here as well. Wonder if there are tracks here, ill try to get a closer pic tomorrow.

A sunset pic that I had to include. Over the lake taken from our first hostel. A shot from earlier in the night is on the earlier post. Ciao!