A couple of days ago we made it to Coyhaique after a couple of easy days of touring on asphalt. The last day we rode up a river valley with a strong tail wind. Coyhaique is a pretty windy place, windy enough that it has a three commercial size wind turbines with lots of room for more. The town reminds me geographically of Bozeman or White Salmon in Washington. It is about the same size as Bend and Bozeman and is a regional shopping hub. It is like Bend in that it is a transition town from wet western coastal to dry eastern deserts with mountains on all sides.
We had a number of errands to catch up on like some sewing modifications for the tent, finding a ground cloth for the tent, laundry and a finding can opener for example. The can opener was quite an epic search. You can pantomime the motion of the can opener but the locals don´t use the kind you twist with your wrist. They use these ones that you jab into the can and are really hard to use. Anyway none of the small towns had the crank type. Coyhaique is big enough to have a couple of grocery stores the size of American grocery stores that did have the first world crank type.
The town is big enough also to support lingerie stores. There is one by our hotel that in addition to lingerie sells an equal amount of candy. This is not something you would see in the US even if those things go together real well for some reason. I am not sure why the bigger towns are more conducive to the cosmo hooker look. Maybe it is more exposure to TV, Internet and magazines. It is kind of cold here so most of the women actually wear pants. After spending a week in Palm Springs before coming down here one thing is for sure and that is no amount of expensive or sexy clothes are going to hide the fact that you haven´t taken good care of yourself.
The mountains do not have the snow and glaciers of the coastal mountains here. One of the maps we have says the real scenic part of the Carretera Austral (the main road we are following) does not really start until we leave here and continue south. All i can say is that has to be some incredible scenery to be a lot better than what we have already been riding through.
Using computers in the Internet cafes is a real pain except for really basic things. You can change the settings for the browser to be English but that only changes a few things. You don´t realize how many other warning messages etc you need to interpret until you work with an operating system configured for Spanish. I tried for example to install an anti virus program to a thumb drive only to have it repeatedly install it in Spanish even though the page i downloaded it from was in English. I got so frustrated i decided to go out and get a netbook which i almost did before coming down here. Most of the people touring have those and a smart phone that they use to make skype phone calls for instance. There are several places here that have netbooks so we picked one only to be told that the price for foreigners was a hundred dollars more. We went to another store where they said the display price was the price everyone paid. We bought one that was the last one left in the display case of a particular model. That led to yet another big learning experience which is after the operating system has initially loaded you can not change the language. So we have to return that for one that has not been turned on yet where you pick the language right off the bat. We will have to wait until tomorrow to do that which has to do with the bank. Laurie broke her kindle by putting it at the bottom of a pannier and we
tried to find another here. The locals have know idea what we are
talking about. You would think there would be a market for that. I tried to download her books from Amazon on to mine here and no way is that happening on these Internet cafe machines in Spanish, at least for me anyway.
One thing i forgot to mention is that except for the bigger towns you better have cash as lots of places would not be able to process a credit card. I was told by a banker in Bend that the best thing would be not to carry a lot of cash and just use the debit card. The ATM would not give me cash today so that is another thing for tomorrow when everything is open - whenever that is as hardly any businesses have posted hours.
Tomorrow we are also going to send a box home with things we are not using. One of those things is a fishing rod and real. It turns out to be pretty difficult to bike tour and stop and fish. The other option is to fish at where ever you happen to camp that also has limitations if the river has a lot of vegetation etc. It is torture to be driving by all these very classic looking fishing streams knowing you could stop and fish. But where do you put a dead fish in a pannier? I am not into fishing enough to want to stop and fish just for catch and release. We ran into a cyclist from Colorado who had a fly fishing rod. He said on one of the streams he stopped at there were fish jumping ¨as big as dogs¨. Now I did not see that myself and it is a fishing story. The local shops i notice sell lots of BIG lures so it appears that there are lots of fishermen down here that are willing to stoop that low to catch fish.
One other thing we noticed is that none and i mean none of the road signs have bullet holes in them. Also the guys do not seem to need to have their trucks enhanced - you know all jacked up with big tires etc. By far the most common vehicle down here is a small four door pick up truck. Somehow they manage to get a lot of work done without a three quarter ton monster truck like those that are so popular in Bend. They come pretty much in two colors red or white and with a roll bar. They carry the loads strapped to the roll bar pointing up in the sky over the cab - big loads. Those loads include lots of firewood as most of the houses especially the rural ones appear to have no insulation and are very crudely fashioned. In rural areas colecting firewood is a main summer family activity.
By the way THE local bike shop has no road bikes, only mountain bikes. This is a issue for touring cyclists in terms of the wheels they choose on their bikes for spare parts.They did have a pair of padded bike gloves for Laurie as hers wore out. They had no other clothes like bike jerseys etc. but did seem to have a lot of miscellaneous parts.
I tried to load some more pictures but it is such a hassle on the Internet cafe machines i am going to wait. By the way don't forget to double click on the slide show to make the pictures bigger and then click on the link to see where they go in a map!
Chow! Chau actually
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Al Amengual
The big news is that the big stretch of pavement started about 70 kilometers earlier than shown on the map and it is excellent with big views. We made about fifty miles on gravel from La Junta which we felt was good for dirt roads or what the locals and international tourists call repeo. Repeo becomes exponentially more difficult as the grade increases because the gravel often becomes more loose and there is more of a washboard surface. The gravel here is often much worse than the US because they do not always use crushed or sorted gravel and it is often river cobbles the size of assorted potatoes. Hopefully the larger potatoes are off to the side of the road. That said the last 150 kilometers of gravel have not been to bad from Santa Lucia. There was a steep pass before dropping into the pavement near Puerto Cisnes. We did a hike there up to a huge glacier with a falls. I will post some more pictures later. The scenery never seems to stop being surprisingly good.
We are running into lots of interesting international cyclists mostly from Europe but we did just run into a couple from Colorado. Many of the cyclists are out for even longer trips than ours. One couple was in Uruguay headed south but they were seeing so many bad car accidents the took a bus further south. Another couple said that they were in Bolivia and the level of poverty was pretty shocking. Even so apparently some of the big agribusiness companies were pushing junk food and the Bolivians were throwing the wrappers wherever and the level of trash was hard to accept. Generally there is not a lot of trash in Chile thankfully. That same couple said they originally were using Internet cafes but they had a thumb drive that got infected and wiped out all their pictures so they ended up buying a netbook.
One American we ran into was down here looking to buy a large acreage for an organic farm. I can´t remember the name of he and his wife´s company but it was a big one. He was working closely with Doug Tompkins who is locally and internationally famous for buying huge chunks of land in Patagonia. Tompkins is promoting all things sustainable and is anti hydro power etc. Parkque Pumalin is the world largest privately owned national park. The Chileans are a bit pissed at him because he is not letting them punch through the Carratera Austral through the park. That would be hugely expensive but the ferries around it are a big bottle neck. Doug Thompson is a former owner of North Face. You can google that to find out more about it if you are interested. Adam the organic American was talking about this sustainable vision of local organic farms. Right wingers in the US would have no problem making the leap to call that communism like promoted by Chairman Mao.
One thing that is different is that there are very few police cars around. You hardly ever hear sirens. In the bigger towns they have armies of policemen on foot. Speaking of law and order the last bed and breakfast place we stayed at the proprietor made a big deal of whether or not we were married.
Stocking up on food is always an adventure. The "supermercados" are usually part of someone´s house and typically not much bigger than a 15 x 15 foot room. We end up typically just going in and buying whatever we can the looks reasonably healthy. The produce is typically unrefrigerated. Whole grain type cookies and crackers are less and less common away from the larger towns and tourist areas. We were seeing "integral" pan for awhile but now it is as white as white as can be. They do not sell bread here just pan which is sort of like a dense hamburger bun. It does pack well and holds up to the shaking and pounding of the repeo roads.
We are still struck by all the places where in the US there would be a lodge or a developed campground or a national park or something but there is nothing maybe some herders shack..
That is enough for now but feel free to email us with questions. My email is tponte.is @ gmail dot com and Laurie´s is laurie dot ponte at gmail dot com.
We are running into lots of interesting international cyclists mostly from Europe but we did just run into a couple from Colorado. Many of the cyclists are out for even longer trips than ours. One couple was in Uruguay headed south but they were seeing so many bad car accidents the took a bus further south. Another couple said that they were in Bolivia and the level of poverty was pretty shocking. Even so apparently some of the big agribusiness companies were pushing junk food and the Bolivians were throwing the wrappers wherever and the level of trash was hard to accept. Generally there is not a lot of trash in Chile thankfully. That same couple said they originally were using Internet cafes but they had a thumb drive that got infected and wiped out all their pictures so they ended up buying a netbook.
One American we ran into was down here looking to buy a large acreage for an organic farm. I can´t remember the name of he and his wife´s company but it was a big one. He was working closely with Doug Tompkins who is locally and internationally famous for buying huge chunks of land in Patagonia. Tompkins is promoting all things sustainable and is anti hydro power etc. Parkque Pumalin is the world largest privately owned national park. The Chileans are a bit pissed at him because he is not letting them punch through the Carratera Austral through the park. That would be hugely expensive but the ferries around it are a big bottle neck. Doug Thompson is a former owner of North Face. You can google that to find out more about it if you are interested. Adam the organic American was talking about this sustainable vision of local organic farms. Right wingers in the US would have no problem making the leap to call that communism like promoted by Chairman Mao.
One thing that is different is that there are very few police cars around. You hardly ever hear sirens. In the bigger towns they have armies of policemen on foot. Speaking of law and order the last bed and breakfast place we stayed at the proprietor made a big deal of whether or not we were married.
Stocking up on food is always an adventure. The "supermercados" are usually part of someone´s house and typically not much bigger than a 15 x 15 foot room. We end up typically just going in and buying whatever we can the looks reasonably healthy. The produce is typically unrefrigerated. Whole grain type cookies and crackers are less and less common away from the larger towns and tourist areas. We were seeing "integral" pan for awhile but now it is as white as white as can be. They do not sell bread here just pan which is sort of like a dense hamburger bun. It does pack well and holds up to the shaking and pounding of the repeo roads.
We are still struck by all the places where in the US there would be a lodge or a developed campground or a national park or something but there is nothing maybe some herders shack..
That is enough for now but feel free to email us with questions. My email is tponte.is @ gmail dot com and Laurie´s is laurie dot ponte at gmail dot com.
Monday, January 23, 2012
La Junta
This is going to be a long post as I have found a good internet cafe and need a break after a morning ride.
We are in La Junta after taking a bus to Santa Lucia and riding south We had heard from a couple of bike tourists that the construction north of Santa Lucia was the hardest riding they had encountered since starting in Ushuaia (about as far south as you can go). That did not sound too appealing so we took the bus for about ten dollars each. La Junta is a nice town at the confluence of two major rivers. It is especially nice compared to the depressing chaos of Chaiten. From Santa Lucia it has been mostly downhill following the river with beautiful mountains the whole way. It is easier to account for where the scenery is not stunning than where it is. We made about 40k in four hours which is about as good as you can do on dirt roads with full loads. I could probably go a bit faster by myself but am glad i have a wife over fifty who can even do this. The roads are still dirt for a couple of more days but they are better than the dirt roads when we started riding them from Cochamo to Hornopiren which had more potato sized gravel and more traffic. More traffic equals more dust and more time spent on the side of the road. On a dirt road it helps to have the whole road to pick the smoothest parts. If the main roads ever become all paved the touring will be unbelievably good. The paved road from Puerto Montt to Rulun at the start was excellent with clear views of the Osorno Volcano.
It is the best scenery we have ever seen including the Canadian Rockies although the Sierras are right up there but less glaciers and vegetation. Really it is most similar to the north cascades only on a grander more continuous scale. The other difference would be that the standard of living is much lower and there is much less development. It is not uncommon to see some to die for view with a little ranch where the total materials of house and barn would not top a few thousand dollars if that. Most of the interior areas off the main roads in the mountains are totally untouched - no trails no nothing.
In Santiago the first world dichotomy between the rich and the poor that the the Chileans are proud of is very stunning. In contrast to the business men in suits in downtown Santiago there are vast slums or shanty towns. The difference between the rich and poor is far less in other parts of Chile. In an earlier post I said something about the Chilean preference for suits but that is just an urban thing. It is interesting to note that in two stand up comedy dvds we saw on a bus or ferry elsewhere the comedians had suits and ties on and much of the men in the DVD audience did as well. I guess humor is a suit and tie thing.
Camping is possible without paying all over the place and totally safe. You can clean off by taking a dip in a lake or river. There are a fair amount of mom and pop camping places as well where you sometimes will have electricity and hot water for typically about eight dollars a person less if it is just a place to put a tent. Although up until yesterday it has been sunny for three weeks which is very rare here. One person told us that the longest a local had seen uninterrupted sunny days was two weeks.
Speaking of camping part of camping is bugs. The first night we camped on a river there were these little biting gnats that only occupied the first foot or two off the ground. So every time you bent over they would bite your face and arms. Luckily we have not had any of those since. There have been these big horse flies but they are not too bad as you have some warning before they bite. They are however amazing in that you can hit them really hard on your arm and the often will fly away from that kind of like the warriors in video games etc. The climbers in Cochamo said they were up on the walls. Supposedly they only last a two or three weeks in the early summer. There do not seem to be any mosquitoes yet and I would rather have the dumb horse flys than mosquitoes.
Cochamo besides being beautiful was interesting for how different parts of the experience was from how it would be if it were in the US. The trail in was originally used to move cattle over from Argentina and at one time was big enough for a cart. The current trail is now heavily eroded from years of horse and cattle traffic with large erosional channels some as deep as twelve feet. We did not see anything like a water bar. A Forrest Service trail builder from the US would go into cardiac arrest here. We heard from the US scientists in Chaiten that this was common in Chile except for the famous parks like Torres del Paine. Interestingly some of the tourists from Europe and elsewhere thought the trail with the big gulleys were really cool. For all you male climbers out there there Cochamo has the added bonus that there are all these beautiful young chicas from wealthy families in Santiago that get escorted in on horse back to go camping, not with their parents but with girlfriends. I am not sure if they would have anything to do with poor climbers but hormones may prevail.
We see lots of "backpackers" in the towns often with enormous packs. We are not sure if they are actually backpackers as in trail hikers or if that is more of a way to travel cheap. There is not a lot of good camping gear available so it would not be hard to assemble an enormous backpack.
One thing that is a bit hard to deal with is the very loose schedule of shop keepers and buses. For instance we were told in Chiaten that there would be buses to Santa Lucia around when the ferry came in or the planes landed. The bus came at a totally different time and was actually timed to pick up the construction workers out on the highway at about three in the afternoon. The Internet cafe where i am at now has posted hours of being closed from two to three but today it was three to four. Sometimes little logistical issues like this can eat a fair amount of time up.
I only have a couple of more topics on my list. One is that the ferries into Patagonia from Puerto Montt are all booked for cars for months in advance. Some are booked for passengers for months in advance. When we went to take the ferry from Hornoperin we arrived first only to be told we would have to wait to see if there was room for bikes. There was of course room but only until we had the bikes on could we run back and buy ticket which was a little stressful. It will not be so bad next time now that we know what the "system" is. It is possible to get into Patagonia without using ferries on the Argentinean side.
Another topic we wanted to cover is the food. Most of the food including snacks are sold in much smaller quantities than the US. They typically are have much less added fat and salt. So say take a bag of peanuts, they do not add oil to them and they have less salt. The same goes for crackers and cookies. You do not eat those here and have Crisco lips like the US. We just had some chicken and it was much less fatty than US chicken as it was no doubt "free range". As a consequence there are very few morbidly obese people around. I can´t remember the last time i saw one. It is not uncommon to see chubby women but not ones that are 50 and 100 lbs overweight.
Speaking of life style the dogs here have it good. There are stray dogs everywhere and they did not look starved and often seemed very intelligent. Probably most are way more intelligent than most US dogs that are kept inside houses all day. I am sure if i asked our dogs how they would like it they would give a tails up for the free range lifestyle. The striking thing about these dogs is they seldom bark at anything except to occasionally communicated with other stray dogs around town.
I am now going to have a stab at posting some pictures as the set up here is good and the guy running it knows his stuff and some English......
We are in La Junta after taking a bus to Santa Lucia and riding south We had heard from a couple of bike tourists that the construction north of Santa Lucia was the hardest riding they had encountered since starting in Ushuaia (about as far south as you can go). That did not sound too appealing so we took the bus for about ten dollars each. La Junta is a nice town at the confluence of two major rivers. It is especially nice compared to the depressing chaos of Chaiten. From Santa Lucia it has been mostly downhill following the river with beautiful mountains the whole way. It is easier to account for where the scenery is not stunning than where it is. We made about 40k in four hours which is about as good as you can do on dirt roads with full loads. I could probably go a bit faster by myself but am glad i have a wife over fifty who can even do this. The roads are still dirt for a couple of more days but they are better than the dirt roads when we started riding them from Cochamo to Hornopiren which had more potato sized gravel and more traffic. More traffic equals more dust and more time spent on the side of the road. On a dirt road it helps to have the whole road to pick the smoothest parts. If the main roads ever become all paved the touring will be unbelievably good. The paved road from Puerto Montt to Rulun at the start was excellent with clear views of the Osorno Volcano.
It is the best scenery we have ever seen including the Canadian Rockies although the Sierras are right up there but less glaciers and vegetation. Really it is most similar to the north cascades only on a grander more continuous scale. The other difference would be that the standard of living is much lower and there is much less development. It is not uncommon to see some to die for view with a little ranch where the total materials of house and barn would not top a few thousand dollars if that. Most of the interior areas off the main roads in the mountains are totally untouched - no trails no nothing.
In Santiago the first world dichotomy between the rich and the poor that the the Chileans are proud of is very stunning. In contrast to the business men in suits in downtown Santiago there are vast slums or shanty towns. The difference between the rich and poor is far less in other parts of Chile. In an earlier post I said something about the Chilean preference for suits but that is just an urban thing. It is interesting to note that in two stand up comedy dvds we saw on a bus or ferry elsewhere the comedians had suits and ties on and much of the men in the DVD audience did as well. I guess humor is a suit and tie thing.
Camping is possible without paying all over the place and totally safe. You can clean off by taking a dip in a lake or river. There are a fair amount of mom and pop camping places as well where you sometimes will have electricity and hot water for typically about eight dollars a person less if it is just a place to put a tent. Although up until yesterday it has been sunny for three weeks which is very rare here. One person told us that the longest a local had seen uninterrupted sunny days was two weeks.
Speaking of camping part of camping is bugs. The first night we camped on a river there were these little biting gnats that only occupied the first foot or two off the ground. So every time you bent over they would bite your face and arms. Luckily we have not had any of those since. There have been these big horse flies but they are not too bad as you have some warning before they bite. They are however amazing in that you can hit them really hard on your arm and the often will fly away from that kind of like the warriors in video games etc. The climbers in Cochamo said they were up on the walls. Supposedly they only last a two or three weeks in the early summer. There do not seem to be any mosquitoes yet and I would rather have the dumb horse flys than mosquitoes.
Cochamo besides being beautiful was interesting for how different parts of the experience was from how it would be if it were in the US. The trail in was originally used to move cattle over from Argentina and at one time was big enough for a cart. The current trail is now heavily eroded from years of horse and cattle traffic with large erosional channels some as deep as twelve feet. We did not see anything like a water bar. A Forrest Service trail builder from the US would go into cardiac arrest here. We heard from the US scientists in Chaiten that this was common in Chile except for the famous parks like Torres del Paine. Interestingly some of the tourists from Europe and elsewhere thought the trail with the big gulleys were really cool. For all you male climbers out there there Cochamo has the added bonus that there are all these beautiful young chicas from wealthy families in Santiago that get escorted in on horse back to go camping, not with their parents but with girlfriends. I am not sure if they would have anything to do with poor climbers but hormones may prevail.
We see lots of "backpackers" in the towns often with enormous packs. We are not sure if they are actually backpackers as in trail hikers or if that is more of a way to travel cheap. There is not a lot of good camping gear available so it would not be hard to assemble an enormous backpack.
One thing that is a bit hard to deal with is the very loose schedule of shop keepers and buses. For instance we were told in Chiaten that there would be buses to Santa Lucia around when the ferry came in or the planes landed. The bus came at a totally different time and was actually timed to pick up the construction workers out on the highway at about three in the afternoon. The Internet cafe where i am at now has posted hours of being closed from two to three but today it was three to four. Sometimes little logistical issues like this can eat a fair amount of time up.
I only have a couple of more topics on my list. One is that the ferries into Patagonia from Puerto Montt are all booked for cars for months in advance. Some are booked for passengers for months in advance. When we went to take the ferry from Hornoperin we arrived first only to be told we would have to wait to see if there was room for bikes. There was of course room but only until we had the bikes on could we run back and buy ticket which was a little stressful. It will not be so bad next time now that we know what the "system" is. It is possible to get into Patagonia without using ferries on the Argentinean side.
Another topic we wanted to cover is the food. Most of the food including snacks are sold in much smaller quantities than the US. They typically are have much less added fat and salt. So say take a bag of peanuts, they do not add oil to them and they have less salt. The same goes for crackers and cookies. You do not eat those here and have Crisco lips like the US. We just had some chicken and it was much less fatty than US chicken as it was no doubt "free range". As a consequence there are very few morbidly obese people around. I can´t remember the last time i saw one. It is not uncommon to see chubby women but not ones that are 50 and 100 lbs overweight.
Speaking of life style the dogs here have it good. There are stray dogs everywhere and they did not look starved and often seemed very intelligent. Probably most are way more intelligent than most US dogs that are kept inside houses all day. I am sure if i asked our dogs how they would like it they would give a tails up for the free range lifestyle. The striking thing about these dogs is they seldom bark at anything except to occasionally communicated with other stray dogs around town.
I am now going to have a stab at posting some pictures as the set up here is good and the guy running it knows his stuff and some English......
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Chaiten update
We are in Chiaten and are ok. We have a lot of things to communicate but internet access is very limited. Currently we are borrowing a laptop from some American scientists here in Chaiten studying the natural recovery from the volcano. Other than that there are no internet cafes so I can't get too chatty. We did make it into Chochamo hiking which was great. Some of the dirt roads are very challenging which is too bad as the scenery is fantastic. When the roads are rough you have to have your eyes glued to the road. I have so much to relate but do not want to over extend our welcome here in this apartment. Hopefully we will have more time on the internet somewhere else. We feel very safe here for anyone who is worried. It is becoming more and more remote. The recent volcanic activity is nowhere near here although Chiaten was heavily damaged from a volcanic eruption with many empty houses and buildings. The volcano is very close by. We are planning on heading further south tomorrow. Again I have much more to communicate but can't use any more time here.
Tom
Tom
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Day 2 Santiago
After first going into the subway to change our second floor bus seat to the east side of the bus to look at the mountains tomorrow we went off in search of bike parts.
Most of the bike shops we were told about were in the vicinity the Alta Los Condes mall on the east end of town. Altogether we must have visited about 8 bike shops and only one of them had individual chain rings and not the right type. The bikes we have parts that are designed to be available internationally. Some of the bike shops had complete crank sets. We went to one place called the MallSport which is actually a modern mall only all the stores were sports related. They had some sort of wave water slide that you could surf on.
We took buses to get out to the bike shops and Laurie got to practice her Spanish. We were too cheap to take cabs but it was more of an adventure on the bus. We met quite a few people in the process. One of the guys we met said if you take a cab always pretend you have a GPS unit no matter what it is so as not to be overcharged. The buses were often jam packed with people leaning against the front door by the driver like sardines.
I had been forewarned that biking in Santiago would be crazy dangerous but there were lots of cyclists. Most of them were on the sidewalks. In retrospect I still think I would not have chosen to put the bikes together as it seemed like it would be a bit dangerous to do a crash course in bike survival in Santiago. The motorists are very horn happy here.
The Alta Los Condes mall was the place to get maps at the book stores. There is a map set by compass that looks like the ticket. That map set for 10 maps is about $160 dollars for most of the country but we only needed a few of them. Map number seven of the Camino Austral was particularly had to come by which of course is one of the most important ones we needed.
Some of this is geared toward bike tourists who might read this and need the info.
I have to pack for an early bus otherwise i would upload some pictures.
Tom
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Day 1 in Chile
We arrived in Santiago after a red eye flight from Los Angles. Luckily the flight was about half full so we could stretch out a bit. The first thing you notice when flying in to Santiago besides the beautiful mountains is the smog which is not unlike LA. It is pretty normal for it to be smoggy apparently.
The customs entry fee was $140 per person. If we had our old passports we may not have had to pay that as it lasts eight years (?) but we had brand new passports. It was interesting that the customs person would not take any bills that had even the slightest tear in them and neither would the taxi service at the airport. The Afex money changing service in Santiago took them all and didn't examine them at all curiously.
The bikes made it through fine thankfully except that I needed to put more protection on under the chain rings. Both chain rings had worn through the bottoms of the boxes and one of them probably needs to be replaced although for the largest chain ring we could probably get by without. There may not be parts if we change our mind. - Live and learn.
We ran into a climber in the Dallas airport who was headed to Chile. When we asked him about his plans he said he was heading to a climbing spot by the name of Cochamo just west of Puerto Montt to "put up some new routes". He said it was like the Yosemite of the southern hemisphere only you have to hike into it about twelve miles. We had never heard of it but are now pretty stoked to go there right away as we have changed our plans a bit in favor of starting further south to do the colder latitudes in the middle of the summer. The plan is now to take a bus to Puerto Montt. The buses are much nicer here than the US. For forty dollars we are on the second level of a bus with lazy boy type reclining seats. Back to the topic of Cochamo we happened to see a picture of it in a book store and it does indeed look like Sierra granite. There is supposed to be some sort of reserve there where we could potentially store the bikes for a hike. He mentioned natural water slides. This guy was a classic dirt bag climber who said he had worked in Oregon at an "agricultural" job in Jackson County. We quizzed him a bit about that and if you know anything about the economy in southwest Oregon you can take a guess at what kind of agriculture he was talking about. He was a real nice guy and we are very grateful we ran into him.
Back to Santiago even though I do not remember seeing so many people in black suits and ties we saw two people come very close to being hit by cars including a young mother pushing a stroller. You definitely get the impression that if you have any reason at all to wear a suit and tie you would of course do so. Also i noticed that very few men where baseball hats or hats in general. This may be becuase they all have such nice heads of hair to show off. The women seem to be predominantly dressed like they are right out of Cosmo. Ice cream cone eating seems to be very popular which looks odd for a downtown urban area all these people walking around with ice cream cones. Even though Santiago is smoggy the hotel we are at has one building that is covered with a living green wall. The rooms require you to have your room card in a socket so that the lights will work. When you leave the room all the lights go out when you pull your card out. I booked a room at the Intercontinental Hotel for about $35 on points. This is a fancy hotel with a hot tub in the room and all these door men in fancy suits and little hats.
Before I left the US I tried to get some information about the residual effects of the earthquakes in the last couple of years. One thing that I picked up on in the forums is that Chileans think of themselves as a first world country and are proud of that. Well maybe they are compared to many other Latin American countries. Downtown Santiago definitely qualifies as first world. One of the questions i had was what were the building standards they had to build to after the quakes. In the US buildings would have to be built to probably a higher standard than they were before with many inspections and red tape. When you fly into Santiago and drive into town from the airport you see many structures used as homes that obviously have never had anything approaching a building inspection, unlike in the US where practically every screw and nail gets inspected. In the US if you are poor you do not have the option of such low income housing instead you just get to be homeless, so there is a price to pay for those higher building standards.
I will blog a bit more in the morning. I did not accomplish quite as much as i had hopped due to having to figure out how to set the browser to return results in English instead of Spanish and figuring out the keyboard differences which are quite a few.
We are not using our US cell phones but instead bought trac phones here with calling cards. The instructions for the phones are in Spanish. I feel slighted a bit on that one for all the trouble the US goes to to accommodate Spanish speakers. The best way to buy minutes is to buy international calling cards and seperate minutes for local calls, at least that is the best advice we seemed to get.
Well - off for some supplies like current maps that are hard to come by. The downtown bookstores seem hermetically sealed for display only and all the books are in Spanish pretty much so do not plan on buying a guide book in English if you come here. We ran into that problem before when we left a guide book behind.
Tom
The customs entry fee was $140 per person. If we had our old passports we may not have had to pay that as it lasts eight years (?) but we had brand new passports. It was interesting that the customs person would not take any bills that had even the slightest tear in them and neither would the taxi service at the airport. The Afex money changing service in Santiago took them all and didn't examine them at all curiously.
The bikes made it through fine thankfully except that I needed to put more protection on under the chain rings. Both chain rings had worn through the bottoms of the boxes and one of them probably needs to be replaced although for the largest chain ring we could probably get by without. There may not be parts if we change our mind. - Live and learn.
We ran into a climber in the Dallas airport who was headed to Chile. When we asked him about his plans he said he was heading to a climbing spot by the name of Cochamo just west of Puerto Montt to "put up some new routes". He said it was like the Yosemite of the southern hemisphere only you have to hike into it about twelve miles. We had never heard of it but are now pretty stoked to go there right away as we have changed our plans a bit in favor of starting further south to do the colder latitudes in the middle of the summer. The plan is now to take a bus to Puerto Montt. The buses are much nicer here than the US. For forty dollars we are on the second level of a bus with lazy boy type reclining seats. Back to the topic of Cochamo we happened to see a picture of it in a book store and it does indeed look like Sierra granite. There is supposed to be some sort of reserve there where we could potentially store the bikes for a hike. He mentioned natural water slides. This guy was a classic dirt bag climber who said he had worked in Oregon at an "agricultural" job in Jackson County. We quizzed him a bit about that and if you know anything about the economy in southwest Oregon you can take a guess at what kind of agriculture he was talking about. He was a real nice guy and we are very grateful we ran into him.
Back to Santiago even though I do not remember seeing so many people in black suits and ties we saw two people come very close to being hit by cars including a young mother pushing a stroller. You definitely get the impression that if you have any reason at all to wear a suit and tie you would of course do so. Also i noticed that very few men where baseball hats or hats in general. This may be becuase they all have such nice heads of hair to show off. The women seem to be predominantly dressed like they are right out of Cosmo. Ice cream cone eating seems to be very popular which looks odd for a downtown urban area all these people walking around with ice cream cones. Even though Santiago is smoggy the hotel we are at has one building that is covered with a living green wall. The rooms require you to have your room card in a socket so that the lights will work. When you leave the room all the lights go out when you pull your card out. I booked a room at the Intercontinental Hotel for about $35 on points. This is a fancy hotel with a hot tub in the room and all these door men in fancy suits and little hats.
Before I left the US I tried to get some information about the residual effects of the earthquakes in the last couple of years. One thing that I picked up on in the forums is that Chileans think of themselves as a first world country and are proud of that. Well maybe they are compared to many other Latin American countries. Downtown Santiago definitely qualifies as first world. One of the questions i had was what were the building standards they had to build to after the quakes. In the US buildings would have to be built to probably a higher standard than they were before with many inspections and red tape. When you fly into Santiago and drive into town from the airport you see many structures used as homes that obviously have never had anything approaching a building inspection, unlike in the US where practically every screw and nail gets inspected. In the US if you are poor you do not have the option of such low income housing instead you just get to be homeless, so there is a price to pay for those higher building standards.
I will blog a bit more in the morning. I did not accomplish quite as much as i had hopped due to having to figure out how to set the browser to return results in English instead of Spanish and figuring out the keyboard differences which are quite a few.
We are not using our US cell phones but instead bought trac phones here with calling cards. The instructions for the phones are in Spanish. I feel slighted a bit on that one for all the trouble the US goes to to accommodate Spanish speakers. The best way to buy minutes is to buy international calling cards and seperate minutes for local calls, at least that is the best advice we seemed to get.
Well - off for some supplies like current maps that are hard to come by. The downtown bookstores seem hermetically sealed for display only and all the books are in Spanish pretty much so do not plan on buying a guide book in English if you come here. We ran into that problem before when we left a guide book behind.
Tom
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