I just looked a this at this blog for the first time after starting the final post. It's been five years. At least I have the same google account. I didn't realize that I hadn't finished the last post or published it. Here it is in all of its unfinished glory. Shitty grammar and all.
May 3, 2009
The last post of this blog. Ever.
I am home from my trip and I just want to update everyone on the places we forgot about at the end of the trip. Since the last post we went to Mendoza, via 18 hour bus ride. This bus ride was nice, as are all of the rides throughout Argentina.
We stayed at a nice Bed and Breakfast in downtown Mendoza, near many bars and restaurants. This city has to be one of my favorites we visited during the whole trip. Mendoza is a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. Its a real city with real character. It revolves around the wine industry and it shows. The sidewalks seem as wide as football fields with sidewalk dining at every restaurant and bar. It makes for a great afternoon and night time atmosphere that is truly Argentina.
We booked a bike rental for the following day after arriving and then set out on the city bus towards the Maipu Valley. The Maipu valley is a prominent grape growing region at the foot of the Andes that includes many huge international wineries. We chose Trapiche for our first tour and took off on our rickety old mountain bikes on the 15 minute ride down the "wine trail." We learned that the day we chose to go to wineries was a national holiday to remember the fallen soldiers during the war of the malvinas/falklands. In Argentina calling them the Falklands can get you your ass kicked. So most of the wineries were closed today but Trapiche gave us a tour anyways. It was us and four brits that were our age and knew nothing about wine. I don't know a whole lot about wine either but these people made me sound like an expert. I try to know enough about things like that so I don't embarrass myself around people more affluent than I am. We quickly became friendly with the tour guide and headed in to the tasting room. The tasting room was beautiful, all dark imported wood with a glass floor that showed through to the barrel aging cellar. We tried three wines first and then the guide got one of his friends to replace him and refill our glasses. Miguel, the replacement was cool. He immediately took a liking to the youth of our group and broke out a bottle of decade old port which we finished promptly. We were going to go to some other wineries after that but we just decided to go to a liquor factory and chocolate factory. It was plenty for one day.
The next day we headed to Santiago, Chile, which is just a 5 hour hop over the Andes by bus. There was a riot on the way where some locals had built a mountain of tires across the road and lit it on fire to block the interstate. This was a pretty amazing site so we snapped some pictures and the bus offroaded it around them among threats of vandalism by rock! We went by Portillo ski resort just over the border into Chile.
We only stayed in Santiago for one night because its such a horrible city. We met up with our dutch friend from Patagonia and headed for Valparaiso. Valpo is a great port city an hour and a half from Santiago. Its heyday was in the 1870-1920's and it showed. The whole city has been declared a world heritage site due to the character that seeps out of every crack in every building. The city is built on the banks of the bay and the residences are up on the hills overlooking the city. The urban part of the city is called "The Plan" and the residential areas are "The Cerros." For a mental picture think of California where the houses fall into the ocean, like Santa Cruz area. In order to get up the hills to the homes, 15 incline railways were built starting in 1880. All of them still run today and are really cool. The ride only lasts about 30 seconds to 2 minutes and the shake like hell and twist and turn all the way down the rails. We told our hostel owner that we had no interest in going to museums and that our tour of Valparaiso would be based on riding as many of the ascensores (ancient incline railways) as possible and eating as much seafood as possible. We did both of these things the first day and decided to take the subway to neighboring high class beach resort Viña del Mar the next day. When in Viña I kinda felt like I was in any other beach town in North America, aside from the enormous waves. It was really pretty but didn't have a whole lot of character.
We only stayed in Santiago for one night because its such a horrible city. We met up with our dutch friend from Patagonia and headed for Valparaiso. Valpo is a great port city an hour and a half from Santiago. Its heyday was in the 1870-1920's and it showed. The whole city has been declared a world heritage site due to the character that seeps out of every crack in every building. The city is built on the banks of the bay and the residences are up on the hills overlooking the city. The urban part of the city is called "The Plan" and the residential areas are "The Cerros." For a mental picture think of California where the houses fall into the ocean, like Santa Cruz area. In order to get up the hills to the homes, 15 incline railways were built starting in 1880. All of them still run today and are really cool. The ride only lasts about 30 seconds to 2 minutes and the shake like hell and twist and turn all the way down the rails. We told our hostel owner that we had no interest in going to museums and that our tour of Valparaiso would be based on riding as many of the ascensores (ancient incline railways) as possible and eating as much seafood as possible. We did both of these things the first day and decided to take the subway to neighboring high class beach resort Viña del Mar the next day. When in Viña I kinda felt like I was in any other beach town in North America, aside from the enormous waves. It was really pretty but didn't have a whole lot of character.
We headed back to Santiago after that where we would have one more night with Florentyn. We had previously decided that this night we would have a Chorillano. This is a Chilean meal that will probably be the reason why Chileans are fatter than Americans in the near future. We saw them everywhere and everyone ate them regularly. A chorillano is a massive plate of french fries covered with layers of cheese, fried egg, grilled onion, and chunks of steak and topped with hot sauce. It basically sounds like my kind of culinary sexual dream. So we ate the Chorillano and then went out and had too much wine.
The next leg of the trip was terribly boring. We had to bus it all the way to Cuzco. This took 50 hours in 3 busses and a '95 crown vic! Busses in Peru are f***ing scary. They drive as fast as possible no matter what the roads look like. We finally made it to Cuzco with 5 days to hang out in order to acclimate to the hellacious altitude. At least this time we knew what to expect with the altitude and food. We decided to spend every bit of the money we had left on food. We ate at 5 star restaurants every night for the rest of the trip. Some of my favorite meals were the Alpaca Tenderloin with a spicy Quinoa risotto and a nice Seared Tuna with a quinoa and polenta cake. Both of these meals were $10. I love Peru prices. Quinoa is a great grain that is native to the northern Andes. You can find it in Harris Teeter and most yuppie grocery stores. Think about trying it as a grain replacement. I like it for breakfast served like oatmeal with banana chunks!
So we started the inca trail a couple days later where we'd hike for 4 days and end up at Machu Picchu. Our guide was amazing. His name was Freddy and he was mega addicted to chewing coca leaves. There were 10 hikers in our group along freddy, 15 porters to carry tents and gear, and a certified chef with squinty eyes that they called chinese david.
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