aussie girl

Cordoba

kaitlyn — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:56:00 GMT

From here we arrived in Cordoba, which is a big student town with lots of universities. It is a really nice city with really great people. The first day we of course went to the city centre to have a look around. Chrissy had never been here so it was new for her too, but she knew that her mum and her aunty went to Cordoba to study. Cordoba was discovered, or should I say colonialised in the early 1600s so the architecture is just amazing. There is a lot of French and German influence in the architecture, and Cordoba seems to be slightly more Italian than the other cities we have been to. Not in the appearance of the city but the culture. It is very family orientated and also I was told by a local that a lot of people speak Italian and Spanish. I found Cordoba to be a cocktail of Mediterranean culture, western European influence, Argentinean flair and this all created this amazingly inviting city. I really loved it. I would love to go to study here if given the opportunity, but in the very least go back and live there for a while. There is a lot of tourism in Cordoba because it is quite a big place, and there is so much to do in and out of the city.

The people at the hostel Patagonia where we stayed really made our stay amazing. There was Peter the Japanese- American who was an engineer who hated engineering and started his own internet company, Catherine from Leeds in London who was really nice, the two Danish boys Chris and Chris (Christian and Christopher) who were both hilarious and very good looking, the two Germans Steph who was so shy, people would think she was mute and Martin who Crissy and Gemma adored because he was so good looking. Then there were the three Mexicans who lived in the hotel Oscar, Alan and Nicholas. Oscar didn’t work and didn’t study and spent most of his days just watching tv and sleeping, Alan studied marketing and spoke really good English so gemma liked him the best for that reason, and Nicco was weird. The only English word he knew was ‘woops’ so he said woops to everything. Actually he said woops to everything in Spanish too. This is the place where my Spanish really improved. Everyone here was just so chilled and mellow, which is really the whole personality of Cordoba to be honest, that we just watched English tv with Spanish subtitles and hung out with the owner of the hostel – who didn’t speak English and his brothers who did but ran Spanish schools for people who wanted tuition.

One day the girls were going shopping, for a change, and I decided to stay at home with the other guys in the hostel, for lack of money. Later on the owners of the hostel decided to go to his other house in Carlos paz, which is outside Cordoba city and a really beautiful place to go. He invited all his friends and the people of the hostel to come so I decided to go along and do something. This was my first conversation with Spanish speakers that Crissy wasn’t present for, so at first I was feeling a bit hesitant to talk to anyone in Spanish, but as no other option presented itself I was forced to. For this reason I am really glad that I went to the BBQ despite the girls not being there because it launched me into an area where I really started to make, and more importantly, hold conversations. We talked about interesting things too, but during this week my Spanish improved so much. Before now I wouldn’t have said I made any astounding improvements but this was the best because people could understand me and thought that I spoke well… or so they said.

So we went swimming and had a parrilla. Pablo, the owner of the hotel was going back to the hostel and offered to give me a lift back, because it was a 45 minute bus ride back otherwise. Later on he rang us and invited the three of us to have dinner with him and his friends and go out to a night club after. This nightclub was so fun. There were so many people but in some weird way that made it better. We danced all night until 6.30 when it closed, then everyone goes to ‘after hours clubs’ from 6.30 til about 10 or 11 in the morning. Its absolute craziness.

The three of us went back to Carlos Pas the next day with Pablo and just spent a few hours by the pool ‘taking sun’ as is the literal translation of sunbaking. Then we went to lunch and out again that night. It was a really fun, chilled place where you felt that you could just … be. I don’t know it’s hard to explain. But I really loved it and everyone there.

Cippoletti / Bariloche

kaitlyn — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:50:00 GMT

After Mendoza we went to cipoletti to spend time with chrissy’s aunti and uncle. Cipolletti is a small town where pretty much everyone knows every one. Chrissy’s aunti Lena was the most talkative and animated women I have ever met… she was probably really funny, I say probably because this woman talked so quickly she didn’t even take a breath. We did manage to have conversations after I begged her to stop talking so quickly, after all I had only been in South America for two weeks or so, I’m good but not that good. She was so excited to have us that the morning we arrived she put on a special breakfast, that night a really good asada, which is really good quality meat cooked on the parrilla (par- rish- ja ) and she arranged for some local boys that she knew to take us out. The boys were really nice, one spoke good English and the other two didn’t speak any; one because he was too shy and the other because he never listened in class and was probably too lazy to speak in English. This first night that we went out was so so so exhausting because it was all in Spanish… gemma was less than amused falling asleep in the pub from boredom… I thought it was funny.

The next night they put on another big feast (meat of course) and then after they took us to another night club and we danced cumbia and regatón which are types of dances that I hadn’t danced before, it was great fun!

Here because we were going out and eating so much we had pretty restful days, plus because it is a small town everything, EVERYTHING closes for siesta from 12 to 5/5.30 everyday. It is such a breezy place to live. Generally you start work at 9 or 10, go home at 12 have lunch sleep for four or so hours and then go to work for 4 hours till 9, but in cipolletti most things closed at 8. Basically no one works. It’s great especially if you hate your job.

From Cipolletti they drove us to Bariloche, which is south in the middle of the Andes and the coastline, and in the winter operates as a major ski city. In the middle of summer it was freeeeezing! Seriously cold as in there was snow in some parts.

It is a major tourist area, so there was a lot to do. The first day that we got there we decided to go for a walk around the city centre, a tradition we had adopted as our first point of reference for discovering cities, however as none of us had taken our suitcases (we left them in Cippolletti because we were going back there after the week in Bariloche) we had NO warm clothes just lots of tee-shirts, jeans and a sweater, and we very quickly decided that walking along the water was a terrible idea and escaped to the haven of a highly recommended restaurant, where the three of us had salmon- the best salmon of my life or at least close to it.

That night we went out to a pub and then to a night club with a few people that we had met in our hostel. In the club we got a bucket- literally- of a red cordial tasting concoction. This was the biggest club it was like 5 different levels all decorated in a different way and playing different music. It was awesome. We got home at like 6 or 7 that morning. We were meant to be going horse riding at 8, and we had every intention of going even when we got home in the morning, but it was just when the alarm went off half an hour later that horse riding was such a less then attractive option, especially to chrissy who felt that she was obliged to finish the last 16^th of the bucket of alcohol, which may not sound like a lot or look like a lot at the time but was apparently about 4 drinks worth… so we missed it. The lady from the front desk woke us up at 12 less than amused that we missed the horse riding with the request that we actually go to the massages that we booked for that afternoon (we think the reason she was angry at us was that we paid our deposit for the horse riding and for some reason she decided to be really angry about the fact we didn’t go… its not an exciting job working at the desk of a hostel so I can understand her need for some drama, even if artificially stimulated).

In Bariloche we also climbed to the top of the ski fields, a four hour trek up so quite a feat in itself!! Well technically we climbed two mountains. Again, every easy task has some big great adventure to go with it, so here it is. The reason that we wanted to climb the mountain in the first place was, well actually that is a definite point of contention because I still don’t even understand the compulsion behind wanting to climb up a mountain, but what is more one that is covered in snow?! But I suppose the reason for it was that I had this long conversation with this really great girl from Melbourne, or Sydney… same same. She had been travelling since she was 19 or so and since graduating from uni hadn’t been back in Australia (6 or 7 years) and she had all these fantastic stories. Basically she made climbing mountains sound really romantic. She said its impossible to travel constantly and do expensive things all the time and hiking is good exercise, you get the reward of the view from the top, its fun, lets you get in touch with nature blah blah blah...

Now here is the story: The day we went we were so pumped and we set and ready to go hiking we got up early and everything, (well it still took chrissy dear about 45 minutes to get up but she did). So yes we actually got up early to climb the mountain, it really was an event. She said it would take about 5 hours up and 3 down and she gave us directions of what bus to take to get to the mountain. Chrissy asked a lady for directions to the bus station and we were off. The hill was so so so steep but we soldiered on, so to speak, despite christina’s constant complaining starting two minutes into the hike. When we got to the top in half an hour we were very confused. Either we were very good or this girl was really really slow, but we knew that wasn’t the case because she is the professional – definitely NOT us! HELLO she has hiking boots and one of those professional walking sticks, when she showed me I had to stop myself laughing and asking why she didn’t just use a stick – they are free?. Anyway so we knew something was wrong!! Turns out that when Christina asked for the bus stop she just asked where a bus stop was, and seeing on this one particular intersection there are five different bus stations it is surprising we took the wrong bus. So to cut a long story short we got on the wrong bus and climbed the wrong mountain!! We didn’t mind so much because it was still an amazing view from the top. However when we were coming down this man from the tourist shop, told us to go down to the left where the chairlift was, not to the right where the signs indicated to go. We adopted a stray dog at the top, or more correctly he adopted us, we followed it as there was no path. Very quickly we discovered this was not the right way to go as it was dangerous, no path and very steep. Chrissy then admitted she didn’t actually listen to the man but when he pointed she just decided to walk that way, and most likely what he said was HELP OUT MY BUSINESS PAY TO TAKE THE CHAIRLIFT DOWN, while he pointed to it. So instead of going down the ‘path’ we all basically fell our way down, which was about as much fun as it sounds. Eventually we came to a private property with massive signs warning about savage dogs, not a risk we were willing to take. So we had to try and trek back up the mountain to get out back to the road or to a path. Eventually we did but we were so buggered we were about done with the hiking for that day and really didn’t give a shit that we climbed the wrong mountain.

The next day we decided to attempt it again. This time we went with an American girl from our hostel, called Brooks ‘yes with an s’ Hays. She was so lovely and interesting. She was on exchange from Georgetown University in Washington and going to a University in Buenos Aires, but decided to come to Bariloche during her study break /holidays, time well spent if you ask me. This time we were determined to get the right bus, well we think we got the right bus because web still don’t know if we climbed the right mountain or not, but we did take 4.5 hours to climb it so it was a good effort anyway. We took a picnic up and ate lunch at the top however as it was not ski season none of the restaurants were open and we had to sit out in the freezing cold with few clothes on eating our delicious gourmet hamper! If the food wasn’t so good and if the trek wasn’t so rigorous we may have ignored our appetites and fled from the cold. A good adventure anyhow.

Eventually we did end up going horse riding, and we witnessed some of the most beautiful, most picturesque scenery that I have ever seen. In some ways Bariloche reminded me of Queenstown, because it was so green everywhere; and also because everything looked like it had been tinted in an ice blue overshade to enhance all the natural beauty. Actually this is the place where Disney came to draw Bambi. We wanted to go to the actual place where Bambi lived, well the place where Disney drew Bambi living but the barges weren’t running for a reason, I can’t remember or I didn’t understand to begin with.

Also we went canyoning, which is basically like a flying fox with a harness through the trees in the mountains. It was great so much fun, but I think its better for school camps, probably because your younger and think its scarier or more fun or something I don’t know why….

When leaving Bariloche to return to Cippolletti to get our bags, we pushed our tradition of arriving at the bus station minutes before the bus leaves to the very second it was leaving. We jumped on the bus as it was pulling out of the station. Why? Well we were making a pizza 15 minutes before our bus left of course and then we had to wait for it to cook. That is clearly a logical thing to have done, especially as the bus provides food!! Oh it is non stop excitement I swear!!

Then back to cipolletti to grab our bags have one more night with the boys, and ice cream in the afternoon: yeah they loved us!

Mendoza

kaitlyn — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:48:00 GMT

23^rd November 2007

We either attract or cause a lot of chaos the way we travel because it always seems to be a nightmare to get anywhere on time and in one piece. Today we were leaving for Mendoza, Argentina. For some reason we thought we had all the time in the world to get to the bus station by 8.30 to catch the 9.00 bus to Mendoza, that is the only bus to Mendoza. By 8.30 we still hadn’t left our hotel and Chrissy was freaking out and to make matters worse we were leaving in peak hour traffic. We arrived at the bus station and ran to the bus catching it with three minutes to spare, if you ask me it was perfect timing… no waiting and no hassles! I don’t actually know the reasons we feel we have to continually push the limits to how close we can cut it for time… but apparently the stakes are pretty high because we cut it finer and finer every day!!

Anyway not to worry … we made it and that’s all that counts. It was at this point that this ‘surfer type’ Canadian asked me where we were from… unfortunately this conversation was wasted on me as the girls were the ones who thought they were hot I was just standing there. We spoke for the whole three minutes we had before we needed to board the bus. The bus ride from Vina to Mendoza was 8 hours long on really very uncomfortable seats with no ‘in flight entertainment’ which made it the longest 8 hours of our trip so far. Actually my in flight entertainment was watching the reasons the Canadian boys came up with to come and talk to gemma and chrissy. My favourite was when he came and asked Gemma and Chrissy if they had any reading material as he just finished his own book. They didn’t and said that I did… oh poor boy… as if it wasn’t already obvious enough that he didn’t come down here to ask to borrow ‘reading material’! Out of pity I gave him my book, which was girly and I knew he wouldn’t read but was all I had. I pre- warned him that he wouldn’t like it which he used to his advantage by standing there leaning on gemma’s chair reading the blurb and the first page. I believe, that somehow this boy had redeemed himself and he was back in the game! When it finally became too difficult to impress the girls and stand on a bus and of course when he ran out of a legitimate excuse to continue to read standing up on a moving vehicle he went back to his seat. To cut a long story short when we arrived in Mendoza at 5 pm that day, the boys asked us to meet them at 10 pm that night for dinner. The only monument that we all knew was ‘plaza independencia’ so we decided to meet there.

When we arrived at hotel Lao we were so excited, it was the best hostel ever! It had free wireless and computers, hammocks, a pool, tv with foxtel in English and Spanish, free breakfast and kitchen facilities, nice bathrooms and bedrooms and best of all awesome people. We booked in and decided to look around the city. Also we were starving so at 5.30 we went to a pasta place that Mike (the owner) recommended to us. It was fantastic however hilarious as we were the only three people eating dinner in ‘the afternoon’. When we finished we walked around a little more and then got lost… of course as we had no map and were hoping our memory would serve us and no it didn’t…

By 10.00pm we were rushing to leave the hostel for dinner, having no idea where plaza independecia was. At 10.15 we arrived at the largest public park I have ever seen, for those playing at home probably bigger than the size of the entire newfarm park but packed with people everywhere. MASSIVE. Finally after about another 20 mins we found them, and we were all starving. Our waiter was really good, he learnt all our names and told us that the movie ‘Ten Years in Tibet’ with Brad Pitt was filmed in Mendoza, and that he was in it as one of the monks. He must tell this story a lot because he kept a photo album of it in the restaurant. Argentina is famous for its beautiful meat so we all ordered steak and they were fabulous. Because everything was so cheap we all ordered cocktails and wine and we all got funnier and happier as the night went on. We asked our waiter where a good place to go out was… to cut a long story short we were told if we went to an Irish pub across the road have a few drinks he was going out and would take us. We all had $1 tequila shots at the Irish pub and were well and truly set on our way for happy town!

SORRY I really should explain our waiter… well, he was about 45, massive bear gut, military cut, Asian/Argentinean and most likely bi as he was hitting on the boys just as much as us. Nice waiter, but sleeziest guy to hang around socially basically. We all worked this out quickly, and once he got us all in for free we made haste to get rid of him.

While I was inside the ‘discoteca’ this guy came up to me and shoved a bottle of alcohol into my face, apparently asking if I wanted some and chipping my tooth in the process. I told gemma, but she was too drunk or too gemma to care and so I decided that I would deal with it tomorrow after I went to the bathroom and realised it wasn’t that big of a chip… plus what dentist is open at 4 am?

We had such a good night, some (particularly gemma- who kissed Dylan the blond) better than others. I danced salsa and regatón and crazy and sexy and then danced myself out at about 5 am! Chrissy again was the drunkest and needed to be taken home so we all left at around 5/5.30!

Great night to cap off a day of travel!

24^th November 2007

We made plans with Dylan and Ray (the Canadian hotties) to rent bikes and do a wine tour at dinner the night before…. We were supposed to meet at 9 in the park again… however we were woken up – by Dylan – at 10 due to the fact that we missed this little deadline. We showered and ate breakfast and then caught the bus out to Maipu where all the vinarias / wineries are! Much to chirssy’s despair Ray had already made plans with a girl called Hilary from their hostel to go with her, and as we slept well past 9 we missed them, however we did plan to meet up with them later.

We knew that we shouldn’t do the tours that are run out here as you pay exorbitant prices and its way less fun because you have to stick to a schedule and time slot for everything… so we found this place that rented out old school bikes for 15 pesos a day (5 bucks people!) and just found whatever wine tours were on! Firstly we just rode around on our bikes doing tricks and enjoying the sun – plus it was a little early in my books to be drinking so much. Our first tour was a chocolate and liqueur factory. They enabled us one free shot of liqueur and then after that you had to pay and to ‘chase’ we had a piece of homemade chocolate and both were amazing. Gemma was suffering severly from what she called ‘bike sickness’ known more commonly by the general public as a hang over. The sight of more alcohol was making her even sicker so she didn’t buy any liqueurs. Chirssy and I bought a dulce de leche one – which is a big deal in Argentina and tastes similar to a milky and rich caramel and very very sweet, as the name suggests. Literally translated it means sweet milk – but its more like sweet condensed milk as it is thick. This liqueur was based on this, but luckily wasn’t so sweet and was just to die for.

We were not allowed to drink the alcohol inside the ‘tasting’ room so we went outside to the driveway to ‘taste’ our purchases. There was a big piece of beef roasting slowly on the bbq and we decided to sneakily cut some off and eat it. In the process being caught! We all jumped on our bikes and raced away so we didn’t have to pay for it… the meat was so good we all wanted to go back and risk stealing more. Unfortunately we didn’t. The next place we went to was a wine museum with free tastings however it was closed for siesta. The next destination was a vina about a half an hour’s ride away. By this time we started getting drunk as the ‘tastings’ were a lot more generous then the others- oh and also we were all drinking beer on the bike ride between vinas. And we all had drunk a small bottle of liqueur to ourselves… Chirssy fell off her bike… literally this time… twice! Good effort there love!

The cars absolutely hated us because we had to drive on the road due to lack of footpaths or any other place to ride but the road. Some frustrated locals made good fun out of getting as close to us as was possible without killing… we were drunk so we thought this was hilarious. Anytime a slow driving car drove past we all tried to race it … kinda like dogs actually!!

By this time it was around 5/6 pm so we bought ham, salami cheese bread and biscuits from a corner shop on the way home to have a picnic lunch as we were STARVING!

Today was so fun! Mendoza has the most spectacular scenery; I pretended I was from a movie all day because it was a day exactly like the one in wedding crashers where they ride the bikes in between the big trees. The Andes and the vinas and the spectacular day made it so much more picturesque and the highlight of the trip so far.

We returned our bikes and with sore bums and a lot of disorientation had to walk back to the bus. We got home – after getting lost on the bus and having to catch a second bus back (we are not so good with the direction thing) at about 8 and packed and got ready to go midnight water rafting.

We left at 8.30 with about 8 other people who were all really great. There was the Norwegian couple Guia and Ingrid, Richard and Harriet who were from London, the three Irish girls and another girl from England, we were all petrified about how freezing cold it was going to be in the water! All we could do was console ourselves by knowing a parrilla was following the rafting.

We did some initial training and instructions with our guide who didn’t speak much English so his basic response to every question we had was ‘just take it easy’. ‘What if we fall out of the boat?” ‘Take it easy’ ‘what if we aren’t strong enough to pull the overboard person back into the boat?’ “Take it easy”…. Anything could happen and all we had to do was ‘take it easy’. The wetsuits were full body and nice and warm however we knew that if any water got in them we would be screwed… and we were right. The water was like ice… literally! The river water was ice which had melted from the Andes … and yes it was a little chilly. You can’t swim in any of the water here because it is all freezing melted ice water.

Despite the fact that during and for a long while after the raft I couldn’t feel my hands or my face, it was so much fun and so cool to do it at night under the full moon. Even the moon in itself was a sight to see, I have never seen a full moon that low or big before. One of the Irish girls suggested that it is because the Australian moon is upside down and that it must be smaller that way….I didn’t really know how to respond to that idiocrasy so when I realised she was serious I just said ‘Probably never thought of it that way at all!!”

After showing and warming up we had a Parilla (par- rish- ja) which is an Argentinean tradition of roasting cuts of meat on the grill/bbq and served in a specific way. It was really good… eventually this black sausage thingy came round and many people were refusing it. I took some, Guia told me to taste with caution and chrissy said I probably wouldn’t like it- I didn’t know why so I ate it anyway and it was nice, different to anything I have tasted before like not my favourite thing but I still really enjoyed it… then they told me what it was. Don’t you hate that? Knowing always ruins everything, always! It was blood- pure blood put in sausage form.

After we finished dinner we all sat around the fire as it was so cold. There was a party on but as we had only gotten four hours sleep and it was already four o’clock we decided to give it a miss and just go home and SLEEP!

VINA DEL MAR

kaitlyn — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:29:00 GMT

22^nd November 2007

Today was chilly again but we decided we would still stick to the plan of going to the beach. We got up around ten, so we went to the hotel restaurant to have b/fast because it was already included and then got the directions to go to the nicest beach by bus- after all we’re not millionaires. The bus ride was actually really long- close to an hour and once we got to the beach we realized why one- no one was on the beach and two why those who were walking along it had jumpers and long pants on – it was freezing. On the beach however it was really hot the sand and the sun because we were able to escape the freezing cold wind. We sun baked for a few hours – you are not allowed to swim in the water because it is pacific water and ice berg cold and also no life guards and something about if you go swimming no matter who you are you will die with the water rips and things… so funnily enough we didn’t go swimming. After a few hours of baking ourselves we decided to go shopping/ get something to eat. However we decided this, as per usual in siesta time so nothing was open. Eventually we found a seafood restaurant and realizing we weren’t actually hungry and that we just wanted to eat just got one salmon to share and three pisco sours- which is a Chilean ‘alcoholic beverage’. They were so nice we got another each. Finally when we left the restaurant, we went in search for a bottle shop to get some pisco sour. The lady in the store asked us if we wanted to drink it on the beach, and the three of us didn’t know what to say, of course that was our objective but in Australia if they ask you that they deny you sale… well here they give you glasses and ice so you CAN drink it on the beach. We spent the rest of the afternoon drunk on the beach watching the sunset. When it started to get cold again we decided to go back to our hotel room and go out…Dinner tonight was on Chrissy’s dad so we got dressed up all pretty to go out to a nice restaurant and have a good feed. However not that many places accepted visa so we ended up choosing the dodgiest Chinese restaurant buffet… the food was disgusting the wine was like vinegar and the cocktails were untouchable… all in al we had a good meal I think…. Ewe! The only good thing about this dinner was the eye candy… there were these four really hot guys, well three really hot guys and a dad at the table behind us. Chrissy and Gemma stared and told me their every move all night (I was sitting with my back to them and the other two were facing them). Eventually they left so we decided that because we were already drunk from today and again from dinner that we should go out however, again, the night life was less than amusing, and gemma was less than excited, so we ended up coming home freezing and watching more movies…. Which may have been more amusing in the first place anyway.

VINA DEL MAR

kaitlyn — Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:26:00 GMT

22^nd November 2007

Today we woke up early, packed and got ready to leave Santiago for Vina, 2 hours south of Santiago. For some reason this morning was really hectic at the hostel. Many people were checking in and we were checking out. Graciela and her husband (can’t remember his name) were running around like headless chooks. They lost our sheet with all our hotels and quotes and deposits on it, so he was looking for this everywhere, she was trying to fit people into an overbooked hostel and have a shower and look after her little boy- the cutest thing in the world. No breakfast was put out (normally breakfast was out by 8 am and we were all sitting eating it) and we needed to leave and be at the bus station by 9. It wasn’t looking good. We paid and asked for a taxi. While we were waiting Graciela – on the last day in Santiago- decided to tell us it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea to wear such short shorts because and I quote ‘all the men are animals’... ‘all of the women can’t wear shorts because they are short and fat.’ She explained that there is a café that says coffee and legs because the men go to the cafes to look at the women’s legs when they cross them or sit down – apparently they loved our western culture and our legs. She warned us about a lot of things that we would see in the poorer places that we were going to. She knew a lot of things and her English was really good so Gemma could understand her. They were really lovely people at the ‘Santiago Hostel’- if anyone wants to go we recommend it. Its no glamorous but you will have a good time. Graciela’s advice would have been appreciated on the first day, versus when we were leaving, but we did notice as we were leaving that the women didn’t wear anything short and it really was just us.

While at breakfast we met these two girls from Rio who arrived that night. They were going to Vina for the day but coming back to Santiago. We exchanged email addresses because she loves Aus and of course we love Rio- despite having never been there before.

Finally we left Santiago and arrived in Vina. We went inside the bus terminal first to buy our tickets to Mendoza, Argentina as we were leaving Vina in two days. While organizing the tickets with the operator, a crazy homeless man came up to us and started talking crazy talk that no one understood. We all grabbed our stuff so quickly we were flashes of light. Our best efforts to ignore him didn’t really make him go away and the security guard was called to ‘escort’ him outside. After this little obstacle we left for the hotel checked in. We had to wait ten minutes for our room to finish being cleaned, and during the wait we met some Americans from Louisiana and Pennsylvania. I told them that we were Australians. They replied with ‘yeah there are so many European tourists here… I really want to go to Australia I love Europe.’ …. WHAT?!?!?! ‘oh no I said AUS TRA LI A! not Austria.’…. ‘oh yeah we know it its near New Zealand and Switzerland… great place, we really want to go there next.’ Well good luck finding the Aus and NZ next to Switzerland you idiots…. My god I love Americans they make the rest of the world so much smarter don’t they? After this hilarious conversation we changed into warm clothes, because despite being warm and at the beach it had a freezing wind factor which apparently made the temperature 12 degrees.

We took a walk around the city, and had some lunch at a pizza place called Pepe’s pizza. The pizzas were amazing; we wanted seconds of the largest slices of pizza you will ever see… we decided not to not gorge ourselves but to save some of our dignity. We took a walk around the city and ended up at some more markets with stalls of different things. We all bought jewelry for pretty cheap prices. We kept walking and saw some horse drawn carriages- which we couldn’t pass up. We decided to buy half an hour on them. We saw the casino, the town square and the museum… all which still had that French influence. It was at this point that Chrissy recognized the photos from Perez as the town that Kylie escaped to with her married Chilean lover….which made her feel really famous and special… don’t know why we tried to tell her she wasn’t kylie but she didn’t care. The carriage took us to the beach and past these amazing castles – these ones of German heritage and they were amazing… very ‘sound of music’ (doesn’t matter that it is actually Austrian- its all the same general region). The carriage driver had no teeth and ripped us off by only giving us 15 mins and saying we could stay on the beach and have fun – sleezy Chilean. We then walked along the beach and got some gelati- not as good as the gelati from Santiago but still pretty damn good gelati. Yes yes we are quite fat and timetable our day around eating. We wanted to see the castles close up, but unfortunately we missed the visiting hours so we just peered in and made up our own stories.

We walked around the city for a few more hours – trying to delude ourselves that we werent’ lost… finally we found this cool little café with happy hour cocktails – so we couldn’t pass them up and therefore chilled out for a few more hours me trying to talk Spanish to them and them hitting on us all woo good times…. We asked them where to go out in Vina and we went home to get changed and go…. All I can say is anti climax. The football was on, some big south American tournament so everyone was smoking and fixated on the game- no salsa, flamenco or dancing of any kind. We decided we would be more interested snuggled up in our hotel room watching television we were interested in. so that was our big debut… we planned to make it better the next time. However the English voices and Spanish subtitles was really good for helping me pick up how they would say certain things in Spanish and so all was not lost – in fact a lot of education was found.

22^nd November 2007

Chile- Santiago

kaitlyn — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:41:00 GMT

18^th November 2007

After KL we stopped over in South Africa in Jo-berg and Cape Town. Didn’t get to go outside but talked to lots of SA people and got lots of photos of the airport for Alex.

19^th November 2007

Arrived in Santiago at midnight and went straight to bed.

20^th November 2007

The first day in Santiago we went to the city center and looked around the markets. Here we were taken notice of because we were white, but particularly by the men and DEFINITELY NOT due to their hatred towards us. We walk down the street and men stop their cars or hang out of them and make these amazingly loud kissing noises and whistle at us. We would walk past men on the steets and they would shout “hola chicas bonitas como estas?” ( Hello beautiful girls how are you.) It really is tiresome being so good looking and having men from every direction throw themselves on you. It’s very strange. They have no boundaries. If a lady is single here there really is something wrong with her because the men are like animals. They go crazy for any women. The open loving and public affection truly is disgusting. It is almost like all the women are going to fall off the face off the earth so they need to get as much loving as they can in before this happens. Actually it’s not loving its sexing and it’s repulsive. My god the men are sleezy and there is not that much talent AT ALL.

To get to the city we had to take the metro and on the way people stared at us like they were at the zoo looking at monkeys for the first time. I asked a few men, in Spanish, why they were staring at me; they either reply that you are very beautiful or were so taken aback that I was alive that they turned around and didn’t look back unless they thought I wasn’t looking. I still haven’t worked out if I like or detest all this attention. I seem to think it is ill deserved but they are definitely persistent.

Santiago is really beautiful, and vibrant with people and culture and shopping and vending everywhere. While in the city centre we went to the cathedral and it was the most amazing architecture I have ever seen. It is so large, so large in fact that for daily mass they hold it in a beautiful side chapel, however there are more than the one smaller chapels off the side to the main cathedral. The photos could never surmount to how amazing it was. I felt bad taking photos but I really did have to it is that amazing. It was decorated in the Spanish style with a lot of French influence, just like all of the houses and the whole atmosphere of the town, which has a lot of French influence in the architecture, which makes Santiago really appealing and unique. I don’t know how the French became such a big influence in the city, but it must have been the French contesting the Spanish invasion of south America because it is distinctly French in places. The combination of the Chilean and French styles is really stunning and like nothing you would see anywhere else. The cathedral is just so beautiful that we stayed and said a prayer even.

After this we left and we looked around the markets and a few other tourist spots, we walked to a mountain called San Christovcal in walking distance to the city centre. The mountain was so beautiful at the top and we could see over the city and to the Andes. Halfway up there was a zoo but we didn’t go in. The tram to the top left at one o’clock and we had 45 mins to wait before we could go to the top so we decided to have lunch at a restaurant at the bottom of the hill. Gemma had a little trouble ordering seeing she couldn’t read the menu or understand el mesero (waiter). We ended up getting two Chilean dishes and sharing them. One was chicken and the other meat eggs and chips- doesn’t sound that Chilean but it’s the way they do it that is. I stupidly ordered a café con leche, which should be a latte. However, and if I had taken any notice of the way the lady at our hostel drank her coffee every morning I would have noticed that it is warm milk with instant coffee and sugar stirred in. alternatively it may have been another Chilean pursuit to rip us off, as there was a coffee machine in the restaurant. With no time to refuse and not wanting to be rude I ended up with coffee and warm milk. At first it was very disgusting but after a few sips it was ok but not something I will be changing to. While we were eating our lunch, a couple came in to ask for coffee and they sat outside. The lady came in to pay for the bill, deciding she would not drink this version of his coffee. She started talking to us. She was the most amazing women I/we have ever spoken to in our life. She was Portuguese however grew up in a boarding school and was raised by Spanish nuns and therefore spoke Spanish really well. She lives in England now and therefore speaks flawless English and she also speaks French and Italian. She used to work for the Portuguese chamber of commerce and has traveled to many many countries in the world. Also because her husband works for an insurance company his clients are all over the world and she therefore travels with him as well. She was telling us all this interesting history about South America and also Australia and everywhere really. She knew so much. They both recently retired and are just traveling now- have been for three months and are planning to just keep moving between each continent. We were all in awe of everything she said. She was incredible. Beautiful and intelligent and elegant; the perfect women, to me anyway. She inspired me so much and I hope one day that I could be as well traveled and well educated as her she was amazing.

After lunch we took the tram to the top of the mountain. It was an amazing view. Chrissy tried to make up history of Santiago to be like the lady we met, she didn’t have much fact on her side but she gave it her best. I asked her what she thought this big mound of earth was in the middle of all these high rises and development. Her version of the Santiago history and how this mound came to be basically involved the Spanish killing all the Indians in every instance of history. A few people could understand English and were very confused by what she was saying but it didn’t stop Chrissy from believing that all the Indians were killed there.

At the top of the mountain there is a church and a really big and beautiful statue of the virgin because there was a claimed sighting of her here. People come to pray and get married because it is such a holy and beautiful place. We decided to take the chair lift- which were actually like the gondolas in New Zealand (a four seater dome that goes down the wire)… I don’t know what they are called, but we took them down to see the view instead of the tram. While we were waiting in the line I needed to go to the bathroom, not realizing that South American custom is to own private bathrooms and then charge use of them. It was going to cost me 15,000 Chilean pesos to go to the bathroom. I decided to hold. Finally we got on the lift but happened to get off on the wrong stop so we had to walk the rest of the way down the mountain. We saw a group of people practicing Spanish dancing in traditional costume so we watched them for a while. Then we saw a restaurant that was doing wine tasting. It was too expensive – just like everything in chile, so we just used their toilets… for free!! Somehow we got off the road and couldn’t find our way back to it so we had to trek through the forest which was fun until I slid into a bush full of thorns and cut myself all over. The other girls found it so amusing I didn’t really receive any sympathy at all. Finally we found our way to the bottom of the hill, but we were in the complete different direction to what we started in. we decided it would be safer to catch a taxi back to the hostel rather than risk being even more lost in the 40 degree heat. Once back at the hostel we decided to have a siesta and then go out dancing that night. However this siesta turned into an all afternoon and night sleep. We all woke up at 2 am and had to force ourselves to go back to sleep for the rest of the night.

21st November 2007

Today we decided have an adventure day and go water rafting and horse riding. So we got the metro to the outskirts of Santiago. This was a very different experience to the middle of Santiago. It was a lot poorer, and therefore at times scarier. People were selling socks and jewelry and ice cream and everything you could think of on the street to try and make money. There was one made who had a big hole in his leg, begging for money. In fact there were so many people begging for money I lost track of them all. It was very confronting. Before we thought KL was poor, but this was just devastating. And this was still Santiago, these people weren’t as poor as those outside the city. There was a line down one whole street and around the corner for people lining up for their pension. Thank god for the internet in Australia slash automatic debiting otherwise the whole of Inala would be lining up for days for their pensions too… low blow but still true. Finally we found the bus to where we had to go. We were going to a place called San Jose, and then from there San Gabrielle. On our bus ride this Chilean guitarist hopped on the bus and started singing us love songs. Gemma of course didn’t understand what was going on so we had to explain to her that he had dedicated the song to ‘the beautiful white girls at the front of the bus’… then Gemma didn’t know whether to enjoy the song or not. Then Federico got up to sing into her eyes. Chrissy and I took great pleasure in how uncomfortable this made Gemma, because lets just say the Chilean culture is not passive, especially while courting a women, and Gemma was feeling the full force of this Chilean affection. This was my absolute favorite part of Chile, this is what I was expecting, wishing for and it made my trip. For those who can’t imagine how exciting it would be to have someone serenade you on a public, almost broken down bus, trust me, it’s very exciting. It was also a nice change of pace from the sleaziness and whistling. Unfortunately Federico’s appeal was lost when he stood up and asked the bus for money and introduced his little manager, who despite being hit by the ugly stick a fair few times, was so cute… the little sidekick that doesn’t really do much at all. It was amazing. The reason that we know his name is because this was the day that I started becoming more confident with my Spanish and asked him his name and asked him to get on our bus on the way back. I am not entirely sure if I said it correctly but I think he understood.

The remainder of the bus ride was so much less eventful after Fredirico, however about 5 people hopped on to sell us things, CDs, sunglasses, ice-cream, water, and I can’t remember the other one. This concept of constant selling is really incredible. You would never want for anything. I think that if the concept took off in Australia we would be even fatter and glutinous than we are now… perhaps it is good vender/sales of goods laws exist.

Finally we arrived in San Jose. The lady at our hostel said that the only way to go between the San Jose and San Gabrielle was to hitchhike, or take a taxi… we decided that the most exciting mode of transport would be to hitchhike, so that’s exactly what we did. We followed the lead of two Chilean girls, who were locals of the area. They told us the best place to go, as we were originally planning to go to the hot springs further away from Santiago. They told us if we go out there we wouldn’t be able to get back out because the last bus left at 4 pm and by the time we got out there and got up to the springs we wouldn’t be able to get back. They suggested that we come to their area and go swimming in the river that is made from melted ice from the top of the Andes. They told us it is a really beautiful and peaceful place and that we would have just as much fun there as at the hot springs. It was so hot, about 39 degrees Celsius, however the water was like 2 degrees. So you couldn’t actually swim in it, but it was good for dunking in and cooling down or splashing yourself with.

After this we were walking back down to the road again and we passed the girl’s house. The older one (she was 19 and her cousin was 15) offered us lunch; a Chilean dish of mashed potato and egg and some salad; for all those playing at home: pure y huevo con ensalada. It was at this point that we met her son who was just over one year old. She asked us to wait down away from the house while she prepared the food. The three of us couldn’t stop thinking about how difficult this girl’s life was. She was terribly poor, her house was made from scraps of wood and for want of a better analogy was made how kids would make a cubby house; from scraps of wood that they scraped together from their parents’ left over materials or from the street etc. We couldn’t see inside, but from the outside you could basically summarise the house as it was not big enough to leave much to the imagination. It was at this point that we started to feel really bad, it was clear they didn’t have amazing quantities of food or money to be wasting on us. They were so kind to help us and offer us lunch and we will always remember their kindness and hope to reciprocate their kindness to all people we meet. They lived in the most beautiful place, amongst the Andes and on this serine land surrounded by a flowing river.

After this lunch we didn’t have enough time to go horse riding or water rafting, and we had to catch the last bus at 5pm. We hitched back to San Jose and waited for the bus back to Santiago. While we were waiting one boy ran past us to his friend screaming ‘oh my god’ which was in reference to us as he started talking about us too loudly to his friends thinking we couldn’t understand Spanish. As we waited an increasingly larger crowd continued to gather. Eventually they summoned enough courage to start calling things over to us. They spoke in English, and badly. Thankfully the other women at the bus stop were sympathetic, however everyone in the line found it hilarious how fascinated these boys were with us. It was rather hilarious, however tedious, because these boys were more fascinated than sleezy. Finally the bus came and we made the same journey back to the hostel. However on the way back no singing on the bus unfortunately.

We arrived back in the city centre, at around 7pm, (which actually feels and looks like 3 in the afternoon) Gemma and I walked straight ahead and Chrissy turned around and walked the opposite direction from the stairs up from the metro. At this point it was a casual dispute of directional choice between Christina and me. I believed it was straight ahead as that direction looked familiar and it seemed to be the way that we had previously traveled, Gemma agreed with me however as Chrissy had been to Chile once before we believed her and therefore foolishly followed her lead. As we continued to walk the way Christina suggested, it became apparent that she was entirely incorrect, yet Chrissy would not give in- she was right no matter what. She forced us to walk until we came to a Gelati store we had never seen before. This is when Chrissy realized she was wrong and even though she wouldn’t admit it, conceded to our direction- after the best gelati in the world. This then became her excuse. That she was leading us to the gelato because she knew it was there. That it was her big plan to get us gelato. We decided that she could buy us all a drink when we went out that night. A sigh of agreement was made, yet no formal announcement of defeat was made by the ‘too proud’ Christina. We arrived home at around 8.00pm – still light and decided to have our siesta… again not waking up… and Chrissy got out of buying us our ‘we won you lost’ drink. We really haven’t nailed the siesta yet. For some reason we just can’t get the ‘wake up again’ part. I have hope that eventually we will conquer it.

Kuala Lumpa- our stop over

kaitlyn — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:36:00 GMT

November 16 2007.

We arrived at Brisbane airport at 9.00 with 3 hours to check in relax and wait aimlessly for our 8 and a half hour flight to KL. However, as it turned out, this simple check in process was distinctly more eventful than anticipated. To cut a long story short, with just under three hours until take off, Malaysian Airlines and I got off to a rocky start… so rocky in fact that I had to beg my way onto the flight. In good stead with Asian customer service, we were greeted in a less than chirpy manner by a less than impressed service operator… Colin. Honestly if I knew what would happen by rushing up to Colin’s terminal I may have let the people behind us go first. Due to my complicated itinerary and lengthy stay Colin decided that he had the right to forbid me to board from BNE to KL. Despite the initial flash of all my dreams scanning across my eyes coming to an immediate to almost certain end, I stayed relatively calm… all I can say is that apparently I have learnt something during my $30,000 business degree about the most basic rules of negotiation. My plan was to deceptively manipulate Colin into making him think it was HIS idea to put me on the plane… he was a hard case to crack that’s for sure. Lucky I am a champion bull shit artist, a skill of amazing diversity. Eventually Colin decided to let me on the flight we had booked and paid for months in advance… nice chap in the end really. So after two and a half hours of begging and some high intensity cardio training to make the plane… we made it. However- and this is good advice for any traveler – DON’T PISS OFF THE GUY WHO CONTROLS YOUR LUGGAGE AND WHERE YOU SIT FOR YOUR LONG AND TIRESOME INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT. It turned out Colin got a real perk out of us in the end as he moved me from my seat with Gemma and Chrissy to a seat three rows behind them with the two fattest, smelliest, most restless and noisy Asians you will ever meet in your life. MY GOD IT WAS A LONG FLIGHT. .. you have no idea. In flight entertainment was good…. Which is good because the convo with these two fatties wasn’t so great!!

17^th November 2007

We arrived in KL at 6.00 in the morning which was good as it meant that we had the whole day to spend there before we left at 1 am that night/morning. We had a quick cat nap and then decided to leave to go shopping. We wanted to go to the big city to see the twin towers and look around the city. But our hotel was ages from there, about an hour in taxi and an hour and a half on train. The concierge recommended we not go there and that we stay in the outskirts of the city as the shopping was just as good etc. So we stayed where the hotel was, and despite not being in the city centre this day was the most interesting and awakening experience in intercultural education and learning about what it is like to be on the receiving end of outright racial discrimination. We were hated. Literally. I have never had this much out right hatred toward me before and we were all incredibly uncomfortable the whole time. Everyone just stared at us the whole day because we were the only Caucasian people we saw and hence they saw the whole day. Not even at the hotel were there any other white people. People continued to stare and point and laugh at us all day, and none of us had anything in our teeth or toilet paper stuck on our shoe. Eventually we were so confused as to why people hated us so much that we asked our taxi driver; Money. He was a funny man, introducing himself as ‘not American money not Australian money me money’. We asked him why people were laughing at us, his continual attempts to avoid the question were considerable, however he did hint at the fact that the American war on terrorism was a sizeable factor in this racism towards us. Which has clearly been reciprocated by the western people towards muslims. When we asked him if he liked Australian people he started making noises of celebration and didn’t’ really make anymore sense- so we think he did. Well we think he defs liked us because he asked us to his house to have dinner with him. We declined… don’t know why… its not like he is a weirdo taxi driver in a country we don’t know and we didn’t even have a plane to catch? Oh well clearly the next time we rush to KL we will see our funny taxi driver Money.

We went to a really big shopping centre four stories high, which despite being completely run down and dirty, had character. The shopping experience was really weird actually because the shops were really tiny but they would have like ten to fifteen people working in them, and the staff would basically walk on top of you the whole time you were in there to ensure that you wouldn’t steal anything. Every person had 1 to 2 staff members to personally escort them around the store… sounds good but was less than enjoyable. Everything you looked at they asked if you wanted to buy it- ‘you like yes yes you like you buy now yes you buy?” It became so annoying that you almost didn’t want to shop slash look at anything at all. The clothes were really cool but all too small, not so good for the ego, especially when the skinniest Asians in the world were like “no too small too fat for clothes you no buy”(they all speak English and all their signs and instructions and everything are in English because there are three distinct races of people; Indian, Malay and Chinese and English is there common language and also there are lots of tourists so they speak English). We mostly bought accessories because the clothes and shoes, despite being different fashion were all too small. However Chrissy and I did find one store that sold western shoes. I bought a pair of boots for $AUD27 and Chrissy a pair of flats.

There were these curry buns that we were obsessed with, we got like 3 each. It was a sweet bread, not like anything we would have in Aus with curry inside. But the thing was there was no cut or anything in the bread where the curry could have been put in. we were so entranced by how they got the curry in the bread. We concluded that they must have baked the bread with the curry already inside. Such a conundrum. They were like 1 aussi dollar so our research was inexpensive as well as tasty!

After we went to every level and store in this shopping centre, it was called terminal 1. We decided to go to a restaurant that the concierge recommended to us for to taste some real malay food. It ended up being right next to our hotel. The food was amazing… however was served in conditions that perhaps would be against the law in Australia- this freaked us out a little. Mostly their food is seafood- and everything is put in spices or currys… a bit hard to eat if you can’t eat spicy food. The lady that owned the restaurant helped us out by telling us what each thing was. She was really nice. Her sons went to uni in Adelaide and to Bond so she loved Australians. Her husband gave us a lift back to the hotel to have a rest- we had been awake for around 2 and a half days at this stage. He tried to convince us to tell Australians what a great place KL/Malaysia was – especially because he was a politician. He explained to us what he did but it was complicated and short of knowing everything about the Malay parliament is hard to grasp. He explained to us how the three races of people in Malay worked and how it affects tourism and things like that – put a lot of things together and we started to understand maybe why we were not accepted as much as we anticipated we should have been. Once back at the hotel we had a quick little cat nap and decided what we wanted to do next. The man told us it would only take an hour by train to the city centre and so we made plans to go there. Working out that we would still have enough time to go. However as we started looking through our bags we saw that the lady at the shoe shop gave me two different boots so we had to go back and change them. Unfortunately we would no longer have enough time to go to the city. We decided to go back change the boots get some money out and go to another shopping centre. Gemma and Chrissy bought a few more things. We all got manicures and then I got the best Thai massage for an hour while Gemma and Chrissy got half an hour and went shopping.

While we were in this shopping centre we went to this shoe store. They had really cool shoes and we asked the shop assistants for some help with a size. Their reactions to this simple request were to all laugh openly in our face and walk away. We were so shocked we had no idea what to do. So we just put the shoes down and left quickly before the rest of the store started laughing at us. But we were constantly laughed at. And not for things that we were doing- granted I am hilarious. It was because we were westerners. People assumed we were Americans and therefore they hated us.

The ladies at the reception were less than our biggest fans that’s for sure… they hated talking to us, helping us, everything. That night we had a buffet for our included dinner. Us being … well us, ate everything. Literally everything; we had like 5 courses. The waiters didn’t wait on us and they turned around to laugh when we first walked in the restaurant then fought about who would be nice to us. While we stood there completely uncomfortable being like … ‘ok we know you hate us thank you.’ Despite all this it was a good experience over all. We are glad we took an extra 24 hours traveling to go there. I would want to go back there and actually go to the big city to see how differently people treat us. We tried lots of traditional Malaysian dishes which were really nice but so so so spicy. The country was very poor and there was lots of poverty on the streets. Made us appreciate Australia a lot more; in both what we have and also the fact that no one openly hates people like that.

As bad as an experience as this was, I think it was invaluable. To be treated so badly makes you consider how you treat Asians and Indians and Muslim people. And perhaps there is room for improvement here too. I think that these experiences are the ones you need when you travel. Otherwise it is not as rich as you would want it to be. KL was truly awakening that’s for sure.