CHILE!! and Ian reveals further ineptitudes in the blogosphere.

So, since last time I had such a hard time with formatting when I did a photo based entry, I'd planned to upload the photos all in one go and then comment from there. But blogger didn't like that. So now you have this disaster, all photos from various points of my adventure north from Santiago all the way up to San Pedro de Atacama, where I crossed into Bolivia. The Bolivian photos will come later.
Anyways, I head into the Bolivian jungle tomorrow, but I will try and rectify this and actually explain the photos later. Cheers!

Ian Highlights How He's Possibly The Worst Blogger Of All Time By Posting More Photos In A Vain Attempt To Catch-up Which Inevitably Ends With Him Being Bored of Being On The Computer And Stopping Short Of Actually Catching Up



poetry¡veinte poemas de amor y una cancion desesperada - pablo neruda
lit¡the joke - milan kundera

Hello hello, writing you all from smoggy smoggy Santiago (apparently this is the worst time of year for the smog, see photo, makes seeing the Andes in the background tricky). Since my last entry I've visited Bariloche, Pucon, Valparaiso, Isla Negra, and now Santiago. I'm off tomorrow for a five day jaunt before reaching San Pedro de Atacama which will involve a desert that has no record of it having rained ever, a penguin sanctuary, and one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll give each location one paragraph, try and get in a few cool things about each, and thus catch up!


Bariloche was amazing, a city nestled on this giant lake right in the Andes, on the north edge of Pantagonia in southern Argentina. The big events: ran into Laura, the girl who burst two tires on bikes in Mendoza, with whom I rented a car along with a few other friends to do the 7 lakes drive (see photos), during which she again managed to burst two tires, right in the middle of absolute nowhere. What a debacle, the spare in the trunk was more cruel mockery at that point. Thankfully Joey, a lovely Welsch guy with us who spoke the best Spanish, managed to hitch hike back into town some 40 minutes away on a little used gravel road and get things back together. But then the dick of car rental guy charged us 210 pesos because we didn't get the right BRAND of tire when we returned. We were all pretty steamed but since he had a copy of Joey's credit card we all paid up, so I needed to do something to burn off a little steam. That something was paraglide off Mount Otto and glide like a bird over the Andes! The mixture of adrenaline from the take off and landing and the absolute piece you get up top was incredible, I've actually started thinking I might try and take it up some point in the future in Invermere.


Next it was on to Pucon where I once again tackled rafting, but of the Class 4 and 5 variety and spent my birthday drinkng Pisco Sours (a Chilean or Peruvian national specialty, depending on who you ask) in the hotsprings and partying at a little Chilean houseparty thrown by our waitress from that night. The highlight, however, was triumphing over Volcano Villarrica, an active volcano which I climbed adorned in crampons, helmet, and with my might iceaze in hand. We gained 1400m in about 3 hours of deep deep snow and did it whilst the sun rose over the valley behind us (4AM start time, ouch). The top was unreal, I'd never seen a volcano like that before but you could hear an ocean like roar coming from the magma within and once in awhile lava came crashing up so you could actually catch a glimpse of it. Great stuff.


Alright, I lied about catching up completely, but I want to write a bunch about Valparaiso cause I absolutely adored it but, unfortunately, I just don't have the patience for it now. I leave you with a photo taken from Pablo Neruda's house in Isla Negra, a tiny quaint village I did a day trip to while in Valparaiso. Neruda, despite being terrified of the ocean, was abosutely obsessed with ships, navigation, and the general romanticism of a nautical life. Hence he actually built all his houses like ships, with small hallways, low curved ceilings, and floorboards designed to creak and be slightly slanted to give you the impression that you were actually at sea. This was his drinking boat, where he and his friends would sit and get toreup in the hot hot sun, since Neruda believed that it was better to be dizzy from drink than from seasickness. He even had bells to communicate with the real ships on the ocean since he considered himself the "land captain". For some reason when I saw it I imagined all the bayview boys in the boat, each of us wearing a paper pirate hat and getting ridiculously drunk on a landlocked boat. Then Rico threw Keith overboard, haha. Brought a huge smile to my face.
Anyways, I trust all is well with each and every one of you. I also want to say a huge thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes, I was completely overwhelmed by my wall on facebook! xoian