Where we've been...

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Les petits princes...

(Don´t worry, English is below)

Ayant et allant croiser les itineraires de St Exupery, et non par sursaut identitaire, je me permets de debuter cet article avec quelques mots de francais। On ne discute pas c'est comme ca. Pouf pouf.

Pour commencer, s'il vous plait, une photo du mont Fitz Roy flanque des monts Mermoz et Saint Exupery, entre autres... Les Argentins nous faisantl'honneur de conserver les noms de nos illustres pionniers de l'Aeropostale, nous ne pouvions nous empecher de fanfarronner un tantinet au premier plan...

Apres ce dense passage en Patagonie, nous remontons donc dans la region argentine des lacs ou nous nous trouvons actuellement (plus exactement a SanCarlos de Bariloche et San Martin de Los Andes) region aux splendides paysages, reconnue pour ses chalets, ses etendues de lacs et de monts verdoyants...
Notre prochain point de chute se situera sur la cote Atlantique de l'Argentine : La peninsule Valdes. Peninsule dont la cavite Nord a, pour la petite histoire, inspire St Exupery pour le dessin de son serpent mangeur d'elephant, aux airs de chapeau. A vous de le constater sur une carte. Je dis c'est fou, n'est-il pas ??
Nous rejoindrons ensuite Mendoza et ses vignobles, en bons fils d'ivrognes. Petit clin d'oeil a nos peres autant qu'a nos pairs...
Voila pour les nouvelles francaises et avant que ca tourne en ode a la francophonie...

let's go on in English!!! Where were we??
Yes!! Chile, Torres Del Paine, and then El calafate (at least a crack every 30 minutes).
Next we headed to El Chalten (" mountain which smokes"), kind of far west village still under construction, with warmy places and genuine atmosphere. Between two "smoking sessions", we had a chance to approach the Cerro Fitz Roy and enjoy the wonderful autumn colour range, a couple of condors and of course vagaries of climate!
After three days we decided to leave to the North, following the "Ruta 40", to Bariloche. Lakes, mountains, pine trees, chocolates, cycling, "SaintBernard" dogs, are we back in the Alps ??? We are currently still enjoying these amazing sceneries from San Martin De Los Andes, more pictures to come...

The last but not the least, I've heard of some George Lucas related comments in last Matthias' article. Let's keep up with the good metaphors through what is becoming your weekly "web serial":"Matthias and Chewbacca across South America".


Indeed, I omissed to mention Matthias had (hopefully) found some other occupations, which roughly consisted in bothering me with pointless suggestions (such as skydiving or going to the haidresser's in South America...). He is now totally focused on his knee which used to ache 10 days ago. Did not know he was that hypocondriachal. Thus it involves a brand new time schedule for him: half of the timewrapping with annoyance a fabric around his knee, the other half complaining and limping around. I had a flash then: "Il Cattivo" Wallash following "Il buono" Eastwood and "Il Brutto" Van Cleef in the desert, begging for water and support. THE nickname was found: that'll be TUCO, especially when Matt remains unshaved a few days long!!!

That's all folks!! I've nothing else to declare so far (except Matthias´eagerness to add comments on the next update)... As you asked us to, we'll try to upload more pictures on the website. Moreover if you want to come even closer you can join us a few weeks without any problem.You are welcome on board, we will have some support from London next week and it will be a pleasure to share our adventures!! Looking forward to reading you on the blog.

Hasta pronto chicos!!

Amancio "Chew" De Los Lagos y Matthiasso "Tuco" De La Pampa

Thursday, March 22, 2007

From Torres del Paine to El Calafate

As some people complained about the fact that we don't give news that often, we'll try to try to maybe do better... But it's very unlikely that we'll do more! Well, we were absolutely outraged to see that the camping site at 2500m in the Parc nacionales Torres del Paine didn't have connection!!

So, since last time... we took a bus to Puerto Natales and arrived at night at 9pm. Of course, we didn't know where to sleep (we hate to know in advance what's going to happen :)). So we get off the bus, wait for a bit, and then a girl is coming to us and is asking us if we want to sleep at her place. Hum... so, before Amance had the time to say something, I was like: Yes, of course! So, we find ourselves in a big family house, with everybody talking to us (in a language that seems still unknown to us). They invited us for a crazy barbecue. They offered us crazy drinks (Amance told me not to mention them, scared of being killed by some members of his family). So we drunk and ate, again and again, we talked to them, they talked to us, I don´t think any of us were talking about the same thing, but the atmosphere was really really nice...until we realize that it was 2am and that we have to wake up 4hours later for... 4 days of trekking.

On the following morning, we meet on the way to the park a very nice British-French girl (oh, no she will read the blog and she told us she makes an amazing chocolate cake), sorry, an amazing girl, studying in Santiago, as well as a couple of 2 Germans. After exchanging few words, going through the storms, rain, and cold (the weather was very moody this first day) we eventually made it to the camp. And though we first thought that a tent for 2 could just fit 2 people, we got it wrong. This mysterious girl joined us for 2 nights. And we went on in this adventure, from the glacier delivering huge ice blocks (some being, as we didn't expect, amazingly blue) in the lake, to the astonishing views from the Valle del Frances (our valley, yes!!) and the immense Torres, big mountains forming very high towers.


Thank you for those who wrote the comments and who are supporting me in the hard task of convincing Amance to jump (especially Ida!). Well, I think I have another challenge. I want him to cut his hairs before I really scream on the morning, thinking that I am Han Solo waking up with Chewbaca!! or worse... that I stayed on the island in Ushuaia (or in CP Zoo for Moumou) and that I´m waking up with a huge unshaved sea lion... Just talking about it, I´m going to have nightmares tonight.. Oh, and I need to say that Amance did a great job in improving his communication skills, with an amazing question to start a conversation with two roommates: a very quick and memorable whr fom?. It´s very sad we cannot attach audio files...


We keep saying that the pictures will come soon. They will, but... we may have a different perspective of time here :).
We are going tomorrow (we still need to book, and it´s only 10.30pm here) to Perito Moreno, an amazing glaciar, apparently very close, where you can see huge blocks of ice craking and falling in the water. We´ll then head to El Chalten, another beautiful site for a 3 or 4 days trek.

Special thanks to The Ball, without whom all this wouldn´t have happened :)

Los gringos

Friday, March 16, 2007

On Darwin's footsteps...

Hi everyone, we'll leave tomorrow to Puerto Natales which is the main access to "el Parque Nacional des Torres Del Paine". ¡Ole!

We enjoyed three exciting days here in Ushuaia, the "fin del mundo" as they say: first real trek to a glacier, discovering "el Parque Nacional de La Tierra Del Fuego" (¡Ole! Otra vez), one day trip sailing on the Beagle Channel, swimming in a six celsius degrees water with a diving suit defying any astronaut's equipments...The fauna and the wildlife is quite impressive: wild and CLEAN islands, beaches and water, many species of small (and bigger) furry animals (such as sea lions, which actually sleep and snore as Matthias does at night, so that you can have a significant benchmark...). We understand how Darwin developped his theory of evolution after spending 4 years in South America, starting by Tierra Del Fuego.

Then let's consider serious stuff and what interests you at most: how is getting our friendship living together 24/h ?? Well, we figured we could still be friends after the trip, if no murder occurs by then;)). Matthias speaks about skydiving about half of the time, and the over half is dedicated to his overbreathing my own oxygen. Moreover, regarding your repeated attacks about my reluctance as far as skydiving is concerned, I'd quote Redmood who used to say "Courage is not absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear" and we've got much to do here... Anyway I'm eager to share that feeling of free diving with any other novice when back in Europe (Let's go OB1??)

Hasta luego everyone, we have to get ready for tomorrow!!!

Pour ceux qui nous demandent du francais: on se la tchave du bout du monde, les pingouins ca va cinq minutes mais on prefere les sequoia de Torres Del Paine. Trop dure la vie. A part, on s entends toujours bien, meme si l idee de passer Matthias par dessus bord ne m as pas ete etrangere aujourd hui (idee a priori partagee par Matthias, qui voulait de toute facon sauter a la mer). A plus pour de prochaines aventures et pleins de bises pour les intimes ;)

Amancio y Matthiaso

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Leaving Buenos Aires... to the South of the World

Hola hola!

That´s it. After 5 days in Buenos Aires, we are leaving tonight to the south. When I say south, it´s the very south!! We are heading to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire for those who don´t speak spanish, like us :((). Of course, there´s many things to visit there, so we´ll tell you later. We don´t even know where we´ll sleep once arrived!

Our plan is then to head north slowly, mostly on the west side, crossing back and forth the border Argentina-Chile. There are so many amazing things to do there (on foot, bike, car, parachute??). Btw I still need to convince Amance to do his first jump. Any suggestion on how to convince him?? (he wants me to mention that it´s in South America. Don´t see the point!!)

And I forgot, on our way back to the north, we´ll have stop in Santiago, from where we can fly to Easter Island! All these are just projections. The way we´are going to do it and when remains a mystery ;)

Oh, and about Buenos Aires. This city is very very nice. Some people made us discover the nightlife (thank you German y Caroline y Benoit), from the delicous meat (My favorite is a combinaçion of Bife de Chorizo y Bife de Lomo) to the Tango parties... First thing when I come back. Tango lessons! Yesterday, we went to Tigre, a delta in the north of Buenos Aires. People live on islands, and need to take a local ferry boat to access their casa. We talked to children who are taking the boat everyday to come back to their island from the school. This city is just amazing (might consider buying a house there one day :)).


Some pics will come soon!

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

First step: Buenos Aires!!

Though I am said to be a convinced blog opponent, I could not have refused Matthias' invitation to write the first words from Argentina !!!

Thus, a few words from Buenos Aires where we landed on last Monday. Sun, heat, "chicas bombas" at each street corner: we enjoy every single minute our staying in this definetely latine city. However it must be borne in mind this is just the beginning...

We will share our first (art) pictures in a few days and we will commumicate our next step then. Do not hesitate to post any comments by then, we strongly expect them.

¡Hasta luego!
Matthiaso y Amancio.

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