3 new albums online!

Avec un peu de retard, nous venons de poster 3 nouveaux albums:
- Patagonia (Chilean side)
- Mendoza (the wine region in Argentina)
- Buenos Aires

Enjoy!

Some more photos of Chile

Nous venons de mettre en ligne nos photos de la region des lacs au Chili.

Check out our photos of the lakes district in Chile... and us, climbing the volcano!

Fire and Ice

Well it's been a veryyyyy long time I haven't written in the blog. Believe it or not, we have been very busy. After spending a few days in Santiago, where I got pretty sick (stomach virus), we headed down to the lake district of Chile (9 hours by bus). Buses in Chile and Argentina are very numerous and quite comfortable. We stayed in a town called Villarrica and rented a car to explore the neighboring lakes, volcanoes, hot springs and mountains. One of the highlight of our trip was climbing the snow-covered Villarrica volcano, which took about 7 hours up and 3 hours down. We left early in the morning, supplied with waterproof clothing, crampons, backpacks, ice picks and a protective helmet. While extremely rewarding (it is not everyday that you get to see the crater of an active volcano), it was also very tiring to climb, in the snow, for that long. The inside of the crater was black, rocky, smoky (my lungs hurt for a couple of days after inhaling the fumes), and full of lava jumping up in the air every few minutes. Anyway, I think this will remain one of the most memorable experience of our South American trip (and not only because all the muscles of our body ached for the next few days).

After this, we headed down to Patagonia, where we explored the glaciers in Torres del Paine national park and around Puerto Natales by boat.

Now I am going to finish in French...

Apres avoir visite la Patagonie, nous avons traverse la frontiere entre le Chili et l'Argentine en bus. Ce fut une tres longue journee: 7 heures de bus, 8 heures dans la ville de Rio Gallerios et 5 heures de vol, avec escale, jusqu'a Mendoza ou nous nous trouvons actuellement.

Photos of Santiago and Valparaiso

Cela fait un sacre moment que je n'ai rien poste sur le blog. Je comblerai ce manque bientot. En attendant, voici nos photos de Santiago / Valparaiso.

Santiago: A throughly modern city set in a stunning backdrop

Coming from La Paz, which is as third-world as you can get, Santiago, Chile is nothing what we expected it to be. While not a beautiful city, its is thoroughly modern and would not be out of place in Europe or California.

Similar to Europe:
- The metro (subway) is identical to that in Paris, with the same carriages as "Les Lignes 1 et 6", ticketing system, and very similar station designs.
- The most popular vehicles are the Peugeot 206, Renault Clio and Opel Astra.
- The Autopistas (highways) use European signs and are comparable to France's Autoroutes in quality (and tolls!!!).
- While its not a terribly attractive city, walking in the streets has a distinctly European feel to it (we compare it to Berlin).

Similar to San Francisco:
- Geographically, the city is close to both the Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountains, making it excellent for wine production (whites in particular).
- The ocean, mountains, and wineries are all a 1 hour drive from the city.
- Its by far the most expensive city in South America, with the price of goods and services comparable to San Francisco.

Random thoughts:
- Que? Chilean Spanish has to be the most unintelligible version of the language out there. Lots of idioms, shortening of words, rapid speaking and mumbling. Think the combination of "New Yorker", Louisiana Bayou" and "Cockney" English.

- Since when did Samsung start making cars?

- 11 de Septiembre: We noticed Santiago has a road named "11 de Septiembre", although its not for the reason we initially thought.

Despite its long history of democracy, Chile has a vast divide between the wealthy and poor. To address this, in 1970, the people elected a Marxist socialist, Salvador Allende, as president. His goal was to improve the lives of the poorest Chileans by nationalizing certain businesses/industries and redistributing the wealth accumulated from the mining of copper. Well, a Marxist socialist running a Latin American country didn't sit too well with the US Government (especially with everything going on in Vietnam at the time). So, the US flooded the copper market, driving down the price -- which severely hurt the Chilean economy, as Allende didn't diversify the economy. As we all know, nationalized business + no wealth to distribute = no food + unhappy people protesting in the streets. So, on September 11, 1973, Army General Augusto Pinochet led a coup against the government, and claimed himself president. Pinochet, much like Stalin in Russia, greatly strengthened the country's economy, but through brutal rule, and the killing/torture of tens of thousands. Bottom line: We received very different answers when we asked locals about Pinochet. Some are thankful for his economic reforms; others can't forgive him for his brutality.