Pass the Carmenere dahling!

Explaining
Pissed (?)
Irrigation
Central Valley

Next on our Chilean itinerary was Central Valley (Maule) and its extensive vineyards. At 11am we headed to Vina Balduzzi, a small winery. We were given a quick tour of the storage facilities and then brought back to the tasting room. Six wine bottles were produced and we tasted each, making a note of favourites for purchasing later on. After the tasting we were all a little bit merry and with the heat outside we on our way to being pissed. Luckily we had the truck in the car park and once we left the building a quick cooked batch of hotdogs was produced which provided some much needed soakage.

Vina San Pedro was the next winery on our to-do list. This was a much more organised tour. We were taken around their vineyards in a minibus and got a detailed description of the different types of irrigation used for each wine. Our guide spent much time explaining the production process. Next up was a tour of their bottling plant, followed by a sneak peek at their cellar, and private collection of wines not for sale but for VIPs. Sadly Duncan failed in his attempt to suggest to our guide that perhaps we were such VIPs. Finally we got to the best bit - tasting the wines. However we still had a bit to go before the liquid could pass our lips. We had to properly test and compare the wines, checking colour, clarity, aroma, watching water droplets after swirling, checking more intense aroma after swirling, and only after all these checks were complete were we finally allowed to taste the wines. I shall be quite the wine connoisseur by the end of this trip!

Two waterfalls, a hospital and a dash of fear - but not necessarily inthat order.....

Eager
Plunge pool
Impressive
Catch!

Our departure from Pucon started off with a bang - literally. Pete managed to give himself a nasty facial cut, which needed stitches, by over-eagerly attempting to chuck a plastic box into the wood locker on the back of the truck. Unfortunately his aim wasn't as good as he thought and his catching skills were equally lacking. He got a good bang on the upper lip and snozzle for his trouble and had to pop to the hospital for some TLC. While he was being seen to, we all chilled out in the village getting coffees and poor Heather took an almighty chunk out of her big toe after walking into a concrete block on the pavement. She very nearly ended up joining Pete at the hospital. Toes are getting an almighty doing over on this trip already, not to mention Terry who sliced off the tip of his baby finger while chopping tomatoes! We'll all have a war-wound/story by the end of the trip.

Next stop was Salto El Laja, a pretty waterfall where Rio Laja plunges 47m over rocks. Hundreds of tourists milled around and there were many touristy knick-knack stalls in the area. Got nicely drenched heading up to the front of it, a welcome cooling from the heat of the day. We camped at a nice little campsite that was located right beside another waterfall, no idea what it was called. A few of us ventured to the top of the falls and went swimming in the upstream river. I got a great workout swimming against the current - apparently looking stationery to anyone on the shore. On leaving the river we discovered an impressive plunge pool close to the waterfall's edge and chilled out there a while. Little did we know that our presence at the pool was much cause for concern for Kirsten who could view us from camp and felt we were precariously close to the edge - especially given our proneness to accidents at the moment. In our defence it was hot, we needed to cool down, and the camp's swimming pool was filled with little kids!!

New Year in Pucon - prayers, party and pampering

Exceptional
Pucon
Invigorating
Crampons

Dec 30th found us leaving Bariloche via the seven lakes, and heading towards Pucon, a beautiful rich district in Chile, which is dominated by the imposing 2,847m Volcan Villarrica. The majority of our group signed up to scale this active volcano on New Year's Eve. A bus took us up to the starting point of the hike. From there we decided to take advantage of the working chairlift, which would save us an hours scramble walking up loose volcanic scree that had zero grip. At the top of the chairlift we kitted up, putting on crampons, helmets, gators and grabbing ice axes. So began a 4 hr slog to the top of the volcano, carefully placing one foot in front of the other. Utmost concentration was needed as there were numerous patches of solid ice where it was near impossible to grip the crampons into the ground. Watching one lady, from another group, slip and then speedily slide about 50m down the sheer face of the volcano simply furthered everyone's resolve not to follow suit, and focus harder on foot placings.

Just before we reached the summit we were greeted with rancid sulphuric smells from the crater, as if the thinning air wasn't posing enough issues for some people. At the summit the views were exceptionally breathtaking, we were, what seemed, miles above the clouds. Sadly the volcano didn't put on much of a show for us, not a drop of lava was witnessed, just plumes of smoke. I tried to peer down into the crater but the sides were so steep, and the winds so strong, I did not dare to get a closer look.

The trip down the volcano was the ultimate highlight of the day. We removed our deadly crampons, put on nappy-like sheets and slid down the sheer side of the volcano on our bums, reaching speeds of about 35km in places. Silent prayers were said on seeing some of the drops. We were told to use our ice axe to slow ourselves down, however I rarely employed this tactic as a lot of pressure had to be applied to notice any deceleration and waving the ice axe about would only have made me a danger to myself had I yielded it. As it was I went ass over tea kettle at least twice, bounding out of the wee grooves in the ice and making my on path down the slope. I even managed on one occasion to flip around 180 and descend down backwards, don't even ask me how, no doubt something to do with force over speed or velocity!

Many expletives were uttered when I noticed a lady had come to a complete stop halfway down one slope. Cue frantic leaning on my ice axe in order to reduce my speed. While I didn't manage to come to a complete stop, I did manage, just, to reduce my speed (slightly) before careening into her. A domino effect was created though and by the end of it there were about 8 of us together in a heap on the slope. Thankfully we all saw the funny side and no injuries occurred with flaying ice axes.

For the most part I bombed away nicely down, but on one particular slope I began to slow due to an ice build up by my legs. We were provided with plastic trays which enabled us to go faster if our nappy contraption wasn't doing the job - a sore fact I discovered as Robin swooshed by me with a cheeky grin on his overtaking manoeuvre - cue more expletives on my part! In fact I think I sounded a bit like Mutley from 'Stop the Pigeon' at that point. We descended the volcano in a third of the time it had taken us to go up. Awesome is not the word. At the bottom the tour crew had cold beers waiting for us. Sha-weet!!

Pete laid out an epic meat-sweat-inducing feast that night. Pork, beef and lamb. We waved off 2012 at our campsite with Francois providing the entertainment with his party piece - popping a bottle of bubbly with a knife (sadly there was no sabre on hand). There was also a huge firework display set off from the beach not far from our camp. The sounds were immense, ricocheting all around the hilly streets, and no expense was spared on the fireworks, they were the most spectacular I've seen. Smiley face fireworks and fairy dust ones being my favourites.

After the exertion of the day before, New Year's was spent soaking, surprisingly, unweary bones in a hot springs at Termas Los Pozones. I gamely tried each of the six natural stone pools. There was a scalding hot pool that had most people yelping and dashing out after dipping a toe in. There I managed to float briefly trying my best not to move as doing so caused extremities to feel like they were being burned - a painfully pleasurable experience. I also had a dip in the ice cold river, which was bloody freezing but refreshingly invigorating. (I'll stop the eye-roll inducing comments now!).

All in all not a bad start to 2013!

Rafting in Bariloche

Easy Forward!
Pumpkin mash
Incredible
Chocolate Cup

Bariloche is a city in the province of Río Negro, Argentina, situated in the foothills of the Andes. It is famous for its adventure sports and was the next stop on our massive list.

While there some of our group went paragliding, mountain biking, horse riding and boating. I chose to go white water rafting down Río Manso with 7 others from our group, opting to do the "Manso to the Limit" grade 3/4 rapids.

Rafting in Africa consisted of shorts, t-shirt and sandals. Here in Argentina we were given wetsuits, booties and a waterproof jacket - hmm I wonder if that implies the water be bloody freezing? In Africa we were made get into the river from the raft in order to see how to get back in if you fell out. Here we were simply instructed on what to do should you fall out. Yup, I'm gonna take that to mean water is more than chilly - note to self: do not effing fall in!!!

After donning the very fetching attire we walked to the water's edge and clambered aboard the raft. Francois and Tony took the helm, Geoff and Vanessa were second in command, next up were Steve and Karen, and finally me and Sue took the back of the raft. I choose the left side as I felt it would be my stronger side. Foolishly I forgot that this meant my poorly toe would have to be wedged under the seat to prevent me falling out. Ouch!

Pedro was our guide and made everyone feel at ease joking away effortlessly, pointing out specific sights and giving us local info. Ten rapids stood between us and the finish, consisting of names like: Welcome, Flintstones (where we yabba-dabba-doo-ed on completion), Ecstasy, Vaseline, Devil's Intestines.

We pulled together nicely as a team, with gentle ribbing from each side, both claiming to be better; even a new nickname, "short stroke", was invented for one of the group. Thankfully our raft did not flip, and on seeing the rapids it is incredible that we managed to stay afloat. We did have a few 'woah!' moments. The most memorable was when a righty almost lost their paddle and nearly took out two others in trying to save themselves and the paddle. Funny stuff!

Pedro was in general very happy with how we managed to progress "Forward!" as a team. All of us welcomed the "Easy Forward!", which meant a leisurely relaxed paddle. Oddly enough no one needed to be told twice when the "Stop!" command was issued.

On successfully traversing down the river we alighted from the raft and made an uphill trek back to the meeting point. Luckily it wasn't too long, but why does the end of rafting always entail emerging up out of a gorge? Carrying your paddle, all geared up to the nines, in blazing sunshine and heat is extremely energy-zapping. Still a nice dinner awaited us at the top, and I tucked in with relish to a stuffed chicken meal - rafting does build up one's appetite!

Making our way back to Bariloche town centre was hampered by an over heated engine in the minivan, so we stopped dead on the side of the road, in the middle of the mountains. We anxiously waited for it to cool down as a big night out in the town with a slap up meal was planned and we were getting tight on time. None of our group knew what restaurant the crew had booked, nor did we have any contact number to let them know our predicament. Cue nervous checking of watches as the minutes elapsed. After about 20 mins the minivan managed to start and we set off. Luckily the driver was happy to bring us to our campsite rather than the drop off point. We arrived back at camp a little after 7:30, which just gave us enough time to get ready as Pete had booked taxis for 8pm.

We ate at the wonderful La Parilla de Tony. I again succumbed to my favourite Bife de Lomo, which consisted of two massive chunks of steak. I also went for a side of potato and pumpkin mash - unreal tasty goodness! Despite eating the chicken dinner a few hours earlier I easily managed to polish off my plate, there was even room for dessert - shockingly, only my first proper restaurant dessert! I opted for a delicious chocolate cup that was filled with dolce de leche (caramel flavoured) ice-cream.

Finally I must give a massive shout out to the wonderful Angela who is looking out for the truck sweet-tooths. She made an AWESOME banoffi pie at camp, which we all dug into, happily stuffing our faces to bursting point. This dessert will definitely have to be repeated while we can purchase cartons of dulce de leche.