Our First Rest Day

CI:  We've been gone for more than an week now, and it's been quite a trip so far.  Today we're in El  Chaleten, a small town in Argentinian Patagonia and taking our first day "off".

We landed in Santiago, Chile on March 31st after an unremarkable flight via Miami.  We had almost 10 hours in layover, so we checked our bags at the airport and headed into the city to wander around.  Unfortunately, it was Easter Sunday so there was nothing much to do and most shops/restaurants were closed.  We walked for a few hours around the town center. Our first impressions of Santiago: there are policemen everywhere (several on every block in the area we were in, which was the city center.  Is the city especially dangerous or is this some kind of jobs program?)  and it's filthy (there was trash everywhere and the river through downtown literally had bags of garbage floating in it).  We'll be back in Santiago for a few days in about a week, and hopefully with more time we'll have a more positive experience.

The first few days we spent getting our travel legs.  Stupid things we have done so far:

1. Found out the hard way that very few places accept credit cards and that ATMs are unreliable--we arrived in Punta Arenas with only cents to spare
2. Nearly missed the bus to Puerto Natales--Apparently this region of Chile pushed daylight savings time back an hour but didn't update the cell phone networks (?!) so we were an hour off
3. Catherine left her bank card in an ATM somewhere
4. Brought two sets of size 3 knitting needles and no size 4 needles, which of of course are the ones I need. Rectified in Puerto Natales.
5. Brought raingear and boots that only aspire to being waterproof--totally inadequate for Torres del Paine
6. Not bringing all our adapters.  Apparently Argentina uses the same adapters as Asia (?!) and not the one used by the rest of South America.  Fortunately they've retrofitted one outlet in our hotel room.

After another flight and a bus ride, we arrived in Puerto Natales, which is the gateway town to Chilean Patagonia.  We stayed in a goofy little hostel called Erratic Rock which is run by some hippy dippy expats from Oregon.  We had a private room about one foot bigger than a twin bed in every dimension right next to the shared bathrooms.  Apparently s-traps haven't yet made it to Chile so it was pungent to say the least. The outfitter next to the hostel runs a very helpful orientation talk about trekking in Torres del Paine national park--highly recommended if you're planning to travel without a guide.  They also rent all the gear you could possibly need, although if you're willing to hike in rented hiking boots you're braver than me.

We ended up with an extra day in Puerto Natales before our trip to the park due to a kerrfluffle with the airline, so we spent the morning of the 3rd kayaking in the bay.  It was a lovely day and it was fun to see the town from the water.

On April 4th we finally headed into Torres del Paine national park.  Torres del Paine is the most famous area for trekking in Patagonia-you've almost certainly seen pictures.  There are two main treks to do: the Circuit, which takes 7-9 days (although we met a crazy ultra marathoner whose plan was to run it in one day) and the "W", which takes five days and hits the main highlights.  If you do the W you can do the trip staying in Refugios the whole way and not have to carry a tent (they will also feed you and rent sleeping bags so you don't have to carry any gear at all, although we brought our bags and a stove to cook breakfasts and some dinners).  I can't speak for what is like in summer, but I was really, really glad to be sleeping indoors.  The weather was truly foul for a lot of the trip and a tent would have miserable.  It rains part of every day and drizzles for much of the rest, and it's cold (high of ~45, low below freezing) but what was really brutal was the wind.  I have never experienced wind like this--not in Newfoundland, not at the top of Sublette right before they close the lift.  We met people who were literally blown over, and one night two Belgian girls we met had a guy wire ripped out of their tent and the tent blown away with all their stuff inside. Luckily, a tree stopped it from swimming in the lake.

Torres del Paine is magnificent. Of all of the places I have been, Patagonia may be the wildest and most rugged.  Walking in these mountains it feels like you're hiking off the end of the Earth.  The landscape changes all the time from desert to forest to Andean steppe to high alpine to subarctic to glaciers every kilometer or so.  Words won't do it justice, so here are some pictures. More pictures are available on the album.

 

Some thoughts about the hike, in no particular order:

1. These are long hard days, especially if you've just spent the last six months sitting one your butt writing a dissertation.  We had two days of 10+ hours and three more of 7-10 miles with a fair amount of elevation.  If you stay in the Refugios, though, you can do the hard parts with only a day pack.  We are both a little worse for the wear and glad to take today off.
2. Bring serious foul weather gear, including a pack cover.  And trekking poles.
3. The map they give you is pretty detailed, but the contour intervals are every 250m (which is crazy coarse) so you get all excited about a a relatively easy day only to have it actually be thousands of vertical feet.
4. If you eat all your meals there and rent sleeping bags, the Refugios are crazy expensive.  Lik $100+ pppd expensive.  We saved a lot cooking our own breakfasts, one dinner, and carrying our bags.  They are good about gluten free, though.
5. There are rainbows everywhere! We saw several a day, including one in a lake, created by the wind whipping up a spraw. It's a phemonenon I have never heard of, much less seen.

At the end of the hike we bused back to Puerto Natales for the night.  We experienced quite a bit of local color that evening.  To wit: the two-hour laundry guy (who must have been at least 65), upon becoming concerned at my poor circulation after shaking my hand, attempted a diagnosis.  He pulled out a chart that looks like reflexology except for eyes, stared deeply into my eyes for an uncomfortable length of time, and then told me that something was wrong with my vagina (the chart said so!). Then he gave me a name to google and told me to eat right for my blood type.  We ate dinner at a local dive bar with terrible food and cheap alcohol and shared a table with Pedro and Marcello, who bought us several drinks and were exceedingly patient with my broken Spanish. (I was doing great until we got to the subject of gun control).

Yesterday we spend mostly on the bus getting from Puerto Natales to El Chalten, Argentina, with a several hour excursion to see the spectacular Perito Moreno glacier.  We're here for the next few days at a lovely B&B with a double bed (!) and a private bathroom (!!) for more hiking and some R&R.  Then on to Buenos Aires.

You are probably waiting for the part of this blog where Mark goes on and on about food.  The food has been pretty uninspired, though, so we'll skip that this time.  We've cooked some and eaten our some.  So far, food has not been cheap (actually nothing is cheap--fingers crossed for Boliva and Peru) although wine is.  Gluten free has not been too much of a trial with the exception of an inadequate perusal of the ingredients list on a granola bar.  Dairy free AND gluten free is flat out imposslbe so that's out the window.  My hands are holding together so far. So far, the trip has been relatively easy.  Me speaking some Spanish is useful, but probably not necessary.  It is occurring to us that we were way too ambitious with the amount of stuff we're fitting in to this trip; this will definitely be a "highlights" tour.  Next time we'll know that seven weeks is really only enough for two countries, max.

Ciao for now!

A Rainy Day In Istanbul

Today was my last day in Istanbul and for the first time on my trip, it was cloudy and a little rainy. A little unfortunate since my plan was to go to the Prince's Islands to do some biking and swimming. Well, I figured, what the hell, I won't have a chance to go again and worst case, I'll just wander around the islands and come back earlier. To get to/from the islands you just take one of the city ferries which run roughly every 90 min. Then the ride is about 90 min. From reading the travel guides, I was warned that the last island, where most tourists go, is a complete trap if you want any kind of food. Like try 30 lira for a doner (meat wrap that you get in the city for 5). So, I went to the next smallest island.

Because of the weather, I didn't have to worry about the ferry being crowded and it was a pleasant ride into the sea of Marmara and out to the islands. You get a good view of the Asian side of Istanbul along the way, which just stretches forever with plenty of high rise residential buildings. The islands themselves have no cars (except fire & police) so everybody bikes, walks, or takes the horse drawn carriages. They used to be primarily used by the Istanbul elite who wanted to get out of the city but some of the places are quite run down now.

When I got to the island, I just started wandering. I couldn't go too far since the island is only a few kilometers square. First, I found a very large farmer's market where the vendors were selling tons of fruits and veggies to the locals. Lots of great looking stuff there. After that, I headed slowly up through the town, which has a very Greek feel to the architecture. Eventually, the houses faded away and the forest was left with a couple of roads to wander through. It was quite pleasant.

I had brought along my swim trunks because I might have the opportunity to go to a beach and get a swim in. It didn't work though. The "beaches" were all private spaces with lawn chairs where you could technically enter the water and swim for maybe 25m. For the privilege, it was 10 lira. I guess they're really trying to catch the sand bums, not the water bums. It makes me wonder, why don't people sunbath in the desert if they won't use the water?

It took me an hour to wander all the way around the island and I found the cemetery and a military facility complete with some big turret guns. The rain started about when I got back into town and it was an hour and a half before the next ferry, so I sat down at a cafe for lunch. Because of the warning about rip-off restaurants, I was originally planning on just buying bread and picnicking it, but with the rain, I wanted somewhere to sit. So, I checked the prices and they weren't absurd also they did try to upsell me by offering me lots of extra things, which I kept having to refuse.

When it was time, I hopped back on the ferry to head back to Istanbul. On the way back, I saw some dolphins pacing the boat that were having fun. There was also a fleet of single man sailboats that looked like they were practicing for racing. It was a nice and relaxing ride.

Back in Istanbul, I didn't have much I wanted to do. I've done pretty much everything touristy this city has to offer. So, I just wandered a bit and found some mulberry molasses, then went back to the hostel. It's been a fun time in Istanbul, but it's time to move on, which I'll do tomorrow when I fly to Paris.

Spicy Times

The overnight bus from Goreme was fairly straightforward. Once again, I was able to sleep pretty much the whole way even though at times I was jolted half awake. When we got to Istanbul, they dumped us at a switching station and not the Otogar, saying we had to take a shuttle to the Octogar. Well a ton of other people who came from Goreme started complaining because they were apparently told that they'd be dropped off in Sultanhamet. They were also told that there would be bathrooms on the bus and there would be english audio available for the videos. All patent lies. I hate how you can't trust anybody selling anything here. They're perfectly happy to lie out their ass in order to get you to buy something so you have to argue everything. Anyways, I never got those promises because I booked online, but I was more than happy to add my voice. So we got dropped off right near my hostel. No metro necessary.

Anyway, after dropping off my bags at the hostel, they wanted to charge me 5 lira to use the shower because I hadn't checked in. So, I figured it was a good time to try a Hamam or Turkish bath. It was ok, but it was overpriced and the massage part was fairly cursory and then there was a cockroach in the sauna that kept bugging me at the end. I've also come to the conclusion that getting a message on a hot marble slab isn't the best of ideas, especially with a bum knee. You get pressure points because there's nothing that conforms to your body like the cushion on a modern message table. It being warm was nice though.

After the bath, it was time to go shopping. I mostly wanted stuff from the Spice Bazaar, but I was also looking for some gifts. I spent a good while wandering around the bazaar seeing what was available and what prices people were charging. I didn't buy everything from one guy because different people had better prices for different things. One guy was great, he saw the Canadian flag and guessed I was from Toronto which was fun, then he kept showing me all his spices and Turkish delight and letting me try them. I did buy half a kilo of black chilies from him but in the process he shoved about a dozen pieces of Turkish delight in my face and at the end, he asked if I had a Canadian flag pin that he could have. I never thought to carry around that kind of thing when traveling but it's a good idea because people will appreciate it.

Oh, on a side note, with the Canadian flag you have to watch out for people yelling at you stuff like "hey Canada" or "Hello friend where are you from". They're trying to sell you something.)

In the market, I had some things I wanted to find. Namely sun-dried red pepper paste, chiles and apple tea, but I was also keeping my eye out for something interesting. I found it when I found some dried lemons. I've heard that they have a unique flavor and can be used to add an extra depth to a lot of dishes like stews. They're really hard to find in North America but I found them here about bought 200g worth for 15 lira or about 10 bucks. I also ended up with 500g of black chiles, a kilo of red pepper paste, 500g of red chiles and 250g of apple tea (a Turkish specialty). I also found half a kilo of fresh figs for a Lira that I couldn't pass up :-)

Some other fun finds in the market: dried eggplant on strings just like a string of chiles. Logs of Turkish delight. Crystallized citric acid. Sumac that was premixed with olive oil and salt (I didn't buy it because the raw sumac I have at home is better). Everybody trying to sell their own version of "barbeque spice" or "fish spice".

Hiking Through the Hills

Right around Goreme, there's plenty of breathtaking valleys and rock formations. So, today I figured that I'd explore them on foot with the help of two big bottles of water. I started off with the Open Air Museum, which is the prime site for cave churches. There's probably a dozen of them ranging from ones that you could barely see the frescoes, to the dark church where the blues are stunning. Blues are the first colors to go when exposed to light so many of the church paintings are reds and yellows and look a little odd. Not this one. It was quite impressive. The other interesting thing about the Frescoes was that some of them were painted in red and look like they were drawn by a kindergartener. Just very basic shapes. I overheard one of the guides saying that it's their rough draft of planning out the paintings. Just like the pencil sketches that people would do now to figure out the layout. However, it was in a dark, staining red, so if the Fresco breaks down, it can often leave the sketch still on the wall.

With all the churches at the museum so close together, I wonder how many of them were actually churches. See most of them had graves which previously held bones. I wonder if it was a little like the Valley of the Kings and most of the churches were really tombs.

After the open air museum, I headed up the road and quickly realized that the map I had was virtually useless. It gave me the rough locations of things, but not the trails. So I decided to improvise and just follow the random paths that were heading in the direction I was interested in.

I ended up walking along a ridge to the west of the Red and Rose Valleys going by one spectacular view after another. Some of the trails were a little difficult because the sand was loose and it was steep, but it was doable. There were also grapes everywhere, some looked like they were being cultivated, while others were definitely just left alone, so I had a few snacks. The area is just incredible. With the many layers of rock that were slowly cut away, you have a mosaic of colorful formations. It's also the perfect mountain biking terrain because there's lots of interesting terrain that twists through the hills and the vegetation isn't high, so you can see and go virtually anywhere. On top of it all, many of the old abandoned caves are still open, so you can just walk up to them and explore. I found a couple of churches that weren't labeled and ended up eating lunch from a cave halfway up a fairy chimney. Very idyllic.

Really, there's not too much else to say about the day. The truth is in the myriad of pictures that I took that should be uploaded in a day or two.

Dr. Seuss, I Found Your Inspiration

It was a day to tour Cappadocia solo. The sun was shining, there was a breeze in the air and people were smiling. Hey, let's be honest, it's been like every other day in Turkey :-). Since the sights in Cappadocia are so far apart, you can't exactly walk to much. However, a lot of the interesting valleys are very much in biking distance and there are shops in town to fill the need. Plus, today there was also a mountain biking festival and race in town, so it's only appropriate to rent a bike to see the sights.

The bike itself was pretty bad. The gears weren't stable and slipped often, but it worked I suppose. I wanted to head north out of town towards Zelve and then loop around to Ugurp and back to Groeme. Total distance only about 20 km that was very hilly. This is an absolutely perfect mountain biking area even though I spent most of my time on the roads. Of course, on my first turn, I headed out of town in the wrong direction right up a nice long hill. There was a good view up top, but I figured out I went in the wrong direction. Instead of taking the boring road back, I saw a dirt road and I was pretty sure Love Valley was that way. So why not. The path took me along the rim of the valley and yep, it was definitely Love Valley. Off to my left were a few dozen rock formations that looked exactly like giant penises.

After coming down off the rim, I went by the small town that I forget the name of. Just on the other side is a rock church that I decided to see. It has some incredible frescoes. Of course I can't get pictures of it because they don't allow cameras. It's really annoying that a lot of places in Turkey won't let you take a picture. I understand the no-flash rules to preserve the art, but no pictures at all. Maybe they just figure that too many stupid people will use flash that it's better to just say no photos at all.

After the church, I kept heading North and then turned onto the road to Zelve. Zelve is now an open air museum. It's the confluence of three valleys with a whole city built into the fairy chimneys and cliff faces. Apparently, people lived there up until the 1950's when the government decided that it was too dangerous and they moved everybody a few km away. Now, it's just a tourist destination although you can't see all of it because of the risk of collapse. For the lunch I at here, I had a spinnach pancake like thing that was then grilled. Quite simple and tasty.

After Zelve, I headed towards Urgurp through more beautiful scenery. Urgurp is a fairly built up town. However, it's still mostly for tourists, but compared to Groeme, which specializes in caves, Urgurp is known for its fancy hotels and apartments. So, it's a little bigger and has a bigger downtown area. I did a quick circuit of town and settled down for a cold apple tea and some reading.

Before leaving town, I stopped by the supermarket for my third 1.5L bottle of water for the day and some energy snacks. What can I say, it was bloody hot and so I needed a lot of water. On the way out, I stopped by the local winery for a tasting but their wines from local grapes were pretty bad and expensive. It's disappointing because the house wines I've been having in the restaurants have been quite pleasant.

Now, I just needed to get back to Groeme. This involved a long climb up over the ridge. Fortunately, on the top of the ridge, there was a great opportunity for a view of the valleys and some snacking on one of the random grape bushes around. Heading back down the hill, I kept stopping for more photo shoots and stopped by a place with lots of ventilation holes in the hills. My guide yesterday had said that one of the main sources of income in the region is to dig caves for storage and keep citrus in there because the caves are always so cold. In the winter there's plenty of snow to give you an idea. Anyway, painted on the hill beside the ventilation shafts was a sign that said "Lemon Storage Caves" I laughed and started to take a picture, but was interrupted by a guy waving a grapefruit at me miming to ask if I wanted one. Sure, why not. Over the next 15 min or so, we talked (his English was half decent) and he fed me not one, but two of the best grapefruits I've ever eaten. He asked me where I'm from and I said Canada. He runs back to his shack and pulls out some notebooks and starts leaving through them. I see writing in all sorts of languages and he stopped on all his entries from people in Canada. Basically, his hobby is to flag down tourists, give them fruit and get them to sign his guestbook. I gladly added an entry :-)

Finally, I rambled down the hill into Groeme and returned my bike. Then back to the hotel for a quick shower and I headed out to the town as the sun was setting to get some pictures. Then, I had dinner at Alaturka, which is probably the most expensive place in town. They were highly recommended by Lonely Planet, but may have taken it a step far considering that their check books are imprinted with the Lonely Planet logo. Anyway, I had a great dish which was stewed beef in a light tomato sauce over an eggplant puree. Yum.

Overall today, I saw a lot of jaw dropping rock formations that come right out of a Dr. Seuss book, got a good workout, met a citrus man and enjoyed some good food. I'd say it's been my best day in Turkey so far.

The Lost Christians of Cappadocia

It's my first day out of Istanbul. I took the overnight bus from Istanbul to Goreme in Cappadocia. It's a 10hr ride that went by pretty easily. The guy beside me was a 45 year old going to Goreme for a mountain biking race so I talked to him for a while using his broken English. He was very nice and quite a character. After that, it was blissful sleep.

When I woke up, I was in Naveshir. Actually, no bus goes directly to Goreme. They all just go to Naveshir and then you pick up a shuttle bus to Goreme. The shuttle bus that was set up for me was actually a tour group so on the way, the guy was trying to convince me to go on his tour for the day. He said I could throw my bags in the back and then I'd just check into the hotel when we were done. It actually sounded like a good plan because Cappadocia is so spread out that you really need to take tours and then you get some context too. So, that's what I did.

We went and picked up the other 14 people for the tour and headed out on a 250km loop. First stop was the monestary. So the thing about this region is that there's a lot of really soft sandstone everywhere topped off with some hard volcanic rock. This happened because three big volcanoes blew their tops at roughly the same time (geologically) and deposited 200m of rock on the area very quickly. Since the sandstone is so soft, it's really easy to cave into so over the millenia, people have been digging their own caves here and living in them. They think it started with the Hitites, but realistically, there's been half a dozen civilizations living in these holes and some of them get really intricate. The christians made a really big impression on the area before the Bysantinzes showed up. Since the romans presecuted the christians, they took their workship underground. Litterally. The monestary is a perfect example complete with cathedral and burnt frescoes depicting biblical scenes. And all the passages just weave around and under each other.

The next stop was the valley where we did a 3km walk along the floor. This valley is a gigantic crack hundreds of meters deep with a river running through the center. It was created as the lava cooled and the surface cracked up. The sides of the valley are littered with churches and homes of people that used to live there. Now, there's people still living in the valley, but they stay on the valley floor and do some agriculture and cater to the tourists. We had lunch at one of these places (and I was hungry considering I didn't get breakfast) where I ate a clay pot of beef and vegetables. A local specialty that really wasn't excuted well at all. The meat was too gristly and fairly tasteless. It was an idylic setting though where some of the tables were even suspended directly over the water on stilts.

After lunch, it was a 40 min drive to the underground city. And they don't call it a city for nothing. It's ginormous. It goes 20 levels down and they think could hold over 10,000 people if needed. There's even a church, a stable, a winery and a school underground. We could only go to the first 8 floors but it was still ridiculously impressive. They figure that it was mostly built by the Christians who weren't warriors so that when an invading army came through, they'd just dissapear into their holes and wait it out. If the invader did come through, then they had choke points with very narroy passageways and heavy stones that could be rolled over then to close the passage. Of course, an attacker could try to flush them out by plugging the air holes, but they made many to try and prevent this.

Once we got out of the underground city, we went to the carpet co-op where they showed us how the carpets are made and explained about the different types. Then they tried to sell us some carpets. I ended up buying one for beside my bed. It was more expensive than the Kilm, but I trust these guys more that it was actually handmade and that they paid the women.

Finally, it was back to Goreme where I checked into my hotel. Goreme is built into the cliffs and fairy chimneys strewn throughout a valley. People still live in many of the caves but at this point, most have been converted into hotel rooms. I had booked a single cave room but I think that they had it listed funny on the booking website. Once I finally showed the guy my registration receipt on my computer, he pointed up to a little hole on the side of the cliff that I would barely be able to squeeze through. That's my room. Oh and there's a ladder to get up there. Ok. So he comes with me and helps me get my stuff into the room and low and behold it opens up into this huge place with a double bed, a single bed, a fireplace, a bunch of lounging chairs and a gigantic bathroom. They also put in wood floors to make it more comfortable and finished marble in the bathroom. Not bad for $20 a night :-)

Asian Asymptoticry

Now that the conference is over, I had one more day in Istanbul before the night bus to Goreme. So, I decided that I needed to see the Asian side. I also wanted to go through the Dolambace Palace which was built in the 1800s with a decidely European style.

First stop was the Asian side. It's a quick ferry ride over there, but once there, there's not much to do. There's a ton of mosques because it's the part of Istanbul closest to Mecca & Medina, but because of Ramadan, there were prayers going on the whole time I was over there. So, I couldn't go in to see them. The only other place of interest is a small island just off the coast. Apparently, at one point, there was a giant chain strung from that island across the Bosporos to Istanbul. This would prevent ships from sailing behind the city, thus making it easier to defend. Famously though, one invading fleet (I forget which one) got around this by going at night, then unloading everybody on the shore. Next, they picked up the boats and took them overland around the chain and put them back in the water. This let them attack the city from behind at dawn.

My only other stop on the Asian side was for lunch where I went to a cafeteria like place that was recommended by Lonely Planet. You could order almost any traditional Turkish food including Pig Trotters. I had an eggplant and ground beef dish and a warm yogurt & mint soup. For desert, I had a semolina pudding like desert soaked in honey and topped with almond. It was delicious as the semolina give it a little bit of texture. It would be a great base to experiment with some simple deserts. Add a little bit of liquor or candied fruit or fresh berries and you're rocking.

Back on the European side, I visited Dolhambace palace, which was the last Ottoman palace. At some point, the Sulatans were starting to westernize and decided that the Tokapi palace was too Eastern, so they built this gigantic medieval style palace. Of course, it's filled with rugs, but it's also painted in the Renaissance style and has gilt everywhere. Plus, the chandeliers. Tons of them including one that's 4.5 tons in the main reception hall. Basically the whole thing is very European monarch: ostentatious as hell.

Finally, after visiting the palace, I went back to the hostel and chilled until it was time to head to the bus station.