Northwest Territories guide

Spectacular NWT. That's what they call it. I ordered the travel guide because their online PDF was sluggish. Now I have a 164-page Explorers Guide featuring all kinds of hiking, trekking, paddling, etc, etc, and guiding information to look at in my leisure time :)

Exciting to think about spending a bit of time Up North.

Never been there and am looking forward to the opportunity.

Trekking in Canada

The view over Cochamo valley, Chile. We are planning a
return visit there in January 2012 to more fully explore
the mountains.

Trekking has fast become my favourite way to experience new places. From the Grand Canyon to mountain ranges across South America I've been loving getting out there with a tent, kitchen and all the things I need in my backpack. Indeed, we are planning on heading back to Cochamo next year.

Yet, I've not seen Canada's wilder places from that perspective. Sure, I've skied out West, and in the East, I've lived on PEI and explored all the Island has to offer, done the drive around the Cabot Trail, day-hiked around Ottawa, navigated the wilds of Toronto :). But when we go 'backcountry', we head to the Adirondack Mountains wilderness in New York State - which is a fantastic place and only 3 hours from Ottawa.

This year, we will discover some of Canada's wilder fringes doning backpacks and hiking boots (and all the other stuff one needs out there).

So here's my question: What are your favourite trekking destinations across the country?What are the off-the-beaten trekking spots in the Northwest Territories and Newfoundland? The ruminating is just beginning and any random hints will be taken into consideration.

Professional hazard ...

I'm putting up a short series of tidbits on random observations on South American advertising, marketing, brands (with pictoral support of course!) on my professional blog at www.strategicmoves.blogspot.com over the next few days; from Santa and Coca-Cola to signage to restaurants, you'll hopefully enjoy ...

Which way does it go?

With Navimag from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt

One part of our trip that we hadn't had a chance to post pics about was our 3 day, 4 night ferry trip from Puerto Natales (south of Torres del Paine in southern Patagonia) to Puerto Montt (the main city in the Lake District in Northern Patagonia). But with this post, we are sharing some of those pics.

View of Puerto Natales, a surprising gem of a town,
from Navimag ferry.

Ready to play cards in the bar.

Sunny day brought everyone out on the deck.

The trip takes that long because it covers about 800+ km. Chile is a very long country with about 4,000 km in total. The route mostly navigates the many fjords of Patagonia and in one part also goes out into the open Pacific. That can be a bit choppy, but Jan and I were just fine with the waves and rolls.

Being on a boat that long was interesting because of the people on the boat. There were a few truckers transporting livestock and other goods. But to the most part there were about 100 backpackers of all ages and from a few countries, mostly European, who had all trekked or hiked in Torres del Paine. There was even one Chilean family on board.

We had a lovely cabin mate from Zurich and met some other Swiss, German and French people who we chatted with, hang out with and played some cards with. All around very pleasant, really and a real break from being physical. Even though it was a bit of a shock to the system not to have a great deal of exercise.

There was a little bit of traffic.
Also saw some big fishing huts
being moved by sea.

Waves. Wooohoooo!

Sun and navigating through some narrow channels.

A couple of our travel companions
playing chess. That and the bar was it
for "entertainment." Backpackers are
pretty self-sufficient on that count though.

Peruvian-Japanese fusion cuisine

We didn't encounter this in Peru, likely because we didn't spend any significant city time and the mountains were dominated by country food. Both in Viña del Mar in Chile and in Buenos Aires we enjoyed this awesome fusion. There are plenty of connections between Asian and Latin American countries. For instance a Peruvian-Japanese chef evolved ceviche, a South American raw fish dish (fish that is cooked in a citric acid marinade rather than by heat) to its modern form. Certainly, fish and seafood are important in Japanese and many South American dishes.

In Viña del Mar we came across Six bar near the beach and had an unexpectedly great meal, cocktails, coffee and great service all included.

Inga's starter roll. This was so yummy!

Jan's veggie starter - modified to her specifications.

Inga's main. So good.

Jan's giant salad main.

When we were in Buenos Aires - capital of a country known for its notoriously bland food and, well, steaks - we looked for Peruvian-Japanese fusion and had several options to pick from in the trendy Palermo neighbourhood. We walked many blocks only to settle on the first place we had seen - of course - aptly called Ceviche.

Causa peruana sampler - the base is potato, toppings included squid, fish with avocado 

Jan's custom order of a great veggie salad with eggplant

We both ordered a variety of rolls as our mains. Some of mine were warm, and all very delicious!

Climbing a changing Huayna Potosi

We took a lot of photos while we were travelling: 3 months x 2 cameras = 6,000+ pics. We are editing and sorting through them now. We are also working on making a few digestible slideshows, you know short and to the point, rather than repetitive and, well, ultimately, a bit boring.

Huayna Potosi is the snowy mountain in the background.
We actually saw it from all of sides before climbing
to its summit.

As we do this, we are also going to fill in some of the blanks here left by "being out there doing it", rather than being pre-occupied with web access.

This pic taken in beautiful afternoon light shows another vibrant laguna at about 4,700 m and a mountain range that is overshadowed by the summit of Huayna Potosi. We had this 6,088 m high mountain in view every day for the last 3 or 4 days of our trek. We basically walked around it.

That gave us plenty of time to contemplate the ascent we planned. Each view of the mountain is quite different. Climbing all the way up to its summit by the "normal route", also meant that everything else we had seen of it was either way harder for any kind of ascent or impossible by today's standards. In part this is due to the rapid disappearance of glaciers on these sides of Huayna Potosi. The rock being revealed as previous glacier and ice routes melt away, appears to be very, very difficult to contemplate ascending.

Much of the glaciers in the tropical latitudes are disappearing and doing so quickly. It is as if we got a close up view of the true scale of these massive climactic changes.

At the very top of the summit ridge there were lots of rocks
to content with - while on ice crampons. Rocks are hard to
navigate with them. Also rocks mean increased risk of rock fall,
one of the bigger dangers now.

Viña del Mar's waves

And here's some more pictoral catching up from our voyage: The beaches in Viña del Mar.

The waves are high and as a result there's little swimming but plenty of getting chased by these powerful waves. Jan had some fun in them. It was fun to have some real beach time as part of our excursion. Even though it involves little hiking and a lot of people.

After christmas, summer vacations in Chile and Argentina start and the Valparaiso/Viña del Mar region receives a huge number of these vacationers. Hotel occupancy was above 97%.

Jan contemplates the Pacific.

Moments later: Pow!



Yeah, Jan made it past the wave for some
great frolicking in the ocean!



Check out the kids' reaction
to this one!



Plenty of wave chasing by vacationers.



Birds doing a fly by. Hard to take
pics of birds in flight with a
point-and-click...

Passing over "The Pass"

Finally, here´s a 360 degree video of the highest point of the Torres del Paine trek: John Gardner Pass. From knee-deep snow on the way up to ferocious winds that blow you down to amazing views of the huge Southern Icefield and a rather muddy and steep descent to camp - this pass had it all in store for us!

Hope you´ll enjoy it as much as we did :)

The beach ...

... is on the Pacific ocean. The waves are amazing here in Viña del Mar, twin city of Valparaiso about 1,5 hours from Santiago. Been enjoying some fine food, well, better anyways in terms of vegetarian options than during much of this voyage when not camping :)

We'll try and get some pics up in the next couple of days so you can appreciate it all for yourself.

Unbelievably, we are supposed to touch down in Ottawa in a few short days. We will spend a day in Buenos Aires on the way home, courtesy of Air Canada's policy-driven ... insanity. More on that later, too  :(

Our private Chilean cooking class was fun today. Looking forward to a tad more beach time before heading north!

Feliz Año Nuevo, Happy New Year, Alles Gute im Neuen Jahr, Bonne annee

New year in Valparaiso was a blast! We got plenty of hugs and kisses from chilenos as well as shared a dance or two. As part of the festivities (that lasted until we got home at 3:00 am -- and then opened the small bottle of champagne left by our bed), we had a delicious supper at a funky restaurant, Cafe Vinilo. The chef was very creative and accommodated my vegetarian palate brilliantly. Hence, on Monday, the masterful chef Gonzalo will be teaching us about la cocina chilena, so we can serve up 'authentic' chilean food at our next dinner party.

Jan's Charquican, a chilean
national dish.



Dinner at Cafe Vinilo.







Scrumptious desert.









Now, as for the street party ... the photos and video tell it like it was. Awesome!


We fit right in here :)



Good times.




  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
May your new year be filled with wondrous moments, plenty of love, peace and happiness. Bring on the good times!
That's it for now ... we're heading to the beach!



Paaaaarrrrty!



Happy New Year!