Cochamó Valley: Trekking galore!... but why oh why do we keep getting lost?

Trees trees mountains trees hiking trees snow mountains rock smiles horses woodburning stove climbing no electricity.

That’s what I would say if someone asked about the last five days.

Here’s what I’d say if they threw up their hands and gave me a quizzical look with regards to my last statement:

Tuesday November 11.


One of the guys staying in our hospedaje gave us a lift to the fin de la carretera, some 12 km out of Cochamó town. We handed him a few thousand pesos for his trouble, shouldered our packs and turned our back on civilization.






We were free! Out in the countryside. Nothing between us and raw nature.




Except that we reached an obstacle only minutes into our trek. The trail ended. And private property began. What? Private property?!


Timidly we entered the gate with the barbed wire. Up and up we stumbled over rocks. Skipped over rushing streams. Squished through the mud. Crunched over branches. Munched our pre-made pb&j sandwiches.



Hours. And hours. And hours of trekking. Even though we had left the biggest pack in Cochamó town, our bags were certainly not a pleasure to carry up into the valley.

Suddenly the trees open up revealing a perfectly spectacular view.






With muddy sopping feet, we arrive at the sign announcing that it’s only another 15 minutes to the refugio. Hooray!





A house! We see a house! Sign of life!! But… there are padlocks on the doors and, except for a handful of horses and cows milling around, we don’t see anyone. Plus the two tilted wooden structures aren’t exactly what I expected the refugio to look like.



Tired, hungry, and con muchas ganas de encontrar el refugio, we backtracked. It has to be around here somewhere. It just has to.


But every path led to the same place.

What?! We continued on the path where I bit my lip as I forded the frigid waters of river Cochamó up to my waist. My bare feet barely hung on to the slippery rocks as the waves nearly carried me off downstream.

Nate stayed on the other bank as I explored. Didn’t bother putting my shoes back on. They would have only gotten muddy and wet. Plus, the mud felt nice squishing between my toes and soles of my feet were already numb so I didn’t feel the branches crack under my weight.

But all of that effort was in vain because the forest trails didn’t lead to a refugio. They led further than I wanted to go. I returned in defeat to the river crossing where my shrug must not have done much to lift Nate’s spirits.

With sopping wet pants I was just about to give up. We daydreamed about arriving in the refugio for a hot beverage and a soft cushion to sit on to rest our feet. The sun was setting. It was obvious that we would be spending the night on the ground in every layer we had brought.

This was not how we had planned it. It was supposed to be an awesome day. And here we were, exhausted sweaty hungry grumpy lost, without any idea of how to get to the elusive refugio. We saw a few buildings on the other side of the river, but had no idea how to get over there. There was no way for us to cross.

Before giving up all hope, we set off one more time in search of help. Anybody.

We wandered down every conceivable path. Nothing.

But we did find a curious cable running from one side of the rushing river to the other. Two cables in fact. Wonder what they were for…

But then! We heard! Could it be?! Voices?! ¡HOLA! ¡HOLA! It was Daniel! On the other side of the river. We had found the help we needed!!! With the aid of his harnesses and pulleys, we zipped across the cable (oh, that’s what it’s for!). We were so speechlessly relieved as we followed them to the refugio, a beautiful two-story wooden building with friendly occupants and a warm wooden stove. It was music to our senses.

We shamelessly scarfed down dinner and a few glasses of wine in the glow of candle light. The dinner table talk was mostly in Spanish, Chilean Spanish, which is reallyveryfast and with the endin o wor cu of. Daniel and Silvina leant us sleeping bags and we conk out.

Wednesday November 11.

There’s no electricity up in the refugio, but we hardly even miss it. All meals are freshly prepared over the wood-burning stove. I learn how to make a proper Argentinean yerba mate. Three-year-old Zenon keeps us busy with autos and libros.

Just because the 5-6 hour trek the day before wasn’t enough for us, Nate and I set off on a 6-7 hour hike up the Arco Iris trail. Take a sharp left at the three-way-fork-in-the-trail, says Daniel. So we set off looking for the said fork. We find it, we think. But it leads to us hacking through thick foliage. This way? That way? Ugh.

We give up and take what we think is the wrong route, which ends up being the right route. Confusing? It shouldn’t be, but for some reason Nate and I can’t help but get lost. Finally we’re on the right road, we think. Yes! Orange trail markers. Fantastic.

Up and up and up. The trail takes us through a dense forest. Up up up. Not a hike for the faint of heart. Up up up. Every so often we get a glimpse of the stunning mountain view. Up up up. We go the wrong way… have to backtrack back to the real path. Up up up. At a few sections Daniel has hung rope to help you haul yourself up the rock face.


Drip drip drip. The moss-adorned rock is still quite wet. Slosh slosh slosh. My poor beat up sneakers squish with every step. Up up up. The terrain changes from thick forest to pricklies, crunchy leaves, and tree roots. Horas tras horas. We reach the snow. Crunch crunch slip! Our sneakers sink into the melting snow, making walking a cold wet exhausting activity. Sticking to dry rock whenever possible, we scramble to the what we think is the top of the mountain. The view is breathtaking. Snow-covered mountains and rolling greenerthangreen hills for as far as we could see. We savor the moment.


Briefly! Then it’s back down we go. Nate takes giant wild steps to glide down the snow banks. The snow guides us back down to the tree line. We fill our water bottles with fresh snow before heading back into the vegetation. Going down is a lot easier than going up, but a new blister appears on my left heel. Hunger and fear of nightfall keeps our pace fast. It’s such a great feeling to arrive back at the refugio. We eat two dinners that night.

Cochamó. Wait... we made it?!

It was afternoon on Monday November 10 when Chains and Bandit (me and Nate, respectively) pulled into Cochamó. We set off from Seattle 134 days ago with our sights set on this Patagonian town. And we’re here!

Now I’ll catch you all up on how we got here.


Friday November 7.

Woke up in Bariloche, the Argentinean Aspen, full of trendy ski gear and chocolate shops. Our 10th floor hostel had one spectacular view over the snowy-peak-bordered lake. We decided to climb up to Cerro Otto for a 360 degree spectacular view. We were told to get an earlier start and to expect some wind and maybe some rain.


We walked the 5km along the water ooohing and ahhhhing over the mountains. We arrived at the Teleferico and kept walking. The sandy path took us up. And up. And up.


My legs weren’t working as I told them to. They quickly tired and I slowed down to a tortuga’s pace. Dogs barked from afar, but we just kept on marching along. Suddenly the view opened up. It was spectacular. We could see mountains on all sides. But we also saw the storm clouds coming towards us. We turned back to our own mountain and put one foot in front of the other.

Finally we made it to the top. The air was bitter cold and the wind was fierce. We walked around the complex, which was closed for the season and took a few photos with numb fingers. The wind almost carried me off.



I was very ready to start heading down. My fingers were just about frozen and the storm clouds looked like they would open up any second. We took the longer, but less difficult way down.

Nate found some rocks to boulder around on. I was very cold, so I started walking. The rain found its way to us. Small droplets cascaded onto our rain jackets as we broke into a jog.

At the bottom of the hill we splurged on a 2 peso (60 cent) hot chocolate. The walk back into town was uncomfortable, but it was so good to be warm again.


The rain continued for the rest of the day. Since our shoes were soaked, we had to run errands in our flip flops. Pelting rain in frigid temperatures. I don’t think my feet have ever experienced that much pain before!

Dinner was a concoction of whatever we had; it was too cold to leave the hostel.

The cab came by to pick us up at 6:45am on Saturday November 8. Our bus to Puerto Montt took us past some spectacular views and, of course, across the border into Chile.




Puerto Montt was not so nice. So we hopped a collectivo to Puerto Varas, the more touristy siblingcity.







We found our hostel after a few minutes and after a quick supermarket run, whipped up a few burgers.




We rested up and dined out that night.

Sunday November 9.

The city had no electricity. And our hostel didn’t have any room for us that night. So we set off looking for a new place. We found an awesome cute B&B (or as Nate rightly pointed out, a C&D). The family who owned the colorful creaky house were sweet and the bunkbeds came with breakfast, internet and unlimited use of the kitchen. Fantastic.

Most everything was closed for Sunday, so we took some time to walk around town. We cruised up and down the streets. Made the worst mac n cheese ever.

Monday November 10.

Ran errands and just barely made the bus to Cochamó. On the way we saw spectacular views of snow capped volcanoes, but that was just the beginning of the spectacular views that we’d be getting. Two hours later we pulled into Cochamó. It was a dusty gravel road kind of town. Nestled on the shore of a lake and surrounded by jaw-dropping mountains. Everything had a relaxed ease about it. The way the people walked arm-in-arm dropping you an “hola” as they strolled through the streets. I like it.

We got the picturesque room overlooking the lake. A scenic afternoon walk took us out of town and bordering the lake. A car pulls over. “I think I found your blog,” calls Daniel out of the driver’s window. It was his refugio that we were going to the next day. Nate was giddy as we said our ‘see you later’s. We were here! One of the many destinations of the Big Trip.

Quiet evening in the quiet little town. And a soup dinner.

Mendoza Malbec and Breathtaking Bariloche!

Yikes. I'm falling behind!

Tuesday November 4. Election day.

The big day had arrived and Nate said a little prayer for my fingernails, which were sure to endure a full day of biting. We grabbed coffee and impulsively tuned into cnn.com and nytimes.com. After a bit of perusing the relevant articles, we decided that we needed to distract ourselves or else we’d pull our hair out with election stress, a symptom that many New Yorkers I know have been afflicted with.

Distraction. Distraction. What do we do?

Mendoza is famous for wine. Very delicious quality wine. Neither Nate nor I had ever been on a wine tour, so what were we waiting for?

We set out at 2pm in a van full of tourists. First stop: A family-run, homemade chocolate/preserves/liquor shop. Upon entering the shop we got a bilingual explanation of each product in the four-person enterprise. They had everything from apple-whiskey preserves to absinthe to spicy eggplant spread. After we got the spiel, we sat down to put our tastebuds to the test. Even though we were impressed with the samples, we decided not to purchase anything.


Next stop: The Baudron winery. We tested the color, aroma and taste of a Chardonnay and a Cabernet Sauvignon. We felt so posh twirling our glasses and then holding them up to the light to inspect the hues. Mmmm… and the tasting! The best part!



We learned about the production of the red, rosé, and white wines, took some pictures, and proudly walked out with two bottles.




Next stop: An olive oil factory. Olive oil is not wine. And it’s certainly non-alcoholic. But it was interesting to learn about its production. And taste it. We bought an unfiltered bottle of olive oil, which was more flavorful and thicker than the oliveoilyoullfindinthesupermarket. Mmmm… olive oil lotion and exfoliater? Ya betcha.


Last stop: The Cavas de Don Arturo winery. This small winery named after its owner specialized in Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon. We walked through the production rooms and tasted some fabulous wine. One bottle was surely coming home with us.

I could feel my half-Asian face flush… and it wasn’t the heat from the midday sun. My mind tuned back to politics on the drive back to the hostel. My nails got shorter.

We ran into the hostel and flipped on BBC. The Irish and English couples who where on our tour popped open their new bottles of wine and definitely did not join us on the couch with our noses inches away from the screen. Baguettes and camembert went very well with our Malbec. It was 8pm local time, 6pm on the East Coast of the US. Polls started to close.

We kept checking in with CNN and New York Times on our laptops as our eyes and ears dodged back to BBC on the TV. I kept up-to-date with my personal correspondents in New York. It was a media explosion. The results trickled in as we trickled more wine into our glasses.

We ordered pizza when we realized that it’d be a long night. When Pennsylvania and Ohio went blue, I was ecstatic, but didn’t celebrate. Anything could happen. Plus, I hadn’t been doing the calculations all along, I didn’t know that there was no turning back.


It was 1am when the West Coast states closed their polls. It was a matter of minutes until California and then Washington were called for Obama. And that was it. It was over.



Uncontrollable tears welled up in my eyes. It was over. Obama had won. Perhaps the dirtiest presidential race was now behind us. McCain had stooped to every new low turning politics into a smearing game, choosing a running mate who didn’t know Africa was a continent, abandoning the ideals that he once stood for. He chose to focus on Obama’s middle name and affiliates of Obama who were involved in activities when he was 8 years old instead of on the economy. He painted the picture of Obama as naïve and inexperienced, but his running mate (the person who would become our president if something were to happen to him) had far less experience. She flounced around the stage saying very little about the issues at hand. We don’t need a hockey mom who appeals to the Joe Sixpacks to run our country. We need an intelligent individual with the knowhow to get this country back on track. And I’m proud to say, that the American public voted for such a person.

So many emotions were running through my mind. Most of them centered around relief and joy. Nate and I were the only two people awake in the hostel when Obama took the stage for his acceptance speech at 2am local time.

First paying his respects to McCain, Obama launched into his speech. Change is not going to be easy. Bush has left a giant mess on the table and does not seem capable (or willing) of cleaning up after himself. But I have full faith that with Obama in charge, we will be seeing some great things happen. I’m so excited.

Wednesday November 5.



Check out was at 10am. Our bus to Bariloche left at 8:00pm. That’s a long time. We ran some errands, cooked food, and lounged.



Another overnight bus. Always a blast.

Thursday November 6.

Woke up. Argentinean buses are pretty luxurious. Lots of ham and cheese sandwiches… and Styrofoam.

I have mixed feelings about Argentina. The country itself is beautiful, that’s for sure. Rolling fields, rainbow hills, breathtaking snow capped mountains. It is truly a pleasure to stare out the window. And the food is good. Best wines and steaks I’ve ever had. Life is comfortable. Teenagers sporting the latest trends. Shoe stores every couple of meters. Wide sidewalks. Plazas covered in trees and flowers and couples making out. Yummy icecream. But that’s it. It’s too comfortable. It’s too much like home.

I miss the markets. The kind you find in Dhaka or Fez or Trujillo or Saida. The open air markets with colorful stalls. Where great big mountains of fresh fruit and veggies sit side-by-side with recently slautered meat and old women selling bundles of various herbs with distinct medicinal purposes. The smells, the chaos, the sounds… the taste of hand-squeezed fresh orange juice for only a few cents/pesos/lira/soles/céntimos. It’s definitely not the cleanliness or hygene that keeps drawing me back, but the ambiance and energy. You meet the people who tilled the land and sowed the seeds for your food. You know the produce is fresh and organic. All of that is lost with large supermarkets. Sure, they’re convenient and cheep, but they remove you from the origins of your food. Instead of buying directly from the farmer, you’re buying from some pimply teenager who snaps his/her gum and processes your order apathetically. Where’s the fun in that?

Arriving in Bariloche means that we’ve crossed the invisible line into Patagonia territory. And it was evident from the unreal spectacular scenery. We opted for a local city bus that took us to the corner San Martin and Pagano. The elevator transported us to the 10th floor, Hostel 1004.

A beautiful place. Plants and draped fabric. Wireless internet and a gigantic spotless guest kitchen. Whew. I’m home!

(That picture is from the living room of the hostel!)


We visited the supermarket and Nate summoned a pack of dogs that followed us. Not just down the street, but for blocks. They were right at our heals! We tried to lose them, but they were persistent… until they found another dog to bark at. We took the opportunity to make a break for it.






Lunch and dinner were both quite tasty.

Change I do believe in.

First the first time since I’ve been politically conscious, I am proud to be an American. I am proud of my country and my fellow citizens.

I know the previous statements can be seen as copycat statements of so many and will earn me a few eye rolls from some of you, especially those who are unhappy with the results of the presidential election last night. But I am amazed with the campaign that Barack Obama has put together and the messages that it stands for. And I am very excited for the opportunity to see the great things that he will bring to the country. He started as an unknown politician with a few good ideas and a handful of charisma and rose to inspire a nation-wide coalition network of motivated volunteers and voters. His ability for organization and motivation is apparent from his success. His intelligence radiated from his debate performances. And all throughout the campaign, he retained his calm diplomatic demeanor even when he was the target of a very negative campaign. Organized, motivated, intelligent, calm, diplomatic. Aren’t those qualities that we look for in a political leader?

Let’s just say that with my international and politically liberal upbringing, I haven’t necessarily been impressed with the image that the United States has created for itself. We like to think of our country as a beacon of freedom and democracy at its finest. But our election system has its flaws, most of which we continuously turn a blind eye to. Our government considers itself the democracy police of the world, however we have made our alliances when and where it has been convenient. For example, our allies in Saudi Arabia are absolute monarchs and yet we’ve turned our backs on the democracy in the West Bank because we don’t like who they have elected. Basically, we support democracies so long as they elect who we want. A bit of a mixed message? And our foreign actions portray us as a money- and power- oriented bully out for our own interests with too much military power. That's not the reputation I want to have as I traverse the world.

Obama realized that reaching out to and building bridges with our “enemies” is much more important than the failed Bush policy of the silent treatment (a policy that McCain would have continued). I’m thrilled that we will start building and strengthening our relationships with other countries. It’s time to stop pretending that we are the only country that makes decisions (and that our decisions don’t have consequences for the rest of the world). We are a member of the global community and we need to start acting like one. What we do from here on out needs to be in conjunction with the international community. Let’s open up communications with other nations. There’s really no harm that could come from it. Didn’t we learn in primary school that problem solving works when you communicate and collaborate with others? Let’s be a global team member rather than isolating ourselves further. And I am confident that a President Obama will bring about that change much more effectively and diplomatically that a President McCain.

But I’m not thinking only of the international successes of these election results, but the domestic implications as well. The state of the economy is on everyone’s minds. I believe that Obama’s economy plan was far superior and better thought out than McCain’s for several reasons. During his campaign, McCain vowed as president to implement a federal spending freeze on everything except the war in Iraq and veteran’s affairs. That was the most disturbing thing for me. The majority of Americans are not soldiers in Iraq or veterans. They would not benefit from this. Education would not benefit from this. No new jobs would be created. The stocks would plummet. McCain promised to create new jobs, but never said how. Instead he just repeated over and over that he knew how to do it.

Obama had a more comprehensive economic plan. It involves investment in greener energy research and production. A withdrawal of Bush’s tax breaks for the wealthiest 1%, a policy McCain would have continued. If you give money to the already wealthy, they have the option of sticking it in a bank account to earn more money off of it. If you give money to the poor and middle class, their economic situations force them to spend that money; some don’t have the luxury of saving. That money spent will be recycled back into the economy. It’s time to burst the Bush bubble and show that the trickle-down effect will not work. It hasn’t worked in the past and it’s not going to work in the future.

Obama certainly has his work cut out for him. It’s not going to be an easy presidency; America is seeing some hard times. But if I had to put my trust in someone, I’d put it in Obama, a diplomatic, intelligent, responsible, thoughtful, passionate, calm, well-spoken, leader who believes that America (and Americans) has (have) the responsibility to step up and be the leader and collaborator that the world so desperately needs. Let’s set aside our differences in opinion, roll up our sleeves, and work side-by-side to be the change that we want to see in the world.

Desert Biking, Border Crossing, Late-night Dancing... Yahoooo!

Thursday October 30.

The alarm went off at 6:15am.

And again at 6:30.

And again at 7am.

We got up at 7:40…ish.

Why up so early? We wanted to beat the ferocious unforgiving sun. After a self-catered breakfast and journaling, we bought silly hats and rented bicycles for half the day.


We took off into the desert. Our silly hats worked wonders against the sun. Pedal pedal pedal.

We glanced at the map. Destination numero uno: Valle de la luna. Valley of the moon.


The air around us breathed arid desert. The ground was dry, cracked and dusty. Mountains rose in the distance. The sun was brilliant overhead.


Once inside the national reserve, we followed the paved (and sometimes rocky dirt) road as it swelled and sank. We were careful of oncoming cars around the sharp bends and sand patches that would try to take the bike tires out from under us.



Valley of the moon. And they’re not kidding. The terrain was of the lunar type. Dunes rising up and a rough white salty surface. It was oddly beautiful as we rode by. At times we took our wheels off the beaten path and the real mountain biking began. Nate was in his element, giving me pointers as we bounced along. I have to admit, it was pretty fun.


The day stretched on and the heat (and more noticeably the dry heat) made my head a little swimmy. We climbed up a mirador and took a few bumpy shortcuts. We headed out the reserve, stopping for water and a breather at the security control.


Nate wanted to find a single track. I wasn’t as game. So we went to a swimming pool and dipped in briefly. After 6 hours of biking, I took refuge back at the hostel, but Nate wasn’t done yet. He spent about an hour more of biking around on scary single tracks and valle de la muerte.

Dinner was filling and followed by a furious internet session over cakes slices. Calling Salta to reserve hostel beds became expensive. A few beers later, we were asleep.

Friday October 31. Halloween is my favorite holiday. By far. But I haven’t been doing them justice the past few years. This year would be no exception.

Our bus left at 10:30am. Stamp stamp. Our passports were branded before even leaving the city limits.

With Chile behind us, we cruised through the desert in search of my 38th country. The mountainous Andes shielded Argentina from view as rolling sand plains extended for kilometers at each side.



The Argentinean border control was a blip in the middle of nowhere. We filed out of the bus and into the scored sandy parking lot to wait.



The immigration official had trouble finding an empty spot to stamp my passport. Stamp stamp! Welcome to Argentina!


We had failed to use up all of our Peruvian soles before crossing the last border, so we were relieved when we could unload them at the snack shop. 1 sol was appox equal to 1 Argentinean peso. Mmmmm… empanadas.


The bus journey dragged on. We exhausted ourselves playing cards, listening to music, staring at the rainbow colored mountains and salt flats, and watching Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

Our bus arrived early into Salta. What?! We’re still in Sudamerica, right?! Early? What’s that mean?

Our cab overcharged us. The hostel and dinner were expensive. Wait a minute. I thought Argentina was supposed to be inexpensive. That’s way we hopped the border from Chile. Sigh.

I wanted to go out for Halloween, but everyone else was tired. So we sat around with more Cuba Libres than we could ingest playing cards until late.

Saturday November 1. Pancakes up to the ceiling.



Inspired by Mr. Joe Pancake, we decided that the American breakfast treat would suit us quite nicely. We ended making too many and stuffed ourselves.



We became quite familiar with the hostel to bus terminal route. Bus tickets were ridiculously expensive. Ridiculously. We better hurry and get to Patagonia while our bank accounts still have a little bit of padding.

Errands. The sun was hot.

Dinner was homemade tomato soup with tortellini and non-melted tuna melts. Nate and I were definitively going out to party. I had the dancing itch. We found out that a Saturday night in Argentina usually starts around midnight or one. We played cards and pre-gamed until 12:30.

About 9 blocks up from our hostel is where the nightlife began. The streets were blocked off and swarms of people populated the outdoor restaurants and bars. We grabbed an energy drink to keep our eyelids open as we people-watched. Everyone was out. Teenagers. Middle aged. And older folks. Everyone was dressed up.

The music started thumping and the streets filled. Around 2am we skipped through the masses to find a cab to Salón VIP, THE place to be on a Saturday night. This multi-tiered dance club was outside of the main square and was just beginning to fill up when we arrived.

Lights. Music. Black light. It was all there.

The music, however, was not what we were used to and we had trouble dancing to it. Everyone just seemed to be standing in place and swaying slightly. After a few drinks, the music changed to our liking. We made our way to the dance floor.

Hours flew as we moved and grooved. By the time the music changed back to the non-desirable genre, it was 4:30am and we were ready to go.

The cabbie was chatty all the way back to the hostel.