Traveling Outlaws

So the volcano that I have been taking pictures of in Pucon blew it’s top last night.  

http://www.today.com/video/today/57056371/

Here is the footage.  When we were there it’s status went from green to yellow and we couldn’t do the climb… Now it’s changed forever…

The road to bariloche

So, off to Argentina we go. Our first long term location, is Bariloche, Argentina. We were looking at maps, and we realized that the one day drive, would be something like, 10 hours. Not with the border crossing, of course. Our plan was to get across the border, and find a town to stay the night in. We found…..San Martin De Los Andes, Argentina. Perfect. We had found our way to Argentina. We set off a little while later. After an hour or so of smooth pavement, we hit some road work. I would say it spanned 5 miles. Paving the road, blasting rock, and drilling and digging made quite a show. Some signs made us think, ” oh no” . They were over exaggerating it quite a bit.

Read More

Blue Berries waiting to be picked.

So it’s been a busy couple of days.  We have gone sort of crazy the last couple of days doing lots of neat things.  The weather was a bit colder so we managed to not be at the beach – and recover from our crazy hike.  We managed to meet some people at the BBQ that are from America & Australia – and they own a blue berry farm.  Well that perked our interest – so we proceeded to make arrangements to go see the farm.  The owners of the farm had never grown a blue berry before in their life.  They literally came to Chile – ordered a bunch (50,000) plants – and then proceeded to find property for their farm.  A year and a half later they had found the spot.  They have about 10 hectares that are planted and get about 5-6 runs on the plants through the season (Jan-Mar).  It’s a lot of work.  Blue berries are hand picked – so they have to bus in workers to pick the berries.  I do have to say, they were the best we have ever had – large and very tasty.  Currently most berries in Chile are exported to other countries – and now you’re thinking “USA right?” – nope – most these days are trying to go to our friends in China – because they pay better – it’s as simple as that.  They don’t do organic farming because there are some pests that can really kill your crop – others here do organic farming – but now the rules are such that it doesn’t make much financial sense to do organic farming here.  Even when an organic shipment hits the states it gets put in a container and ‘gassed’ for pests.    The boys had fun at the farm.  They were also expanding their water pit a bit – see the pictures on that.

Read More