Tequila and Guadalajara

So off we went to  little town called Tequila that is designated a Unesco World Heritage Area which includes acres and acres of Agave plantations. It was awesome! We got there pretty late in the evening and it was already getting dark. Luckily, this guy on a little motorcycle asked us if we were looking for a tour of a Tequila distillery. We said yes, and he took us to a nice place that was still open to the public despite how late it was. There we got a nice tour of the distillery, including every single step in the process of making tequila.

Here I am posing stupidly for a picture in the distillery

At the end of the tour we got to taste some of the different kinds they have, because they all have different flavours (and prices) depending on how long they are stored in the oak barrels. The longer they `rest` in the barrel, the better the taste and the higher the price.


Getting ready for the tasting!

We bought a "standard" 5 liter jug, which is how they come if you want to be cheap, and Sarah named it Kiki! Despite the fact that it was a LOT of tequila, Kiki lasted us a bit less than a month and a half, hahahaaa. I know, we are incorrigible After the tour of the distillery we parked Cubby and Pichula somewhere in the street and had to suffer all night the passing of tractor trailers, although after a few tequila shots and drinks it didn't really matter anymore.
Next morning we left for one of my favorite places to visit, Guadalajara. I remember being a kid and listening to music from Mexico mentioning this town and I also remember my parents talking about visiting it at some point. We made it there some time in the morning and spent the time going to the Big Market in downtown. Somehow we managed to get lost but at least Matt and I stayed together. We finally found Jocelyn and Sarah about 45 minutes later after backtracking our steps. That was actually a bit of fun.
After lunch we did some sightseeing in the city and in the afternoon we went to the famous Mariachi Plaza (where all the Mariachis congregate to play for tourists and shit, for a fee of course). Luckily, that day was Santa Cecilia, which is the music saint, so they were celebrating big at the plaza with about 6 different big Mariachi bands taking turns to perform. It was awesome!!! We did have to wait about an hour thought because they first had a misa (Catholic mass) in honor of the saint, so we had to kind of suck it and wait for it bo over.
Once the music started, I was transported back to my childhood at some moments, because they performed many tunes and songs that I remember listening to as a kid. Songs like Guadalajara, El Son de la Negra, Jalisco, etc. The bands were really really good and we spent the whole evening there drinking beer and listening to music. It was a grand time indeed!

A Mariachi band performing some amazing songs

"Pelota de Futbol" was the name of this thing full of beer...and it took us a while to finish it!

Later in the evening we talked to a lady that was the owner at one of the shops next to the restaurant where we were, and she was nice enough to actually drive us to a street near her house, so we could park Cubby there and stayed for the night. We ended up drinking some more beer and make quite a considerable dent on Kiki! We even had a couple of neighbours come and say hi, hehee.

Matt went to bed and took Kiki with him!

Next morning we were a little bit wounded, but I spent a considerable part of the morning lifting cubby and fixing its brakes so people could rest a few more hours. After that we left and drove towards a beautiful lake named Chapala. The traffic getting out of Guadalajara was quite something, including almost hitting a car and shit, but I will let my friend Matt talk about that in our next post, so stay tuned! ;)

Lazy Mazatlan Beach Days

We drove down the coast toward Mazatlan.  We enjoyed the beach so much at San Carlos, we were eager for more time in the sand and the sun.  We got to Mazatlan and found a huge, touristy city (what did you expect, you say...).  We were hoping to find a spot to camp on the beach like we did in San Carlos, but with hotels and restaurants everywhere, there was not a free spot of beach to be found!



Driving through Mazatlan



We ended up driving to the very edge of Mazatlan and found a trailer park that, after some bargaining, agreed to let us camp there for only 150 pesos a night.  What!!? That sounds so expensive!! Not really, that's only $11 a night, not too bad, considering it included full hookups and had laundry facilities.  It even had a pool, which seemed a little silly being right next to the beach.  We never saw anyone using it!

Punta CerritosTrailer Park

The trailer park was filled with retired Canadians who spend the winter in Mexico. For some reason, Canadians don't seem to be so scared of Mexico like people from the U.S. are.  We met lots of people who have been driving back and forth for 10-15 years and have never had a problem.  Interesting what fear and stereotypes can do...

Anyway, the trailer park was located right by two different beaches.  On one side of the park is "Playa Bruja", or "Witch Beach".  The beach was beautiful.  This was the "touristy" beach.  Didn't see any witches, but plenty of surfers and sunbathers. 

Playa Bruja

Ahhh...love the beach!

More Playa Bruja with beach palapas

There was a beachside restaurant (called ... "La Bruja") where we got our first taste of REAL Mexican Mariachi music.  Like true beginners, we were so enthusiastic and requested a song, only to be told after they played it that there was a standard fee for each song!  That was our last Mariachi request for the night :)  We also were unaware that their "Happy Hour" special was in effect, and that it was 2 for 1 night.  Imagine our happy surprise when, after ordering, they brought all of us 2 of what we ordered instead of one. 

La Bruja restaurant

When we tired of the touristy beach, we headed to the opposite side of the trailer park, where we saw no tourists, just locals hanging out.  Here the beach was rockier and secluded from the big hotels on the other beach.  It was beautiful (although it happened to be cloudy on the day I took the pictures) and we enjoyed the awesome view and sunsets.



Ready for a swim

Sarah and Matt on the rocks

Beach sunset

We got daring one day and decided to have lunch at the restaurant at the end of the "locals' beach".  They were advertising fresh seafood, like many places in Mazatlan, but this was where it seemed like all the locals went to eat.  Must be good!  We ordered raw oysters, seafood stew, and fish dishes despite the fact that there seemed to be no running water at all in the restaurant.  The food was delicious, and cheap!  And no, not one of us got sick from eating there. We adopted a new rule for the trip: go where the locals go to eat...they know best!

The restaurant where we ate is at the very end (back) of this picture.  Not very picturesque but highly recommended!

After we had our fill of lazy beach days, we decided to leave Mazatlan and head inland.  Goodbye for now, Pacific Ocean!

Mazatlan coastline

San Carlos

As we left Nogales we felt an overwhelming sense of adventure with the great unknown in front of us.  But first—paperwork.  We had to get all of our documentation in order and pay the officials for the privilege of photocopying our passports.  Two hours later we were off on the open road, with the great unknown in front of us.  Our destination was San Carlos, and we were all daydreaming of jumping in the ocean.

Four hours of daydreaming later we arrived at the beautiful town of San Carlos.  We scoped out places to spend the night—this was before we learned that we can stay almost anywhere in Mexico—and then decided it was time to see how cheap the food and beers were!

We found a bar/restruant called La Tortuga that seemed pretty popular and pulled over.  The daily special tacos were less than a dollar each and the beers were a dollar and a half.  Needless to say, on our first night in Mexico, we ate a lot of tacos (Matt had 9) and drank a lot of beer!  When it was time for the check, we had an unpleasant surprise.  They had added drinks they “gave us” and even other people's drinks to our tab.  We learned the hard way that you cannot trust people just because they are being nice.  Better to learn it early, right?

Having fun at La Tortuga

We ended up spending the night on a cliff over a beautiful bay with a nice beach.  We woke up and jumped in the cool ocean to wash away the hangover from the night before.  Ricardo and Jocelyn went off to do errands and look for another spot to spend the night—there was broken glass everywhere at the bay.  Sarah and Matt stayed behind with Cubby and watched as the pelicans, eagles and other birds danced around the bay.

The beautiful bay

Our sleeping spot the first night

Ricardo and Jocelyn returned with news of a new spot right on the beach, complete with a friendly dog that they fell in love with (Doggita.)  We hooked Cubby up to Pichula and took off for the new spot.  Upon arrival we found another dog, who was friendly, but a little bit scared (Doggie.)  We couldn’t find Doggita at first, so we started feeding Doggie.  All of a sudden Doggita came out of the distance, tail-a-wagging.  We had an amazing time in San Carlos, and without exaggerating; I can honestly say that Doggita was the highlight!  She was a little malnourished and clearly had just had some puppies, but boy was she cute.  We made it our personal mission to fatten her up.

Doggita

Doggie

Fortunately for her—and us—a fisherman came up to Cubby with some fresh caught fish for sale.  We grilled fish and steak and made some rice and potatoes.  The 6 of us (doggies included) had a mighty feast.  The next night Ricardo made some fabulous ceviche with the leftover fish, that we all loved so much we demanded more the next night.

Our Dinner Table.  Tough life we lead :o).

The next morning we woke up to dolphins swimming right off shore.  They were welcoming us, and almost beckoning us to come swim.  We were tempted, but didn’t want to bother them.  After eating breakfast we decided to go for a hike.  While driving into San Carlos we saw an intimidating looking mountain that looked nearly unhikable.  Our waitress at La Tortuga told us it was called “tetas negras“, or the “black titties” in Spanish, although we are still not sure that she wasn’t referring to the mountain next to it.  She said that there was a trail that ran up it, but to be careful for rattlesnakes.  As we drove up to the mountain, which we lovingly dubbed “Black Titties,” we saw what looked like a trail.  We parked Pichula and Cubby and got our gear together.

Hence the name, "Black Titties"

As we climbed up the trail, we quickly realized that is was simply a path leading to a water tank.  Oh well, we thought, we can make our own trail...how hard can this be?  Boy, would we live to regret that thought.  The following hike was very beautiful but steep, filled with thorny bushes, and riddled with unstable and rocky footing.  What, with a trail, would have been a hour and a half hike became a five-hour epic adventure.  We ended up deciding it was too risky to go back the way we went up and blazed another, equally thorny, trail down the mountain.  Oh Black Titties, we will truly never forget you!

The first summit....say queso!



What a view from the top!



Oh the thorns!  We are almost there though...keep pushing

After such a grueling hike we knew there was only one cure:  Doggita and ceviche!  Exhausted, we all settled in for a good night’s sleep (not counting the party going on outside our window).  The next morning we woke up to the sad realization that our time in San Carlos was coming to an end.  We said our goodbyes to Doggita and Doggy, and hit the road for Mazatlan.  San Carlos definitely set the right tone for an awesome time in Mexico…we couldn’t wait to see what was next!

Flagstaff, Tucson and Nogales

I know it’s been a very long time since we posted for the last time but we’ve been having way too much fun and haven’t had the time to sit in front of a computer and write stuff, so suck it! Heheheee.

So after having a great time at the Grand Canyon, we finally left and headed towards Flagstaff. I have heard of this city since I was like 10 years old at my mom’s hostel, because many travelers that came to the house were river rafting guides in the Colorado River and went to Chile to work over the summer at the Bio-Bio River there. After some years I got to meet a lot of people from this city. One of them was Brad, who became a very good friend of my parents and came back to visit many times throughout the years. I only met him once or twice, since I was usually gone camping or something when he came to the house, but when my parents heard we were going to be in the area they made me promise I would stop by and pay him a visit.

So when we finally arrive to Flagstaff it was too late so we ended up staying at a local Walmart for the night. At 7k feet elevation it was a pretty cold night for some of my companions, but I actually enjoyed it very much. The next morning we drove around looking for Brad’s address, which my mom gave to me in hope that he would still live there, cause the last time he went to Chile was over 10 years ago! We finally found his house and it really did look very much like the stilt houses you find in the South of Chile, which is a clear indication of the influence that my dear country had on him. It was a beautiful house!!!! Lots of wood and big windows with lots of light!

Brad knew right away who I was once I told him, although he didn’t physically recognize me because the one time I saw him I was like 14. He invited us in and showed us around, while we talked about my parents and Chile in general. Inside, this house was even more amazing! Lots of room and beautiful decorations! What made my heart stop was the fact that he had SO MANY of my father’s paintings on his walls! They were everywhere! He always considered my father a great artist and throughout the years he bought (and was given) many of my father’s paintings. There was even one of me when I was like 13 or 14, sitting at the kitchen table having breakfast, although I didn’t tell him it was me because I didn’t want him to feel bad for having something that he might have considered mine.

                                                Brad and I in front of some of my dad's paintings

He is also pretty much the only one in the area that builds wooden boats for the river. Some of them are replicas of very old boats and have even been put in exhibition at the museums in the Grand Canyon.

That night they were going to celebrate a friend’s birthday at his house, another river guide who was turning 71 years old and he was still running the river. They invited all of us and also to spend the night there. We had a great time and drank more than enough of the local beer, heheee. Great people indeed!

The next morning as we were getting ready to leave, Brad gave me a few pages where he wrote his first encounter with my father. I must have been a small boy back then and I was probably visiting some relative, because I never met him until many years later, but the way Brad wrote about him and my mother (He is a very avid writer!) really made me think of them and remember the good old times. That night I couldn’t help to shed a tear or two as I reread his story. Brad has a special place in my parents heart and now I understand why, He is indeed a great man!

 

From Flagstaff we drove to Tucson where I was supposed to meet up with another old friend of the family, also a river guide, Mike, aka El Maldito! But before leaving Flagstaff, Brad told me he was working and living up in Alaska, and that he has been there for more than 10 years already, so I didn’t get to see my good and very old friend. We met also in Puerto Montt, more than 20 years ago.

Instead of Mike, we met up with Sarah’s father, Charlie. He just happened to be there for work as we passed by, so we stayed that night at a local campground and met with him for breakfast at his hotel. He was very glad to see us as his daughter and son in law just pretty much start their part of the trip with us! We had a great breakfast that he graciously didn’t let anyone else pay for, talked about a lot of shit related to the trip and other stuff, took a few pictures together and said good bye. It was a short although very nice meeting. Charlie has this awesome personality that makes you really like him from the very first time you meet him, and he is a very smart man. I know he would really love to be part of this trip even if it was just for a few weeks and now that his daughter is part of it he is actively stalking our every move on facebook, the satellite tracker we have, and here on the blog, so he probably was the first one to read this post. Hi Charlie!!! Heheheeee.

From Tucson we finally arrived to our last city in the US: Nogales. This town is in both the US and Mexico, and we stayed that night in the US in preparation for our crossing the next morning. We took care of getting insurance for both the Pichula and Cubby, arranged everything that needed to be taken care of and spent our last night in the U.S. at the local Walmart. So many things people had warned us about regarding traveling in Mexico!!! We were all a bit worried about the crossing and about what was going to happen once in Mexico! It’s amazing how uninformed people are in the US (and everywhere I guess)!! We crossed the next morning and all that happened was that we got stopped by and Mexican border officer, I got out of the car, opened Cubby’s door as he saw the stickers on the back of Cubby with all the parks and countries we had visited so far and some of the coolest cities and asked me tons of questions about those, and literally didn’t give a crap about anything else and didn’t even ask me if we had weapons or vegetables or anything else. He was just so excited about our trip and the places we had visited and were still going to visit. That was it. We opened Cubby’s door as he just kind of looked inside from the entrance and closed it right away and officially welcomed us to Mexico and to have a great trip! We crossed into Nogales, the Mexican side now, still a bit nervous and changed some money and found out where we needed to go to get our tourist visas and car papers taken care of, and went on our way. We have been here for almost a month now and have enjoyed every minute of it and can’t believe how stupid we were and people are in general, regarding not having a clue about anything and believing any stupid thing you hear just because everybody things that way, although we must not get ahead of ourselves, because that’s another story. Stay tuned!

Grand Canyon
A guest entry by Sarah and Matt :)

Hola mis amigos!...Oh wait, we're getting ahead of ourselves.
After the overwhelming intensity of Las Vegas, we were very happy to reconnect with nature at the Grand Canyon. The first day, we found out that all the campsites at the bottom of the canyon were taken for that night, so we made plans to hike down the next day. We walked around the rim of the canyon, which was incredible. We'd heard that unlike many places, the Grand Canyon is even more amazing in person, and that was indeed the case. Pictures cannot accurately demonstrate how massive and Grand it really is.

                                                         Us at the top of the canyon

The next morning we loaded up our packs (a little too full, we discovered), and took the bus to the trailhead. There were a lot of very young, fit people on the bus, which was a bit intimidating. At the trailhead a group of Brazilian guys from our bus did a very long series of stretches. At first we felt self-conscious and wondered if we should be stretching, but after a while it became clear that they had no idea what they were doing!

The hike down was about 7 miles, and not too difficult. A lot of people take mules down, which costs $500 a day. The mule people had a definite attitude--they were pretty rude to us, especially the guides. There was nothing that could dampen our sprits, though. Being inside the canyon was breathtaking, and gave us a whole new perspective. As we walked down, each layer of rock left a different color dust coating our shoes, and we got a close look at all of the geologic layers.  We
also got to spread the news of Obama's victory to incredulous but very pleased hikers.

If we'd stopped at every spot with a nice view, we never would have made it down!

At the bottom by the river, we discovered that we were the first people from our bus to make it down, which made us feel pretty awesome. We also found out that there's a little village at the bottom of the canyon. Everything has to be carried down by mules, so it's very pricey to buy things at the restaurant ($47 for steak!) but we had a few Tecates there anyway. We had lots of fun playing games at Phantom Ranch (the restaurant) and at our campsite. We also enjoyed watching the Brazilian stretchers from that morning hitting on a group of French girls. Guess all that stretching was about to come in handy!

And then there was the hike back up. Oh boy, the hike back up. The trail we took, the Bright Angel, is a total of 9 miles, and in that distance you gain over 5,000 ft. in elevation. Without the packs, it might not have been so bad, but each of us was carrying at least 25 lbs. of weight on our backs. About 4.5 miles in, there's a campsite called Indian Garden where we stopped for lunch, and Ricardo informed us that we'd only gained about 1,500 ft of elevation (thanks to his amazing watch!), which meant that the next half of the trail was going to be much steeper. This was not a comforting notion.

Thankfully, the Bright Angel trail is very shaded, and the day was not too hot. Otherwise, we might still be down there! At a certain point, the elevation was high enough to make us breathless (the rim is 7,000+ ft.--almost 2,000 ft. higher than Denver!) and we were exhausted. We did not look very macho at this point. We were stopping every 5 minutes or so, cursing our heavy packs and casting envious eyes on the people doing day hikes, whizzing by carrying just a waterbottle and a camera. At some point we began to feel like the mules we encountered on the trail. They looked just as sweaty, weighed down, and miserable as we felt.

                                                      Human or mule? It's hard to say.



It was all worth it, though. We reached the top, and felt victorious! Victorious...and very sore. After eating some dinner, we camped outside the park, and made plans to head for Flagstaff in the morning. We thought we were leaving the area just in time to avoid a storm, but it turned out we were destined to be in it. More on that later!

Death Valley and Las Vegas: Enter Sarah and Matt!

The clock was ticking... we had one day left to get to Vegas to pick up our friends Sarah and Matt, who would be joining us for a portion of the trip.  The plan was to drive through Death Valley National Park and on to the Las Vegas airport by 7pm.

 

 

We got started early, and made the necessary stop at Badwater Basin, which, at 282 feet below sea level, is the lowest point in North America.  There is a small pool of water in the salt flats, that horses would refuse to drink because it was too salty, hence it was given the name "bad water". 

We took the "Artist's Palette" drive and saw the colorful mountains along the winding road.  It was a little tight in places, but Cubby did great!

 

 

On our way out of the park, we saw some signs for a "Special Event" happening that day.  We stopped to ask what was going on, and found out that they were having a 20-mule team demonstration.  They used to use mules to carry wagon loads of Borax out of Death Valley to the railway.  The loads were so heavy they needed 20 mules to do it - and this made the mule train so long that the last 6 mules had to jump the chain in order to make a turn - quite a spectacle!  This is where the name 20 Mule Team Borax comes from.

 

After watching the mules, we jumped back in the car - on our way to Las Vegas!!  We made it to Sin City with not much time to spare, but we managed to scope out a parking lot behind a restaurant where we could stay the night before we picked up Sarah and Matt.  Las Vegas was crazy - an endless blur of lights and sounds.

 

Obviously, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, so I won't go into much detail here... but I will divulge that we all got a little sucked in to the video poker machines and lost some money.  Our other adventures in Vegas will remain a secret... things that may or may not include such scandalous activities as....laundry!!!

 

We are excited to have Sarah and Matt joining us for the next couple months (or more if we can convince them!).  For their initiation, we are putting them in charge of the next blog post - Grand Canyon!  Stay tuned...

Hiking Yosemite's Half Dome, and More Big Trees

With less than a week to get from Sacramento to Las Vegas, we had to prioritize our time in the parks in between.  Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Death Valley National Parks were all so close by, but we decided to spend most of our time in Yosemite.  This is a park that we both had heard so much about.  We wanted to do the famous "Half Dome" hike.  When we arrived, we found out that the cables that allow people to climb up the last  - very steep - 400 feet of the dome had already been taken down for the season, and that without climbing equipment we wouldn't be able to reach the summit.  Disappointed but never deterred, we set out anyway, to see how far we could get.

 

 

 

We decided to camp halfway up the first night.  The ascent was steep and rough with heavy packs!

 

But the heavy packs proved to be worth it that evening with a nice campfire!

 

The next morning we left the packs at the campground and felt light as a feather for the rest of the way up.

 

When we reached the point where the cables USED to be, we continued climbing for a while, until it got too steep for us.  We resisted the urge to keep going on to the top with a look down - it was definitely getting a little precarious.

 

We satisfied ourselves with knowing that we made it almost to the top of Half Dome, and had we not had the bad luck of getting there out of season, we would have made it the whole way.  Not a very glamorous tale to tell, but ... c'est la vie.  We got back down to where our gear was waiting, and hauled it down the long, steep path back.  Until next time, Half Dome...

 The very evening we got back from hiking Half Dome happened to be Halloween.  We learned that there was to be a special event called a "Cemetery Walk" in Yosemite's cemetery and went to check it out.  We wandered between gravestones as a guide dressed in period clothing told interesting stories about some of the people who are buried there.  It was a unique way to spend Halloween, but those poor kids all dressed up in costume just wanted some candy, I'm afraid!

 

 

We went to Kings Canyon National Park next and spent the night in a campground there.  We had an unexpected guest at dinner, a little raccoon we named "Coonie".  She was not shy about begging for food!  She even climbed up on the picnic table and tried to steal things when our backs were turned.  She was a little charmer though, and in the end I think she ate about half our food!

 

 

In Sequoia National Park, we were again amazed at beautiful, towering trees.  The Coastal Redwoods that we had seen earlier in our trip are the tallest trees in the world, but the Giant Sequoia is the largest tree by volume.  Just look at these enormous trunks!

Ricardo with General Grant, the widest tree in the park.

General Sherman, the largest known tree, by volume, in the world

 

In Sequoia National Park we had one last stop, Moro Rock.  Moro Rock is called Sequoia's "Half Dome" - but the difference is that you can drive almost the whole way there.  Yes, it's the easy way out, but we were running short on time.  We parked at the bottom and climbed the 400 stairs to get up to the top - a cool trip regardless!  The view from the top was spectacular.  And at least we really made it to the top of this one :)

 

If you notice the winding road behind me in the last picture, that was our way down and out of the park and toward Death Valley and Las Vegas.... that post soon to come!