Mmmmmm steak-flavored chips

Only in Argentina can you drop into one of the dozens of kiosks that sell snacks and water and find steak-flavored chips. Lays makes these and they are Bife de Lomo although Wim, pictured above, argued that the image on the bag is not Bife de Lomo.

Exploring greater San Juan

My second day in San Juan we spent the afternoon outside of the city visiting various sites including Las Montañas de Azul or Blue Mountains. the landscape around San Juan is impressive and vast. Locals from San Juan often leave the city on the weekends and travel to a nearby dam or resovoir. There are a number of wineries and weekend homes near here.

Out and about in San Juan

This is the view from Negrita's apartment. She lives right in the city center and from her window you can see the plaza below and the mountains beyond.

My first full day in San Juan we walked around the city center. Facundo was incredibly helpful and his flunecy in English was my lifeline.


In this picture below, Facundo and Negrita are drinking fresh squeezed orange juice from a local juice stand.

Welcomed in San Juan

I spent the past several days in San Juan with Negrita, a woman who hosted my sister - Sammy - as an exchange student several years ago. Negrita and her large extended family were amazing. Their genorosity and interest in me was overwhelming at times and I found that I trouble expressing my gratitude because of my lack of Spanish.


Within two hours of my arrival we went to the home of Negrita's sister and her husband. They had a huge asado for me. We kicked it off with some mate (more about that later) and huge amount of food.

Asado at mi escuela

On Fridays the Spanish immersion school I've been attending has an asado. For those of you who don't know what this is .... well it's a barbecue. Most homes here have outdoor barbecue grills made out of brick as opposed to a typical grill found in the U.S. Meat is cooked with coals produced from wood, another difference fromthe U.S.

The group sitting at the table includes people from Switzerland, Canada, United States, England, Australia and one crazy guy from the Isle of Man.

The picture below is of one of my professoras, Patricia. She played several songs for us including one she wrote herself.

Aconcagua update

I recently received an e-mail update from one of the Aventuras Patagonicas organizers about the status of Adrian and his team.

According to the e-mail, ''Lead Guide Christian Santelices phoned to let us know that the team had safely moved to Camp 2'' on Tuesday. Camp 2 is at 5,400 meters or 17,820 feet. This photo is fromthe previous expedition in January, but it shows what it looks like near Camp 2.


The weather there has been sunny, warm and calm. Later, the team plans to carry a load to Piedras Blancas at 5,950 meters or 19,635 feet. The team will then rest back at Camp 2 and then move permanently up to Piedras Blancas, the mountain's highest camp before the summit.

Based on my estimates that would have Adrian permanently established at the high camp (Piedras Blancas) on Friday.

Raining perros y gatos

This might get lost in translation, but I'm back in Mendoza and it's raining like cats and dogs. I arrived via bus around 8:30 p.m. and the river was roaring and the streets were flooded. My taxi had trouble getting to the hostel, but managed to arrive safely.

Unfortunately, the taxi driver and I had to haggle over the price a bit. It seems that because of the rain he felt he should be paid more. To be fair, they had pretty much closed the streets. We managed to agree on a price and everything worked out. And honestly, after debating with me in Spanish he deserved an extra couple of pesos.

I'm staying at Hostel Lao, where I stayed last week. Here's a link - http://www.laohostel.com. I've got a bunk for the next couple nights and then onto a double room.

Slacking on the blog

Ok peeps, I get the message. You all apparently have nothing better to do than read our blog so a few days without updates is upseting. I've received your e-mails. I promise photos in by tomorrow.

Until then a quick update .....

I spent last week at an immersion school and carousing with a bunch of crazy and fun chaps from England, the Isle of Man, Canada and Australia. The Spanish school was challenging and I think I may have even improved my Spanish to a 4-year-old vocabulary.

I left Mendoza on Sunday and spent three days with Negrita and her family. Negrita was my sister Sammy's host mother several years ago and they have maintained a close relationship. To say that Negrita and her extended family were welcoming would be the understatement of the year. I have never been around such generous people.

My friends really aren't lushes

So here are my new friends Karen, Mich and Sean from Ireland and England respectively. And they really aren't drunk here. It's just that they had soooooo much fun the night before they want to take a nap at the restaurant.

Area winery

This is a local winery that we visited in our first week. The winery tours are more than just going into a tasting room and sampling wine. At Bodega Weinert we got a tour of the underground cellars and brought through the areas where they process the wine.

Adrian and I sampling wines underground. Scary ....

A giant-ass cask of wine. And yes, I hyphenated giant ass because it modifies cask of wine.

Adrian reaches base camp

I got an e-mail from Adrian and he has reached base camp. The team will rest at the base camp for today and then tomorrow they will carry a load up to Camp 1 and descend to base camp for the evening. The following day, so Saturday I believe, the team will move up to Camp 1.

The team follows a similar pattern to reach Camp 2. Summit day is about 10 days from now.

Aconcagua update

I've received the first of what hopes to be many updates from Adventuras Patagonicas, the guiding company Adrian is using in his attempt of Aconcagua's summit.

The team is being led by Christian Santelices (in the bright red shirt) and Pablo Borjas (front row, far left). Other climbers are all from the United States and have backgrounds in mountaineering, ski mountaineering and trekking. One guy even has experience dog sledding.

The team left Mendoza on Sunday and spent the night at a small ski-area village called Pennitentes. Monday morning they began their three-day trek to Base Camp Plaza Argentina.

Rafting after ten minutes of instruction

Adrian and Sean are barely visible as we go through this lovely mud rapid.

The rapids that our guide brought us through were a nice mix of Class II, III and IV. At the very end of the trip he told us to either back paddle or forward paddle (depending on what side we sat on) and made us spin as we went through a Class III rapid. Super fun.

Here is a great shot of the whole lot of us. We are in the middle raft.

Rafting in Mendoza

These are coming a little late. I finally have the time to upload some photos. Plus, My Spanish has come along enough to translate the instructions on the computer. This is our raft going down the Mendoza River. The two chaps in front are Adrian, on left, and our newest friend Sean from London. I am in the middle left and the middle right is Mich, a friend of Sean's from Ireland. In the back right is Karen, also a friend of Mich and Sean's and also from Ireland.

Permit Process for Aconcagua

The first step to getting a permit to climb Aconcagua is going to the Park headquarters and paying the $1000 pesos, roughly $300 USD. You then must take your receipt and go to the regional tourist centre on San Martin Ave in downtown Mendoza. There you receive the actual permit, have it checked against your passport, get it stamped, and sign it. That`s it. The permit will be checked and stamped again at the first camp in Pampas Lenas (roughly translated "Firewood Grasslands"). Your passport is no longer needed after Mendoza. The permit is only good for 20 days.

Now we are waiting for Woody from Denver, the last team member that had some flight problems. Most likely he won`t make it in time to get his permit because his flight lands at 12:15 and the permit office closes at 1pm. Because there is a slight chance he may still make it, we are waiting until 1pm before heading for Penitentes, the start of our approach that is also a ski area. It is about a four hour drive from Mendoza. If Woody does not get the permit today, he will wait until tomorrow and be driven up to the ski area to catch up. Either way, he`ll make it.

I`m feeling good and ready to climb. Kirsten should be getting semi-regular email updates from the expedition manager and will update you when she can.

Thanks for checking in.
AK

Off to Aconcagua

Well, it wasn`t easy saying chau to Kirsten this morning as we parted ways for 17 days. The anxiety of starting a big climb and concern for Kirsten`s safety while I`m away weigh heavy on my mind. The thing is, I`m fully aware that she is very capable of taking care of herself and I have no need to worry, but worry I do. I`m lucky to have found a partner so smart, strong and independent. I`m blessed.

I love you Kirsten.

It's fun trying out a new language at the pharmacy

So today instead of learning how to download photos - again - I spent the day running errands with Adrian. Yes, we're on vacation and we're running errands.

Adrian is leaving for Aconcagua tomorrow so we had to pick up some last-minute items, namely some antibiotics meds, which you don't need a prescription for in Argentina.

I confidently made my into the pharmacia and managed to adequately convey the message. Hoorah! As we left, I thought hey it gets kind of crazy up in the mountains, maybe you should bring some anti-diarrhea meds. So we headed back in.

I spoke to the same woman again and made my request. Blank stare. I opened my my handy translator and found that diarrhea is in fact, just diarrhea. I asked again. Blank stare. Adrian was about three seconds from launching into an embarrassing round of charades and sound effects when she finally got it.

I really need to learn Spanish.

I'm kind of dumb

Well I promised new photos and I have failed to do so. It´s not that I don´t have gnarly photos of Adrian getting swallowed by the muddy waters of the Mendoza River or a sweet video of some travelers jamming out on the guitar - It´s just that I have somehow become technically incompetent in the past 72 hours or so.

Despite my "new media" master´s degree from Northwestern University I am struggling with uploading photos. Mostly because the photo resizing and other messages that pop on these computers are in Spanish and well, I have the vocabulary of a three-year-old.

FYI, I forgot to share with you all that while eating with Adrian at a lovely cafe the other day a pigeon pooped on my face from its perch thirty feet above.
Touche´.

Wine, rafting and well, food, food and more food

We´ve been on the go the past two days and I´ll posting photos and more posts soon. To catch up, we´ve been hanging out at Chimbas Hostel http://www.chimbashostel.com.ar/. The rooms are a pretty good deal and they have Internet access and a small pool, although it was only half-full the day we arrived.

Two days ago we took a winery tour (more later) and yesterday we went rafting down the Mendoza River through crazy Class IV rapids. It was interesting to say the least. Again, we´ll have pictures soon.

AK here. Just added a photo of Chimbas. We spent three nights here, had three 1000 ml beers, and four 1000 ml water bottles for a total of $75. Breakfast included. Claudio is the manager and does a great job of taking care of his guests. There were no reports of theft or any other foul play. It is near the bus station, but a 35 min walk from the Independencia Plaza; the city center. Overall, a great value if you don´t mind a bit of walking. The two resident dogs do a good job of providing entertainment.

Stuffing myself in Mendoza

For all of those U.S. travelers out there, most of us have resigned ourselves to the horrible exchange rate. Ah yes, the weak dollar ... fun times.

Argentina is one of the few coutnries where a steak is actually affordable for us and I plan on eating my way through the country based almost entirely on the good exchange rate.

We met three great people traveling from Ireland and England and ended up eating at El Parenque in Mendoza. We all had empanadas, one salad, five steaks, three bottles of wine and five bottles of water. Grand total?

12 whole US dollars a person.

Travel deals

Ok, so you read Adrian's post about the airline ticket fiasco. I recently woke up, since I sadly slept little on the plane. Here is my two cents - if you will. Cheap Tickets pretty much threw up their hands as the scenario unfolded and wouldn't even offer to buy tickets for us to solve the problem. To be clear, Cheap Tickets admitted it was their failure. Basically they set up the ticket without checking to make sure that all of the airlines had agreements with each other. If it hadn't been for three people inserting themselves in our lives in a helpful way at that moment we would be thousands of dollars in the hole and perhaps still in Miami.

We're not dropping the issue with Cheap Tickets and once we get settled in Mendoza I'll be logging serious minutes on my Telefonica card until we get some reimbursement. I'll keep you posted as we go.

On another note, for anyone who ever finds themselves in the Santiago airport for more than a three-hour layover, I suggest paying the $30 USD to stay in the LAN Mistral VIP lounge. It sounds like a lot, right? Well for someone who got little sleep on the plane, stretching out on a nice long sofa with a blanket and fresh sparkling water in an air-conditioned room was worth it's weight in gold, or at least 30 bucks. About every 20 minutes the staff moves through the lounge collecting plates and putting out new snacks as well as replenishing the juice, water, beer and wine. I'm guessing other airports where LAN flies in South America have similar set ups.

Hola from Santiago de Chile!

Well at least we are in the aeropuerto in Santiago. We´ve had a bit of an epic flight situation yesterday and today. We´re about 24 hours and $700 extra into a trip that should have taken much less time. We got a "great" deal from cheaptickets.com (please do not use them for any international travel). Maybe it was a bit too great. Anyway, they booked us on Cayman Air ticket stock, which LAN would not honor due to a codeshare situation. American Airlines stepped up to help, but could do so partially.

We had to buy a couple extra tickets from LAN for the Santiago-Mendoza-Santiago flights. We could have taken the 11 hour bus, but there are other factors involved that made us choose flying instead.

Anyway, check it out, we´re at the LAN V.I.P. lounge waiting out a 6+ hour layover before boarding to Mendoza. It´s really nice here, so all´s not bad.

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Things got interesting post-wedding

Well the photos say it all.

After the wedding, we hit the beach with champagne, wine, I think I see some beer in there.

The raft became a nifty floating music/ bottle repository and I am shocked nothing happened to the iPod. Needless to say, many folks were nursing hangovers the next morning.

FYI ... we got pickled.

Wedding day

The past few days have been nothing short of amazing. Adrienne and Bob's wedding as well as the events leading up to it were first class from the welcome party to the gift bags and Sunday brunch.

The reception at the Old Grand House - its deck nestled nicely up against the ocean - was idyllic.

The guests were even better and Adrian and I got plenty of well wishes and encouragement throughout the entire visit.

We win!

Within a day of reaching the Cayman Islands, Adrian and I took to the ocean on a 50-foot catamaran. After motoring out a bit, the crew cut the engines and unfurled the sails. Sailing in the Caribbean was like honey for a bruise - and the stress of remodeling and renting out our house, finishing up work and leaving family were left on the open sea.

Last Day at Work

Wow, last day today until the travels begin. I have so many people to thank for the help and support they've lent me. My family first and foremost. Thanks Mom and Sis!!

I also would like to thank my business partner Anthony for being so very supportive and understanding. Entrust Tool & Design has given me so much over the last 10 years, I feel as though I'm in debt to it. I certainly owe you guys one!

Emotions are running high, tears have and will be shed. I wish everyone at Entrust luck and wish nothing but the best for the crew. Keep building the best Gundrilling Machines in the world. I know you can do it!

I'll miss my family and friends here in Wisconsin. Let's make it a happy departure and look forward to our reunion!

Bless you all!

Adrian Korosec

San Felipe, Mexico

What a great town and even better beach. An epic sandstorm,the likes of which has not been seen even on the desert planet of Tatooine, cut the trip a day short. We had a great time with great people, great food, great drink and even great fishing.