Our 15 favorite things of 2015

Bye bye, little 2015...
You're 5.000 candles in the wind.

As I sit in our little (borrowed) Patagonian home and listen to the night silence, only broken by dogs in the distance... I come to think about the year that's almost over.

It's insanely cliché to write an *end of the year blog post* but d'you know what? I like cliché sometimes. And New Year is a very special day for me and always has been.

I love that for a day I get to fully forget that I'm a skeptic and logical person, and fill my life with awesome nonsense traditions and rituals, and soak myself into magical thinking.

And this 2015 was nothing short of magical.

Even if we faced worries and struggles, we also spent a full year of adventure, and that's something to be proud of. No "new year resolution" of mine could've fantasized of a year as full as the one we just went through.

So in the spirit of New Year, New Beginnings and Magical thinking, here is -in no particular order-...

My favorite 15 things of 2015 (and I doubt I'll ever be as cliché again):

*Hitchhinking through Argentinian Patagonia

The most random of our adventures: getting all the way to the end of the world and back, meeting awesome people, making friends, facing the crazy desert wind and feeling the road belonged to us and us alone.

*The cats of Valparaiso

Valpo is full-on mesmerizing, with its rad street art, its labyrinth-like stairs, the port feeling and the view of the ocean; but as the Crazy Cat Lady I am, the number one highlight from there was the beautiful assortment of multi-colored cuddly cats everywhere.

*The sunset in Uyuni

                                                                                  The best I've ever seen.

*Our amazing San Pedro experience

...That I have no photos of, but if you're curious here's the post where I talk about it. It was mystical, it was wonderful, and it brought me back to me, if that makes any sense.

*My amazing birthday dinner in Montevideo

Chey went crazy to spoil me and we ended up at the best restaurant in the city, having the best dinner of the whole trip (I also got a present and flowers, hey!).

*Getting to spend time with my beloved sisters

Need I say more? The short season we spent here brought the 4 Demattei sisters together for the first time ever, and being here in El Bolson for a while I got precious time with the two of them who live here.

*Astor

The other perk of staying here for a season was borrowing Astor, one of my dad's cats. He's adorable, cuddly, very talkative and my number one (and only) musical fan, who joins me every time I play the ukulele.

*Feeling like a Disney Princess at Iguazú Falls

I mean... the butterflies! They followed me! I just... can't.

*Camping up the mountains with the whole thing for ourselves

The most incredible camping spot, a lake on top of the mountain, a big fire. We also got a fair bit of march flies, but what's life without a little challenge?

*Realizing that distance means nothing

With friends here in Argentina, back in Australia and scattered around other places. The travel factor revealed (again) the most genuine relationships. An I won't say more because I'll get cheesy and believe me, you don't like me when I'm cheesy.

*Sailing the Beagle Canal at the end of the world

A small sailing boat, the icy waters, the wind that I could swear smelled like Antarctica... and Dulce de leche liqueur. What else can you ask of life.

*Our Secret Valley of Awesome in Huaraz

A 9 hour hike got us to the most Disney-ish landscape, where wild horses, cows and chinchhillas frolic. We also frolicked. It was great. Ant to put the cherry on top, on the way back we got a lift from the sweetest Peruvian police officers.

*Paragliding in Lima

Adventure at its finest.

*Seeing a post-zombie-apocalypse world in Río Mayo

One of the funny things about traveling is that sometimes the crappiest bits are the best bits. Don't you agree? Rio Mayo was definitely one of the crappiest, bestest places through the whole trip. And definitely the windiest.

*Peruvian food

My love, there's only you in my life.


And these are Chey's!

*First interactions in Spanish

Ever since we came to El Bolsón, Chey's Spanish keeps getting better and better. He's now able to actually pass like a resident  gringo.

*Summit of Piltri

The first of many mountains we conquered together. And alfajores.

*Uyuni Salt Flats

Seeing the otherworldly landscape of the worlds biggest salt flats, taking those lovely -albeit ridiculous- perspective photos, and (again) seeing the best sunset ever. 

*Iguazú falls

Even if it's a mandatory tourist attraction, there's a good reason for it. One of those "you have to be there to understand" kind of places, because no photo will ever do it justice. And a perfect day too.

*The boat trip through the Beagle Canal

I actually made Chey say his top 15 without telling him mine, so where there's a coincidence it's just because it was that epic. 

*Dancing tango

Embracing the culture and the dance of the embrace, we spent many nights at the local Milonga, where Chey proved that he might be a gringo, but he can dance.

*Paragliding in Lima

Another epic one. See above.

*Secret Valley in Huaraz

See above... hey! we were on the same trip!

*The wine adventure in Mendoza

Riding bikes through the Wine Road while getting more and more tipsy, great weather and the best wine of our lives. 

*The train ride to Uyuni

I like them, but Chey has a fascination with trains. This particular train ride was actually pretty special between the landscape, the tiredness and growing altitude, the time spent in the dining carriage with just the waiter guys and their loud cumbia... It's weird, but it felt just right.

*Hitchiking Patagonia

Another epic one.

*Our kind-of-still-high dinner at the vegan place after San Pedro

The San Pedro ritual itself was transcendental and meaningful, but actually he makes a very valid point. It was a funny (to say the least) dinner, and on top of our state, they brought us that funny yin-yang soup with the flowers!

*Building the deck in Valparaiso

According to Chey, the daily walk, the going to little kiosks to get drinks/lunch and the feeling like a local (and the view!) more than balanced the hard work under the raging sun. And he made a pretty rad deck.

*Rio Mayo

As I said, another proof that experiences don't have to be travel-guide-worthy to be top memories.

*Christmas in August

We were so expecting to get snow in El Bolsón when we got here, at the beginning of winter, but it didn't happen. Only when we had lost all hope, we woke up one morning to big fat snowflakes falling. So we played Frank Sinatra's "Let it snow", and then went up the hills to make the most of it. 

It was a happy year, and here's to a happier 2016! Have a great one, you all, and thank you for following our adventures.

Adri+Chey

Arequipa and the last (good) supper

I'm not even going to talk about our second encounter with Lima... ok, at least not much.

We had already done what we felt had to be done in the city, but we needed to get some more paperwork done... and that was pretty much it.

We still had a few great dinners with friends and a few great dinners with just the two of us. I did catch up with an old (and extremely crazy) friend, and that was gold. Singing out loud on the streets and all.

Not much to say about the second encounter with Lima, really.

We knew we had to head South and it had to be soon, so we did a bit of research and decided on our itinerary, which was going to be a bit of a race. 

First stop: Arequipa. But before that, I need to tell you about our bus ride.

We were lucky enough to pay the price for "semicama" seats ("semi-bed", which loosely translated means good luck trying to sleep while being this uncomfortable, Chey), but get sent to the "cama" ("bed", which means more space and seats that recline a good deal more) section, on the lower part of the bus.

We were completely stoked that we could stretch our legs and had a lot of room to put our bulky bags of snacks and our daypacks.

So as soon as we were seated and the bus started, we began to feast on Doritos and Skittles to celebrate. The whole "cama" section was empty except for us, and the high lasted until a couple of hours later, when it got dark and we realized that no-one was going to switch off the SUPERLOUD DVD that kept replaying non-stop, and neither were they going to switch off the fluorescent lights. 

It felt like they were trying to brainwash us, Clockwork-Orange-style.

I desperately tried to make contact with the driver, but there was no way. They are in the front where passengers have absolutely no way of getting to them, and they fully ignore your desperate knocks on the thick, black glasspane that separates them from the rest of us, passenger peasants.

Frustrated and tired, the upgrade happiness fully gone, I tried to fall asleep. 

Finally they switched everything off and there was peace (but they also had a light collision with other vehicle which kept us from moving for a few hours... I guess you can't have it all).

.

We arrived in Arequipa and my first impression was: this city is ridiculously bright.

For some reason I can't fully comprehend, Arequipa (which has a lovely city centre, by the way) shines in the sun like no city ever did*. Every whitewashed building, every colonial bit, seems to reflect the unforgiving sun, giving the whole place an otherworldly feel.

Bright Arequipa is bright.

 A taxi took us to the city centre where, faithful to our random tradition, we started looking for a place to stay.

We ended up at this cozy family house/ hospedaje that was super popular on tripadvisor.

On arrival, an overexcited man opened the entrance door for us and showed us the place, which was simple but nice and cheap. He also showed us the terrace, where he told us "someone told me I have a marihuana plant in the balcony... I wouldn't know! Can you tell me if this is a marihuana plant?"
while pointing at an OBVIOUS (and pretty big) marihuana plant on an innocent flower pot, growing next to the flowers.

We said we were pretty sure it actually was a marihuana plant, so he just ripped it out and threw it in the garbage.

After dropping the bags in our new room, we went out and took a heap of photos of the city, which is very pretty.

A pigeon-friendly St Francis outside a church.

Very Peruvian details.

City centre+ more church.

Most chill protest ever: people asking for cycle paths
"for peace and life".

Sneaky nun pic.

Amazing facade and cute little old lady.

I wish I could remember what was Chey pointing at (he looks so happy!)

Antique store. If we were millionaires, y'all would've got
Peruvian antiques as souvenirs.

The golden light of the sunset.

The couple of days spent in Arequipa were evenly divided like this: walking and looking at beautiful Peruvian crafts/ Eating/ walking a bit more, more crafts/ coffee/ walking and taking photos of the beautiful sunset, or sitting at the terrace and taking photos of the beautiful sunset/ eating.

Lovely colonial building turned into falafel shop.

The sunset from "our" terrace.

Me, probably blogging, wrapped on Chey's comfy sweater
(one of the many perks of having a travel mate)

More of the sunset.

Sunset close-up and skyline.

After sunset.

 The last night we decided that being our last night in Perú, and with the INEVITABLE approach of Chile (not our favourite cuisine, to say the least) we deserved a nice dinner. So we took ourselves to Chicha.

If you remember the Flavours of Cuzco post, then you'll
remember how much we love anything Gaston Acurio.

Chicha is one of his many restaurants. And it's awesome.

We even had our meals modified to suit our non-meat thing.

The morning after what felt like some kind of last supper we collected all of our things, and got ready for what we thought was going to be the last bit of the adventure: going South through Chile as quickly as possible.

*I realize that maybe another city might have shone like Arequipa in the sun, but since I never saw such thing I'll stick to my words

Back for good!

We've been pretty busy with other things... visitors from all over, making plans for the near future (exciting plans, yo!), and basically living life.

All that meant I abandoned this wonderful little blog of ours for a short while, and it made me sad every time I thought about it, all alone and cold in the snow (?) like a little kid in a Dickens novel.

So, now that life got a little bit of a "normal" feel again, the blog is back!

I'll resume posting as normal (especially because one of my New Year Resolutions will be "to blog more"), beginning now.



In other news, the 8th of December was our one year aniversary of the South American trip!

It feels crazy to think it's been a full year since we last saw Brisbane, because many times it feels like it was just yesterday we were drinking beers at Caxton St. and planning this adventure.

And still, it's true! A full year, 40 towns and cities, 37 lifts, 5 countries, 3 lost items of clothing, countless random situations and awesome people, delicious meals and endless strolls searching for veggie options, hikes and full days of getting lost, hours of waiting by the road, pisco sours, fun traditions, and random adventures.

 

Here's to many more.