Going Shopping

Que Tal? This is an expressions that means, "what´s up" or "how´s it going?"

I am finally feeling better but being sick for so long left me feeling a little weak so sadly Nathan and I were not able to do our trek to the volcano. We are now in Junin de los Andes, Argentina where Nathan is doing a lot of fly fishing.

As we walk around different towns here in South America we see a lot of stores selling various things. Usually a tienda, or shop, will sell only one or a few kinds of things. This is unlike many stores in the United States which sell almost everything you might need in one place, like WalMart or KMart. But here larger stores like those are less common.

There is something else different about the tiendas here as well. In the middle of the day they will usually close for siesta, or afternoon break. In fact, everyone takes a siesta from around 1 or 2 in the afternoon until 5 or 6 in the evening. Schools, work places, stores, just about everything shuts down for a few hours while people go home to have a large meal with their families and maybe take a nap. Afterwards they return to school or work until about 8 in the evening. This means that dinner is very late, usually not until 10 o´clock at night!

As I said earlier, the small tiendas usually sell just a few kinds of things. Their names usually include the word for the goods they sell and end in the suffix -eria. For example, the word for bread is pan, and a store that sells bread is a panaderia.

Do you think you can figure out what these stores sell in the pictures below? I´ll get you started by giving you the spanish root words for the goods being sold, then you try to find which stores sell these things. There are some good hints in the pictures themselves. Below the pictures are the answers--but don´t peek until you´ve tried!

libro = book
joyas = jewelry

sombrero = hat
reloj = watch

zapatos = shoes
pelo = hair

flor = flower

lavar = to wash

ANSWERS

peluqueria: a hair parlor (not a store that sells pelo, or hair, but one that cuts hair!)
lavanderia: a laundromat, a place for lavar, or washing, clothes libreria: sells libros, or books
floreria: sells flores, or flowers
joyeria and relojeria: sells joyas, or jewelry, and relojes, or watches

sombreria: sells sombreros, or hats
zapateria: sells zapatos, or shoes

Osorno, Chile

Hola!

Nathan and I are now in Osorno, Chile, which is much farther north than Ushuaia. So much farther north, in fact, that it took us a few days to get here. Because Nathan and I are trying to make our way home without flying, that means a lot of long bus rides for us. To get here we spent three days and two nights on a bus. But we don´t mind too much because we get to see so many beautiful landscapes that we would miss if we flew over them instead. That´s our reason for trying to avoid airplanes--to see everything we can between here and home. (OK, and because Ms. Beth is afraid of airplanes.)

We are planning to do a trek in a park near Osorno that will take us up a volcano and to some hot springs, but unfortunately I don´t feel well right now. For that reason we are waiting here until I feel good enough to hike. It is quite common for travellers to get sick in foreign countries, especially from food or water. You are exposed to different germs than you are at home and because your body is not used to them they can make you sick. But it´s part of the whole experience and it´s worth it to be able to see such amazing things.

So you see, travelling is not all fun and games! Getting sick, long bus rides, difficulty in finding places to stay, waiting for transportation and all kinds of other things happen, but as long as we keep a good attitude and stay positive we get through it and still have fun!

While we stay here in Osorno we can enjoy all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables. Because it is warm here and there is a lot of sunshine this area is an important agricultural region. We can find many vendors selling their produce on the streets. Here I am buying some hot peppers and nuts harvested from the cones of a Monkey Puzzle tree (do you remember the entry from Bariloche about the Monky Puzzle tree?)

The meat and milk from cows are also very important to the economy of this region. The monumento al toro, or monument to the bull, in the main plaza celebrates the animal and how it contributes to the agricultural industry, as well as the heritage of Chile. Heritage is the history and culture of something. As the statue says, it is a symbol of "strength, perseverence and fortitude". Osorno is proud of being the "la patria de la leche y tierra de la carne", or "the homeland of milk and the land of meat".

La Isla Navarino

Buenas Tardes! Good afternoon!

We are back from a long trek in the mountains on the Isla Navarino (Navarino Island). Isla Navarino lies just across the Beagle Channel south of Ushuaia. It is actually in the country of Chile, and the border between the two countries lies in the middle of the channel. We travelled there on a boat over the Beagle Channel to complete a hike near the Dientes, which are large rock formations that look like giant teeth coming out of the earth. In fact, dientes means teeth in Spanish. Here is a picture of the boat we took over the channel.

We spent 8 days hiking across the island from the north to the south. A trail begins just outside the small town of Puerto Williams on the north coast. Do you remember from the last entry that Ushuaia is said to be the southernmost city in the world? Well that´s only partly true. Puerto Williams is actually further south, though it´s not a city but a very small town. The Chilean Navy has a base there and many people stop there when sailing around the islands. There are lovely views across the channel from town.

From Puerto Williams we hiked up into rocky passes above the treeline. Treeline is the altitude where vegetation stops because it is too cold for plants to grow above it. Depending upon where you are in the world the elevation of treeline is different. In colder climates, like here, it is lower because you don´t have to go very high before temperatures get low enough to prevent plant growth. Down here it is very low--less then 2000 feet. In warmer parts of the world treeline is much higher. It was in these high passes that we got beautiful views of the Dientes and surrounding mountains.

Eventually we made our way down to a refugio, or small hut, near the Lago Windhond. A lago is a lake. Once we reached the refugio we spent two days relaxing and fishing for trout in the lake. Nathan caught a few and we had a delicious trout dinner one night! After resting up there we decided to walk down to the southern coast of the Isla Navarino to the Bahia Windhond. A bahia is a bay. There is no trail to the bay so we needed to use our map and compass to navigate over land. It was a lot of fun and we walked through small forests, peat bogs and lake shores to reach the enormous bay.

That night we camped out on the beach and could look out across the bay to see the Wollaston Islands. This island chain is where Cape Horn lies. (Look back to the last entry if you forgot what makes Cape Horn special.) Because we were looking out beyond the end of the South American continent the ocean we saw was actually both the Atlantic and the Pacific coming together! If you look on a map, you´ll see that the Atlantic Ocean runs down the eastern side of South America, and the Pacific is along the western coast. But when you reach the end of the continent they come together.

After the trip to the bay we took a few more days to walk back north to Puerto Williams. We passed through more peat bogs, mountains, and lots of beaver ponds, too. Beavers were introduced to Isla Navarino many years ago in hopes of creating a fur trade. But the idea was abandoned and now the beavers have flourished and caused a lot of destruction. They are not native to the island so their activities hurt the wildlife and plants that grow there naturally.

The trek we did is considered to be the most southern in the world, so we feel very lucky to have been able to go there. The island is still very wild and very few people venture back into the mountains. In fact, we saw nobody else during the last three days of our hike. But we were happy to get back to town for showers, fresh foods and a real bed!

El Fin del Mundo

Hola!

Nathan and I have had a lot of adventures since I last wrote and there is so much to tell you about! Right now we are in Ushuaia, Argentina. Ushuaia is known as the southernmost city in the world, and because of that it often calls itself el fin del mundo. In fact, this phrase is painted on a wall near the harbor: "Ushuaia, fin del mundo, principio de todo".

Let's translate each word:

fin = end

mundo = world

principio = beginning

todo = all or everything

el = the

de (del) = of (of the)

Can you put it together? Give it a try, then check yourself at the bottom of the entry to see what the actual translation is.

Ushuaia is located on the island of Tierra del Fuego. Tierra del Fuego is separated from the mainland of South America by the Estrecho de Magallanes, or Strait of Magellan. It gets its name from the fires that the native yahgan people kept burning on the shorelines and that were seen by early explorers sailing in the area. Tierra del Fuego translates to "land of fire". (Tierra = land and fuego = fire). We had to cross the Strait of Magellan on a ferry in order to get to the island. While we were crossing several dolphins swam after the boat and jumped out of the water alongside it. We were able to get a little video of one. Looks like someone´s finger got in the way at the end (oops!)

Ushuaia is a small city of nearly 50,000 people on the southern coast of Tierra del Fuego and lies on the Beagle Channel. The Beagle Channel is named after the sailing ship HMS Beagle, which Charles Darwin joined in his famous 19th century journey around the world observing the plants and animals of various ecosystems. The captain of the ship was Robert Fitz Roy and, along with Darwin, he and his crew sailed around the Beagle Channel exploring the islands and their spectacular glaciers and mountains. The most southerly point in the archipelago, or island chain, south of Ushuaia is Cape Horn. Cape Horn is the last land between here and the Antarctic continent.

Because Antarctica is the next closest landmass, many people travel to Ushuaia to sail their boats from here to Antarctica. Like Darwin and Fitz Roy were, they are true adventurers, having to brave rough seas, cold temperatures and rocky coasts, but they also see amazing things, too. Penguins, sea lions, whales, albatross and other marine wildlife are common, as are amazing landscapes covered in ice and snow.

As you might guess, since we are so far south and that close to Antarctica, the weather here is getting quite chilly! March is the beginning of autumn here in the southern hemisphere (remember that the seasons here are opposite ours) and the first snows have fallen on the jagged peaks we see around Ushuaia. It´s time to head north soon!

Here´s the translation from above. How did you do?

"Ushuaia, end of the world, beginning of everything"