Life is beautiful !

We start the "7 lakes road " and never finish it because we stop at the 2nd lake, the Lago Correntoso and are so happy there that we stay. Here is a family of wild ducks; Romane will be playing with the ducklings for the three days we stay here.

Water is fresh but it's the perfect way to wake up. We have been getting a bit too use to slepping late in the last weeks, and each time Stephane says ( which is quite often !): " tomorrow, we start early; at 6, we're gone", we all have a good laugh because, of course, it never happens !

Here is THE spot. Just right to the camper is the typical Argentinian barbecue built in evry nice place for the "asado", the grilled meet. The average consumption of meet per inhabitant in a year is 70 kg.

Washing uo in the lake; The children playing with the ducklings who have a great fright each time. When Romane releases them, they run off to the water and their mum comes running to the rescue.

Where on earth are we ?

From the 22d to the 26rd of November, we camp by the lake Nahuel Huapi in the national park

Lake Nahuel Huapi

We had a long walk in the "Bambi" forest as the children called it, a unique forest of Arrayana trees who was used as a model for the film by the Disney studio

Here the beach of the campgroung by San Carlos de Bariloche. The water here is extra fersh at around 15 degrees. We don't stay in very long !

We visit de museun of Chocolate, a speciality of San Carlos de Bariloche. It takes some energy to stir the uge batches of mixture !

The brooms ( genets) are blooming everywhere; we added our two special flowers to the bouquet.

On the way, a hairy spider crosses the road

The lake district !

Beautiful landscape awaits us in a region us lakes at the border between Chile and Argentina.

After 2 solid days of driving and sleeping on the highway, we're happy to stop in these splendid place. This is a picture taken on one of our walks in the woods just next to the campground.

Our camping spot is by the torrent. Here is Romane on one of her "islands", where she loves playing. This is in Agua Calientes a Chilean holiday resort with hot springs, as hot as a bath. The amazing thing is it s empty because the holiday period doesn't start before mid-december.

We go on a walk on the ski resort just a few miles away and the girls decide to follow Stephane on his challenge to go all the way up this mountain,( it's all black because it s a volcanic area... Thomas is very exited to pick up volcanic rocks and, once again, we have long discussion on how much he can take in the camper !) in the snow. They are proud to get there and have fun sliding back on the snow.

Thomas also does a fair part of the big treck, without moaning, we're proud to say, and has a great time running back down

Sequence Emotion! Hihaaaaaa! apres 4 mois et 12.000 Kms

Les journees se suivent et ne se ressemblent pas. La routine est d'allumer et d'eteindre le moteur, faire l'ecole a nos 3 petits, dormir bien sur! Le reste varie presque tous les jours: routes et paysages differents, nouvelles rencontres souvent trop breves malheureusement, repas improvises au detour d'un marche de village, le ressentidu voyage..

Ce ressenti du voyage, ses sentiments, ses emotions sont tout aussi peu routiniers avec des moments tres exaltants et d'autres angoissants au gre de la fatigue et du manque affectif de mes etres chers..

Je finis par me demander s'il est possible de "s'installer dans le voyage", expression un peu contradictoire. Chaque jour le voyage m'amene vers de nouvelles decouvertes, de nouveaux visages, de nouvelles expressions, bref du nouveau exaltant et parfois destabilisant. Le voyage complexifie davantage la trop simple image que j'avais de l'homme..

Il fait bon vivre ce voyage, vieux reve de 20 ans lors de mes 20 ans. J'aime a vivre cet ecoulement du temps qui parait beaucoup plus lent qu'auparavant. J'aime a vivre ces moments intenses (parfois trop intenses) en famille. J'aime a vivre ces mini-boulversements de l'interieur.

Cette derniere journee de "Toussaint" a ete boulversante. Revivre le temps de quelques heures intenses avec ces autres etres chers qui sont "au ciel". Repenser leurs visages, leurs sourires, leurs regards, leurs traits de caractere, repenser a la tristesse provoquee lorsqu'ils m'ont quitte. Ils sont pourtant bien presents. Je pense regulierement a tous ces "autres" etres chers de qui emanent divers signes, transmissions de pensees, une sorte d'energie positive en provenance du cosmos?

A Papaya conserve business on the Chilean coast

Only 70 km from the vineyard is the coast... In Chile, a narrow country only 1,5 time France, you're never far either from the coast or the mountains. " Lipimavida" uses 8 to 10 000 kilos of mini papayas (on the pic) a year for its conserve, a great help to the families of this rather deprived area, selling their fruits.

Half of the production is exported to the fairtrade market in Belgium and the other half is for the local market

It is just by the traditional fishing harbour of Vichuquen.

Boats are small and pulled out of the water by these heavy oxes, a pretty hard job !

The pacific ocean is mighty and getting through the waves near the shore to dock is not easy.

The life of fishermen is tough, all the more so as they are not independant but working for the owner of their boat. Also, the volume of catches allowed per harbor tends to shrink, which makes life harder. We found the sea rather rough on that spring day, and we wonder how tough it gets in winter in these rather frail boats.

On the road via the comfortable Chilean highway to the south, we cross endless forest plantations, on around 100 miles. Here are some Eucaliptus ( a tree native from Australia), but they are mostly pine. The weather is so favorable to this culture that the pines for example are said to grow 15 times as quickly as in Norway. Chile is a great exporter of wood and we see dozens of big trucks loaded with logs going towards the north.

Vinos Lautaro, warm meetings in the vineyards

From the group of producers of the Vinos Lautaros, situated 200km south of Santiago Raul, Rafael, Pablo, Juan, Clorino, Domingo and Eugenio went out of their way to welcome us. So much so that, after 2 days spent with them, we left with tears in the eyes. Great and moving memories for us !

10 years ago, before the cooperative was founded, this group of 14 cultivators were selling their grapes each separately to wine producers and depended greatly on the very volatile national price of grape. Today, thanks to their hard work and contact with the international markets via fairtrade, they produce their own wine , Vinos Lautaro, and it is a success story : they are about to admit more members in the cooperative.

This is the place where we parked the Tremelody, in the vineyard, by a river. It was hot and the girls made the most of the fresh water of the river, just like in the "wind in the willow ": "Wherever you go, you go with the flow, when you're mocking about on the river" would sing ratty. For Stephane, it looked more like the Shire in the lord of the rings...in short somewhere not very far from paradise.

Clorino cooks a nice improvised BBQ for us. We had arrived just 24h ago and .... a few of them decided to get together and celebrate.

What was really moving about these meeting ( we went to visit 4 of them) was that a number of these wine growers opened their heart about the changes this business has brought. What came strongly across is that they regained their dignity and opened to the world. Some of them said : "before, we didn't talk... "you should see them now, we talked hours non stop, and not just us ! Another said " I was so ahamed of myself, that once, I had to stand in a queue at the bank in town and I couldn't bear it, I just went". We spent half a day with that same person talking !

Here is Rafael, the president of the Vino Lautaro, and Pablo, who hosted us in his vineyard. Being part of the Vino Lautaro was considered adventurous when they started, because previous cooperative structures in the area all failed and ruined a great number of farmers. So only 16 brave ones at the time decided to risk it, partly thanks to Eugenio, a trustworthy technical adviser who convinced a good number of them.

Here are 5 of the wine growers plus Raul ( with the sunglasses), manager and Eugenio, technical adviser ( with the cap), who really made it happen. They are both incredibly dedicated to this business. All of them never stop praising fairtrade : " none of this (university for my children, health insurance, water and electricity at home, and our opening to the world) would have happenned witout faitrade. Encouraging for those who make fairtrade happen at the other end !

Above all for us, it is a great example of how trust and respect in a group can achieve great things. Enough for great ideas now or you'll cry in a minute !

Valparaiso

First time we come across these pelicans, impressively massive birds, which are everywhere along the coast.

The amazing city lifts of Valparaiso, a very prosperous city in the 19th century, with all the "cap horniers", huge ships going from Europe around the cap Horn to the pacific ocean. When the panama canal was finished in 1914, it slowly declined.

It is now a bit delapidated but still has some beautiful buildings. The harbor is still very active and this old fashioned charming city lives from tourism.

We had a crush on the "Sebastiana", one of the houses from the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. He built a very personal den with flamboyant colours, for the time ( 1960) amazingly big windows and a good numbers of funny objects ( like a ceramic ox where he put his punch...), a bar in a little pink alcove, mosaic floors. He had intellectual discussions banned from his home ! His love poems are beautiful ! Even better that the "pretty woman" story. A dream of a house for us ! It inspired us to decorate Annecy. Wait and see !

The pacific is a mighty ocean and the waves left a lasting impression on the children, especially Thomas who kept falling in the water in the race against the waves ! Great memories

Going green...from the Termas of Talcasto to Uspallata

On the roads, we often com across a small chapel devoted to "Correa"(which means "belt", "courroie"). One of them was well sign posted and Steph who precisely needed a belt for his engine, went straight to it and was quite desappointed to see their was no belt but only a "santa Correa"... we still have a doubt on wether she has anything to do with mechanics. The saint is often surrounded by numerous full plastic bottles.

The last of the beaoutiful rocky valley before we, at last reach......

.... a green land. At Uspallata, we were so happy to come across trees in their thousands that we had to stay in this wonderful campsite planted with hundreds of poplars (peupliers), the tall straitght trees. Just at this time of the year, they produce these fluffy coton-like flowers that then fall of them like snow. We had the most wonderful poetic moments in these fluffs !

Now, we are at the level of the first third of Argentina and are about to leave the Andes through a high mountains pass, to head to the coast of Chile.

We have the most varied day in landscape we ever saw : we start on the countryside, then play in the snow at 4000m, we go through the most fertile valley of Chile ( the first exporter of fruits and vegetable), buying avodados, lemons, oranges for nothing and we end the day on the wonderful coastline of Valaparaiso.

Amazing encounters

With a cactus

with some halloween children

With a well known town !!

With the chilly water of a natural spring. An unexpected blessing in the middle of a desertic valley, after 2 days of driving in the heat ( 33 C in the camper in the afternoons, sometimes 35C).

But, after meeting 3 cylcists amongst whom 1 had already travelled trom Alaska (26 000 km) we realize we really cannot complain on the heat !

Valley La Colchas

Mean thorny bush ( it did get my feet !) with a lovely green bark.

Las Colchas is a valley of red rocky landscape on a huge scale. We feel very small in it.

A cavewoman (troglodyte)

I think something is not quite right on the roof.... Let me check if the jerrycans are not flying off with the wind !

Inagine this place with a music group playing some Inca tunes... a very poetic moment !

On the road again, again...to Calchitic valley

We feel in a comics (BD) of Lucky Luke with these endless fields of cactuses. And they are enormous.

A dry place....

....thankfully a river runs at the bottom of the valley and makes a striking green and brown contrast appear before our eyes.

The huge groups of parrots are very noisy and not easily scared!

"Las flechas", amazing beige and ocre huge arrows made of sandstone (gres) stratums ( strates)pointed to the sky. The children are beginning to take lots of pictures of their own, so, for once, we're both in the picture !