Patagonia 🇦🇷🇨🇱

Bariloche is a picturesque mountain town, full of chocolatiers. Our favorite place was Mamuschka, the dreamy chocolate store where you point and a waiter with tiny tongs places exquisite chocolates into a pretty box. Let’s just say we were regulars. It was Easter week and the festival of chocolate, so the town was hoppin.

Another chocolate place called RapaNui had a little ice rink. So the Cosgroves laced up and took to the ice. In Canada, we enjoy the occasional recreational skate. In Argentina, we are basically Tessa Virtue, Scott Muir, Elvis Stojko, and Patrick Chan. Doing leisurely laps, novice levels at best, we saw families and lovers on a date wipe out A LOT. I’m talking splits and hard falls, classic Bambi legs, and always laughing it off. The general inability and resilience were equally impressive. 

We took a side trip to El Bolson, a small hippie town in a valley. We bought cozy hats at the market and hiked up a mountain to a forest filled with carved statues. A highlight was also our accommodation, Earthship Patagonia, an evolving site with an earthship, tents, and yurts. There were horses munching the grass nearby and five cats looking for snuggles. In the shared kitchen we had fun hanging out with other travellers. The kids were especially happy to have more people to talk to (English and French). It was fun to be immersed in the backpacker vibe again for a bit. 

Our next destination was Puerto Varas, Chile. We took a combination of buses and boats through the beautiful lakes. In that town we could see the Osorno volcano. We met artist Paulo Freire in his interesting house-museum. After a few days we rented a car to go explore the island of Chiloé. 

Chiloé was a treat. We met fun travellers (yay! new buddies), explored another quirky house-museum, and visited Chiloé’s UNESCO wooden churches. On a visit to a deserted beach we saw dolphins playing in the surf. 

Now we’re back in Santiago, and spent the day at Pablo Neruda’s waterfront house in Isla Negra.  We are about to leave South America mainland for Rapa Nui. What an amazing continent!

🇨🇱🍱🍣🐬🦅🐴🦌🐂🐄🐑🦙🐈🐩🐇🌲🌴🎋🍄🍂🌻🌎🌈🍎🥑🍕🍷🚗🚕🛥✈️🇦🇷

Santiago & Mendoza 🍷🍕🗻

After enjoying nature in Ecuador, the move to Santiago, Chile was a big switch. We stayed in an 11th floor apartment (AirBNB) in Providencia - great neighbourhood. We took the nearby teleferico, and the funicular to the top of San Cristobal for a full view of the capital.

We toured Pablo Neruda’s house La Chascona, and were inspired again by his eccentric style, his obsession with Matilda, and of course, his poetry. We went from room to room with a listening device that gives you information about each place and Neruda’s life. Sylvie was rapt by the audio tour and refused to move on until she heard every detail, sometimes replaying it to be sure. 

We went to the tallest mall in South America and Chloe got herself a chenille sweater that she is cherishing. We also caught a concert in Sculpture Park.

We took an 8-hr bus ride from Santiago across the border to Mendoza, Argentina, where the feasting began. 

Zuccardi Bodega is a huge family vineyard that offered a cooking class for the girls while Mike and I toured. (Keep an eye out for Fuzion at the NSLC.) When we returned from our tour, Chloe and Sylvie had made pizza, doughnuts, and pain au chocolat (baked in the big clay oven outside with the chef, who showed them around the garden, where they picked the tomatoes for their pizzas). Then we had a three-course lunch. Bread, oils and tapenades, salad, lasagna, milanesa — and dessert. In honour of the vineyard matriarch, we had her signature wine with lunch, the Santa Julia rosé. Muy rico, as they say here. 

The next day, we needed some swimming. We rented a car and went to the Termas Cacheuta 25 km outside the city. It’s a complex of 15 or so pools — big, small, cold, hot, warm, you get the picture. Great day. 

The rest of our time in Mendoza we spent going to parks, plazas, a sad aquarium, a cool anthropological museum, another two vineyards, and a few great restaurants. It’s an easy city to love. 

19-hr bus ride later, we’re in Bariloche, the chocolate capital, which is in Patagonia. It’s autumn here, and we’re adjusting to the cool weather. They have a chocolate festival for Easter week. The Easter Bunny is all set in this town. 

That’s all for now. Eating chocolate. —K