Our two days in Barcelona were packed with activities, and left Nick and I wishing we had more time to enjoy the city. On Thursday, Stefano took us on an nice introductory tour with a stop at the huge Cathedral followed by a local bar for drinks, a tour of his apartment, an excellent restaurant for tapas, and a very good local flamenco show. Stefano’s reaction to the surprise gift of Speck from the Venice airport deli at the end of the night was exactly what I was hoping for.

Friday brought Dana, Nick, and I through the very touristy area of Las Ramblas to the Palau Güell, an impressive building architected by Antoni Gaudí. After that was a stop at Café Viena for the purported best sandwich in the world, and although good, I have to say that the Venice airport deli sandwiches were better. Also intermixed in the day were stops at the local and colorful markets of Santa Caterina and La Boqueria and the clothes store Zara, where I bought my new favorite shirt.

After all this, we attempted to visit Barcelona’s newest cathedral, Sagrada Família. Construction began in 1882, and it’s still under construction. Although very impressive on the outside, we unfortunately weren’t able to go inside due to a private, invitation only concert.

Stefano then met up with us and took us out for a local and enjoyable evening with sandwiches, tapas, and drinks at a number of his favorite spots. Nick and I ended the night early at our centrally located Airbnb apartment in Barcelona at 1:30am – we still needed to find accommodation for Saturday night in France; Act III was about to begin in a few hours…

Specifically, Laura and Jimmy are catching a flight to Nice, France followed by trains to Bordeaux before we meet again in Paris. Nick and I are headed to Barcelona for Act II of this adventure.

With just 2.5 hours before our flight departed, Nick and I decided to take a harrowing yet scenic 45-minute ride on a water taxi through the Grand Canal. This was followed by a speedy bus to the Marco Polo airport, and we arrived with much more time than we expected so we were each able to get not one but two delicious prosciutto and buffalo milk mozzarella paninis with sun dried tomatoes at the airport deli. The food here is so good, and I have a feeling that trend will thankfully continue in Barcelona.

First up after arrival is the immigration process. TripAdivsor says that this has recently (March and April 2012) taken up to 2-2.5 hours, but for us on a Tuesday morning in May 2012, it took 20 minutes. Some friends on a recent Saturday morning took 30 minutes, so not too bad at all. The key is to walk fast through the terminals to get as far ahead in line as possible. After 15 minutes of standing in the immigration line, the line had grown quite long, with people just arriving probably having to wait upwards of an hour.

After collecting the bags, we proceeded to follow the signs to “Coaches” where we got in line at National Express to purchase one way tickets to Gatwick North Terminal for 25£ each. Note that you can purchase from the machines with a regular (non-chip) credit card, but you need to leave it in long enough for the machine to read it.

The Gatwick National Express bus picked us up 5 minutes later right outside the terminal at stop 16. After showing the tickets to the driver, we loaded our bags on the bus and boarded for the 53 minute, ~40 mile ride to Gatwick – 2 minutes faster than the scheduled arrival time.

The airlines recommend 3 hours minimum for this transfer and we had 3 hours and 50 minutes from touch down at Heathrow to take off at Gatwick. Today it took us 2 hours and 10 minutes from wheels down at Heathrow to the gate area past security at Gatwick. Lady luck has smiled on us once again.

Following a walk through of the Great Church of St. Mark, we headed to a small shop near the Rialto district where the owner of our B&B said we could purchase the bath towels she provided for us. I jumped on this opportunity because 1) these are the best towels I’ve ever used and 2) I arrived with half empty backpacks to bring stuff exactly like this home. We found “TSL” after asking no more than five people and I made my towel purchase.

By this time we were a bit wet from the rain so we headed back to the B&B to regroup, get dried off, and ask the owner for a lunch recommendation. This lead us to the pizzeria Corte dell’ Orso at the end of a dark and deserted ally – a very good local choice! To make things even better, the rain had stopped for the day a few hours earlier than Nick’s estimate.

The British Air magazine on the flights over recommended we visit a small art gallery called Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni where we were definitely off the beaten path. With our fill of many depictions of a pointy-eared dragon getting slain, we headed back to the Santa Maria Formosa square where we met a gondolier named Roberto who seemed friendly and spoke excellent English – we had found our captain!

No tour of Venice would be complete without a gondola ride. The industry is regulated by the 425 gondoliers (red and blue banded hats don’t signify anything more than flair) and rides before 6pm cost €80 for a 40 minute tour of the area near where you pick up the boat. We wanted a tour of the small canal ways, and that was delivered in spades. Excellent! The only thing that could’ve made it better was if we had hired a singer/accordion combo that we later saw a couple cruising through the canals with.

Next up was a “Vivaldi el’ Opera” concert, which was actually quite good. Jimmy even caught a glimpse of a tear in the eye of the tenor singer as he looked into the light – the woman soprano didn’t seem quite as into it.

Nick and I wrapped up the day at a small bar down the street from our B&B enjoying the Californian Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on tap. A good end to a great and very picturesque day in Venice.

Upon meeting Jimmy at the B&B, he took us to the plaza Campo Santa Maria Formosa where we met Laura. We then wandered a few blocks and ended up at Al Mascaron for a filling and very tasty dinner.

The evening found us enjoying prosecco and limoncello on the patio of our B&B – it’s good to be traveling with good friends and seeing new places once again.

My last day in Santiago consisted of a large walking tour of the city to visit some of my favorite places and explore some new places in the process. First I returned to Parque Metropolitano for the early morning view of the city from top near the Virgen de la Inmaculada Concepción. After that, I headed to the Central Market for brunch: a seafood feast consisting of the Chilean fish Reineta, mussels, shrimp, etc. I then headed to La Moneda Palace, the seat of Chile’s president. Finally, I returned to visit Marcos at his apartment for a few hours before grabbing my bags and catching a bus to the airport for the flight home.

The past three weeks in Chile and Argentina have been amazing, and as I said earlier, it’s hard to believe all that has happened in that time. Thanks to everyone who has helped to make it a huge success of a trip – until next time, enjoy some wine and a lomito completo for me.

Traveling in your country and other countries opens your mind.

The money spent traveling is not an expense but an investment.

They [Big Oil] will make you think that you cannot live without it [oil].

The quote on Big Oil was in response to our surprise of how few people in South America have (or even need) cars. With plentiful inexpensive taxis, impressive intercity bus networks, and an efficient metro in Santiago, traveling around Chile and Argentina was a breath of fresh air (literally) when it comes to inexpensive, reliable, and sustainable transportation.

Finally, Teri introduced us to the concept of a traveler’s “honeypot” when Tiff, Greg, and I were talking about tracking shared expenses (i.e., who paid for lunch, the taxi ride, bus tickets, etc.). When paying for most things by cash as we were, consider having everyone who shares expenses to chip in the same amount to a honeypot, and pay for shared expenses from that bucket of cash. When the honeypot is dry, simply have everyone add the same amount more. We began using this tactic after Mendoza, and it worked great.

Pucón has been fun and it clearly lives up to its reputation as a town for fast-paced adventure tourism; it’s worthy of a return someday for extended trips into the nearby National Parks, which look very picturesque.

I ended up booking transportation through Aguaventura with another Volcán climber, and we left to the hot springs at 8pm. The drive was scenic and took us through the farming countryside, with Volcán Villarrica looming in the distance. We met two other friendly travelers on the shuttle, so we made a group of four once we arrived to the hot springs, Los Pozones, at around 9pm; we had two hours to soak in one of the five or so pools.

I’ll try to upload pictures once I can connect my camera to a computer, but the area was very well maintained, and the hot springs were clean, not too crowded, and quite soothing (especially after a day of hiking). The three pools that we tried all varied in temperature, from being just a bit too hot, just a bit too cool, and just right. We spent about half of our time in the pool that was just right, wishing that we could have some more time here… Next time!

Our day began at 6:45am with a 45 minute drive to the volcano. We were provided with all of the hiking gear that we’d need for the day: helmet to protect from the falling rocks, ice axe for hiking through snow/ice, and all equipment required to slide down through the snow.

The moderately strenuous hike to the top took about 4 hours, with rests every 45 minutes or so. There were many people climbing the volcano, but as some of the first for the day, we were less prone to getting hit by falling rocks loosened by parties above.

Upon reaching the summit, the first thing I did was walk to the edge of the pit to see what this volcano was all about. We couldn’t see lava, but we could hear it – it sounded like small jet engine. Mainly, the volcano was belching smoke and toxic gases, which the wind was thankfully blowing in the opposite direction from us. When we did smell the gas, though, it smelled of chlorine and made you cough.

After about an hour enjoying the view from the summit, we put on the gear that we carried to the top that would allow us to descend in an hour by sledding through snow chutes. This was quite fun, and you could really gain some speed when you sat on the small piece of plastic! Before we knew it, we were back to the beginning of the snow line and hiked the remainder back to the shuttles. Overall, a great day with lots of sun and stunning views, and I can now see why this is such a popular activity for Pucón.