Sunday, April 15, 2012
heading home
I´ve once again failed to update this thing regularly, but internet access isn´t as easy to come by in the boonies. I have to get on a shuttle to the airport to fly home (weird) in like 10 minutes so this will be a super quick summary of my past month and how awesome it was: weeded overgrown garden, ate lots of asado meat, saw a dentist, paid for 1.5 hrs of dental work by buying some octopus and wine for the dentist and having a feast, ate more asado, comforted a crying baby 500 times, went to Buenos Aires, walked around the city, stressed out about my flight. That doesn´t cover it at all and is only things that came to mind b ut I gotta gooo!
Friday, March 9, 2012
Last Leg!
Well, Mr. Crowley and I parted ways a few days ago, ending our epic Patagonia adventure together and turning to face two equally long trips to two different destinations. Crowley was facing a day and a half of doing nothing in a campsite at which we´d already spent three days doing exactly that, followed by a night in BA then a long flight home (even if it is first class). I was facing an unknown amount of hours and seated positions in a slew of different vehicles until I got back to El Bolson. Which I just did a few hours ago! Woo! Anyways, this is what we did since the last update:
The day following the preceding update, we went on a bus excursion to see Mangellanic penguins. It was awesome! Expensive, but it was worth it to walk around for an hour on a small island populated by around 150,000 penguins. Of course we had to stay on the designated trails and not touch them, but the little guys would waddle through the trails often, giving us upclose views. I especially enjoyed watching them stumble over the rocky shore as they made their way too and from the sea. They had quite a resemblance to those inflatable punching dummies that always bounce back upright. We were also taken to an island populated by sea lions and penguins, but we weren´t allowed to set foot on the land...just watch from a distance.
Soon after, we decided that there was absolutely nothing else to do in Punta Arenas, so we made our way south to Ushuaia, the end of the world! Our first night there was one of the less enjoyable experiences of the trip. We accepted the first hostel that threw a flyer in our faces, which turned out to be a mistake. Both our guidebooks had decent things to say about the place, but we felt differently. Not only was the place extremely overcrowded with completely inadequate facilites, but the staff were horrible. First, a woman sent us on a ten minute hike into town in a very windy, cold Ushuaia night to head to a supermarket that she was sure was open. It wasn´t of course, but upon returning and informing her of this, she just said, ¨go half a block to the left...there´s a minimart there.¨ No ¨Oh, sorry¨ or even a ¨my bad¨, but whatever. Slightly rude. We were okay with it. The real trouble came the next day, when I came downstairst at 10:15 to tell the manager that we were leaving that day. He told me very sternly that checkout is at 10, and that we should know that, pointing to a tiny sign on a wall almost as crowded with signs as the kitchen was with people. I apologized but said that it might be easier to check out if there were more than 2 showers for 30 or more people. He didn´t like this at all. After enduring at least two full minutes of him screaming at me that it was my responsibility to know the rules of the hostel and wake up early enough to shower, and that it was not his problem, I eventually was able to calm him enough to get clear directions to the nearest bank so that we could extract cash. As we were leaving after paying, he said: ¨muy, muy poca onda, chicos. Muy poca onda.¨ Literally, ¨very little wave,¨ but it basically means we´re not cool and he doesn´t like us. As Crowley put it, that place had very little wave, not us.
We found a new decent hostel that morning for an equally outrageous price, but the owners were friendly enough, so we settled in and headed to a very interesting prison-turned-museum. It had exhibits on antarctic expeditions, notorious former prisoners, the Yamana, the now extinct indigious inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, and even a section of modern art. A nice afternoon. The following day we switched to a very relaxed campsite just a bit out of town that was half the price of the hostels (but still very expensive for camping) and a much more interesting place to be. We did a day trek up to a glacier above Ushuaia that, although unimpressive in contrast to Perito Moreno, offered some wonderful views of the town and land to the south. The next day we headed to Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego. We were lucky enough to catch a ride with a Californian couple, Tom and Angela, whom we met at the campground, because a shuttle to the park, a total distance of 12km, cost over $20. Ridiculous. Anways, we spent just that amount to enter the park, set up our tent, and headed out on a trek called Cerro Guanaco. We were worried about making it up and down before dark, so we hustled pretty damn hard up the fairly strenuous trail, but it was well worth the effort: the view at the top was spectacular. Not only could you see all of the national park, you could see down to Ushuaia and beyond. 360 degrees of totally gorgeous landscape. We stayed at the summit for half an hour and decided we needed to head back down. On the way down, Bryan decided to get a little too close to a beaver that had made his dam on the trail. After half a minute of watching Bryan approach, the little guy decided to charge out of the bushes directly at Bryan (and also, as it turned out, directly towards the water). Bryan, having no idea how aggressive beavers are and probably only thinking about how strong their jaws probably are, backed up quickly and took a one-footed plunge into a 3-ft deep hole filled with dark muddy water. The beaver just darted to the side and into his pool. Bryan dried off while I laughed at him.
Sadly, none of the rest of the park came close to matching the beauty of our first hike. The only other sight of note was a spotting of a group of sea lions as we were hiking a trail that ran along the shore. We were able to get within about 25 ft of them, which was mostly due to their curiosity, rather than ours. They kept ducking underwater and popping their heads up to take a look at us, a few feet closer every time. Very cool.
Later on that night, we spotted a red fox dart by our tent. It was exciting as we hadn´t seen one before, but we thought nothing of it. I should have, as it turns out, because I awoke the next morning to the news that one of my crocs (ideal camping shoe) was 20 feet from the tent and that the other was missing. We suspected the fox, and when he came back during breakfast, no doubt in search of food, we were sure that he was the guilty party. I made a half-hearted attempt to follow him back to his hole in seach of my lost rubber shoe, but it became pretty clear that the fox was much better suited for darting through the woods than I.
Bryan and I headed back out of the park that day, having seen all there was to see, and walked the road back to our campsite. We spent the next few days sleeping, reading, playing cards and lolling around. Pleasant at first, but a bit boring after a while.
Tom and Angela, who are two years into a 6 year trip from Cali, down the east coast of central and south america, up the west coast, then into canada, over to the northeast coast, down to the southern us, then back over to Cali (get all that?), offered us a ride in their RV to Punta Arenas, their next destination. Bryan was flying out, but I was happy to accept the offer. On our last night togethern in the camp, Tom and Angela cooked us a delicious meal of beef stroganoff, coupled with plentiful red wine. Delicious! The next day Bryan and I parted ways, and I began what Ithought was going to be a hitchhiking trip to Rio Gallegos in southern Argentina followed by a long bus ride. Turned out to be a bit more stressful than that, but a lot more awesome. After spending the night in the RV with Tom and Angela and another delicous meal, we crossed the boarder into the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego and went our separate ways. I made a sign requesting a lift to Rio Gallegos and sat at immigration.
Within 45 minutes, I got an offer from a truck driver named Maxi for a lift to Gallegos. As it turned out, Maxi was headed much further up the east coast of Argentina, and after spending a few hours with the extremely nice and talkative Argentinian, I decided to go with him a bit farther. He ended up taking me almost 900km, through a boarder crossing, across the Strait of Magellan, and halfway up Argentine Patagonia. Along the way, he treated me to coffee, mate, a place to sleep for the night, and a bunch of delicious mini muffins filled with dulce de leche. We spent the whole time chatting about sports, Argentine cuisine, whether the US is like all the movies, particularly the college party scene (always a popular topic), and even God and organized religion. Maxi was an awesome, awesome guy. Ended up being a 24 hour trip with him from the middle of Tierra del Fuego to Fitz Roy, a small town in southeastern Argentina.
From there I got a bunch of shorter rides up the coast. The first was from a very nice rotund man named Javier, whose car absolutely reeked of fish. The smell stayed with me for hours afterwards, and I was only in the car for 45 minutes. The reason for the smell, he explained, is that he was transporting frozen fish 400km south in unsealed boxes. They defrosted and completely stunk up his car.
My next ride a bit further up the coast was from a very nice man named Angel who worked in petroleum (like everyone in the region). He gave me plenty of advice about hitchhiking as I got further north, told me all about his home town of Comodoro and even showed me the new house he was building for his family and himself in Rada Tilly, a small wealthy beach town on the east coast. Before I got out of the car, he gave me some cardboard to make my next sign, a marker, and even his business card with all his personal information, telling me I could call him if I ever came back to the region or if I failed to get a ride that night. Awesome dude.
Not 15 minutes later I got a ride westward from another petroleum worker named Juan, who chain smoked (surprise surprise) and threw countless ceral bar wrappers out the window as he bragged about how fast his pickup could accelerate, how many kids he had produced (six) and how great the petroleum business was. I tried not to think about his carbon footprint. He was a very nice guy as well.
The town in which Juan dropped me off, Sarmiento, turned out to be where my luck ended, or at least paused. After four hours of hitchhiking there, I decided to turn in for the night and try again in the morning. Unforunately, there were no hostels in the town and the cheapest hotel was $25 a night. So I decided to find a spot in a nearby field to spread out my therma-rest.Would have been a good idea if not for the mosquitoes: they were horrible. I managed to cover every inch of my body but for my eyes and nose, but they still found ways to bite me and drive me half mad. So I bought a tiny bottle of overpriced bug spray, wrapped my body in double layers and eventually fell asleep. Woke up with quite a few bites on my head and neck, but nothing major. My luck picked up that morning,a nd I was able to catch rides nearly continuously all the way up to El Bolson, arriving here in the late afternoon. Despite a mini-lecture from one driver about finding Jesus and ¨getting the devil out of your heart¨ after mentioning that I wasn´t sure about the existence of God, the trips went smoothly. Overall, I made it around 2000km (rough guess) for $9 (bread and cheese and bug spray)! Met some very nice people, and I saved quite a few dollars, so I was happy with the experience. Now I´m off to wwoof for a few more weeks before heading home in April!
The day following the preceding update, we went on a bus excursion to see Mangellanic penguins. It was awesome! Expensive, but it was worth it to walk around for an hour on a small island populated by around 150,000 penguins. Of course we had to stay on the designated trails and not touch them, but the little guys would waddle through the trails often, giving us upclose views. I especially enjoyed watching them stumble over the rocky shore as they made their way too and from the sea. They had quite a resemblance to those inflatable punching dummies that always bounce back upright. We were also taken to an island populated by sea lions and penguins, but we weren´t allowed to set foot on the land...just watch from a distance.
Soon after, we decided that there was absolutely nothing else to do in Punta Arenas, so we made our way south to Ushuaia, the end of the world! Our first night there was one of the less enjoyable experiences of the trip. We accepted the first hostel that threw a flyer in our faces, which turned out to be a mistake. Both our guidebooks had decent things to say about the place, but we felt differently. Not only was the place extremely overcrowded with completely inadequate facilites, but the staff were horrible. First, a woman sent us on a ten minute hike into town in a very windy, cold Ushuaia night to head to a supermarket that she was sure was open. It wasn´t of course, but upon returning and informing her of this, she just said, ¨go half a block to the left...there´s a minimart there.¨ No ¨Oh, sorry¨ or even a ¨my bad¨, but whatever. Slightly rude. We were okay with it. The real trouble came the next day, when I came downstairst at 10:15 to tell the manager that we were leaving that day. He told me very sternly that checkout is at 10, and that we should know that, pointing to a tiny sign on a wall almost as crowded with signs as the kitchen was with people. I apologized but said that it might be easier to check out if there were more than 2 showers for 30 or more people. He didn´t like this at all. After enduring at least two full minutes of him screaming at me that it was my responsibility to know the rules of the hostel and wake up early enough to shower, and that it was not his problem, I eventually was able to calm him enough to get clear directions to the nearest bank so that we could extract cash. As we were leaving after paying, he said: ¨muy, muy poca onda, chicos. Muy poca onda.¨ Literally, ¨very little wave,¨ but it basically means we´re not cool and he doesn´t like us. As Crowley put it, that place had very little wave, not us.
We found a new decent hostel that morning for an equally outrageous price, but the owners were friendly enough, so we settled in and headed to a very interesting prison-turned-museum. It had exhibits on antarctic expeditions, notorious former prisoners, the Yamana, the now extinct indigious inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, and even a section of modern art. A nice afternoon. The following day we switched to a very relaxed campsite just a bit out of town that was half the price of the hostels (but still very expensive for camping) and a much more interesting place to be. We did a day trek up to a glacier above Ushuaia that, although unimpressive in contrast to Perito Moreno, offered some wonderful views of the town and land to the south. The next day we headed to Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego. We were lucky enough to catch a ride with a Californian couple, Tom and Angela, whom we met at the campground, because a shuttle to the park, a total distance of 12km, cost over $20. Ridiculous. Anways, we spent just that amount to enter the park, set up our tent, and headed out on a trek called Cerro Guanaco. We were worried about making it up and down before dark, so we hustled pretty damn hard up the fairly strenuous trail, but it was well worth the effort: the view at the top was spectacular. Not only could you see all of the national park, you could see down to Ushuaia and beyond. 360 degrees of totally gorgeous landscape. We stayed at the summit for half an hour and decided we needed to head back down. On the way down, Bryan decided to get a little too close to a beaver that had made his dam on the trail. After half a minute of watching Bryan approach, the little guy decided to charge out of the bushes directly at Bryan (and also, as it turned out, directly towards the water). Bryan, having no idea how aggressive beavers are and probably only thinking about how strong their jaws probably are, backed up quickly and took a one-footed plunge into a 3-ft deep hole filled with dark muddy water. The beaver just darted to the side and into his pool. Bryan dried off while I laughed at him.
Sadly, none of the rest of the park came close to matching the beauty of our first hike. The only other sight of note was a spotting of a group of sea lions as we were hiking a trail that ran along the shore. We were able to get within about 25 ft of them, which was mostly due to their curiosity, rather than ours. They kept ducking underwater and popping their heads up to take a look at us, a few feet closer every time. Very cool.
Later on that night, we spotted a red fox dart by our tent. It was exciting as we hadn´t seen one before, but we thought nothing of it. I should have, as it turns out, because I awoke the next morning to the news that one of my crocs (ideal camping shoe) was 20 feet from the tent and that the other was missing. We suspected the fox, and when he came back during breakfast, no doubt in search of food, we were sure that he was the guilty party. I made a half-hearted attempt to follow him back to his hole in seach of my lost rubber shoe, but it became pretty clear that the fox was much better suited for darting through the woods than I.
Bryan and I headed back out of the park that day, having seen all there was to see, and walked the road back to our campsite. We spent the next few days sleeping, reading, playing cards and lolling around. Pleasant at first, but a bit boring after a while.
Tom and Angela, who are two years into a 6 year trip from Cali, down the east coast of central and south america, up the west coast, then into canada, over to the northeast coast, down to the southern us, then back over to Cali (get all that?), offered us a ride in their RV to Punta Arenas, their next destination. Bryan was flying out, but I was happy to accept the offer. On our last night togethern in the camp, Tom and Angela cooked us a delicious meal of beef stroganoff, coupled with plentiful red wine. Delicious! The next day Bryan and I parted ways, and I began what Ithought was going to be a hitchhiking trip to Rio Gallegos in southern Argentina followed by a long bus ride. Turned out to be a bit more stressful than that, but a lot more awesome. After spending the night in the RV with Tom and Angela and another delicous meal, we crossed the boarder into the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego and went our separate ways. I made a sign requesting a lift to Rio Gallegos and sat at immigration.
Within 45 minutes, I got an offer from a truck driver named Maxi for a lift to Gallegos. As it turned out, Maxi was headed much further up the east coast of Argentina, and after spending a few hours with the extremely nice and talkative Argentinian, I decided to go with him a bit farther. He ended up taking me almost 900km, through a boarder crossing, across the Strait of Magellan, and halfway up Argentine Patagonia. Along the way, he treated me to coffee, mate, a place to sleep for the night, and a bunch of delicious mini muffins filled with dulce de leche. We spent the whole time chatting about sports, Argentine cuisine, whether the US is like all the movies, particularly the college party scene (always a popular topic), and even God and organized religion. Maxi was an awesome, awesome guy. Ended up being a 24 hour trip with him from the middle of Tierra del Fuego to Fitz Roy, a small town in southeastern Argentina.
From there I got a bunch of shorter rides up the coast. The first was from a very nice rotund man named Javier, whose car absolutely reeked of fish. The smell stayed with me for hours afterwards, and I was only in the car for 45 minutes. The reason for the smell, he explained, is that he was transporting frozen fish 400km south in unsealed boxes. They defrosted and completely stunk up his car.
My next ride a bit further up the coast was from a very nice man named Angel who worked in petroleum (like everyone in the region). He gave me plenty of advice about hitchhiking as I got further north, told me all about his home town of Comodoro and even showed me the new house he was building for his family and himself in Rada Tilly, a small wealthy beach town on the east coast. Before I got out of the car, he gave me some cardboard to make my next sign, a marker, and even his business card with all his personal information, telling me I could call him if I ever came back to the region or if I failed to get a ride that night. Awesome dude.
Not 15 minutes later I got a ride westward from another petroleum worker named Juan, who chain smoked (surprise surprise) and threw countless ceral bar wrappers out the window as he bragged about how fast his pickup could accelerate, how many kids he had produced (six) and how great the petroleum business was. I tried not to think about his carbon footprint. He was a very nice guy as well.
The town in which Juan dropped me off, Sarmiento, turned out to be where my luck ended, or at least paused. After four hours of hitchhiking there, I decided to turn in for the night and try again in the morning. Unforunately, there were no hostels in the town and the cheapest hotel was $25 a night. So I decided to find a spot in a nearby field to spread out my therma-rest.Would have been a good idea if not for the mosquitoes: they were horrible. I managed to cover every inch of my body but for my eyes and nose, but they still found ways to bite me and drive me half mad. So I bought a tiny bottle of overpriced bug spray, wrapped my body in double layers and eventually fell asleep. Woke up with quite a few bites on my head and neck, but nothing major. My luck picked up that morning,a nd I was able to catch rides nearly continuously all the way up to El Bolson, arriving here in the late afternoon. Despite a mini-lecture from one driver about finding Jesus and ¨getting the devil out of your heart¨ after mentioning that I wasn´t sure about the existence of God, the trips went smoothly. Overall, I made it around 2000km (rough guess) for $9 (bread and cheese and bug spray)! Met some very nice people, and I saved quite a few dollars, so I was happy with the experience. Now I´m off to wwoof for a few more weeks before heading home in April!
Friday, February 24, 2012
B hottie arrives
Well Mr. Crowley is here and doesn´t feel like writing in the blog because he´d rather watch a lame spanish talk show that neither of us can understand, so I´ll just summarize what we´ve been through. We met up in El Bolsón, where I´ve spent most of my farming time in Argentina. After catching up and gathering supplies, we spent an hour and a half trying to hitchhike up to the farm at which we were crashing for a few days: the home of Lea and Cristel, my former wwoof hosts. When we´d nearly given up hope, thinking that no one would pick up two Americans in boat shoes and jeans, an angel arrived in the form of a burned-out British wood toy maker named Ralph. Although we were eager to get to the farm and crash (we had a big day of hiking ahead of us), Ralph convinced us to join him at a ¨party¨ he was attending with the other Brits who live in the area. This party turned out to be a group of five old British guys drinking extremely strong gin and tonics, smoking a pile of tobacco, and using all sorts of awesome dirty English phrases. After a few hours of damaging our lungs with secondhand smoke, Crowley and I walked (okay...walked and sometimes stumbled) through the dark and over rocky dirt roads, pricker bushes and barbed wire fences, finally arriving at our destination. We fell asleep only to wake up 5 hours later and hitchhike once again down to town in order to start our first trek. After asking around town and buying a few more supplies, we finally set off to summit Piltriquitron, a beautiful granite ridge that overlooks the town. Two hours of exposing our thumbs to the harsh sun later, we were picked up by a local couple, spent 20 minutes in the back of a rusted old pickup, bumped our heads several times on the cover, and finally made it to the base of the hike. The rest of the trip went swimmingly! We got some incredible views of El Bolsón and the surrounding area at the refugio for summiting Piltri, and the next morning we were able to summit without a problem. This thanks in part to our companion for the trek, the refugio dog, whom we named Venga. As we started our morning hike, we noticed her leading us from a distance. We figured she´d stay with us for a few minutes and head back. We were wrong. For the two hours it took us to make it to the summit, Venga could always be seen somewhere off in the distance, blazing her own trail and keeping tabs on us as we hiked. As we neared the peak, she joined us on the path, and even kept us warm by sitting next to us at the summit! We were impressed. After a few hours of downhill hiking and a delicious meal of cold crappy pasta and cheese sandwiches, we were back in town in time to catch a bus (thank God) up to Mallin, where Cristel and Lea were waiting to cook a delicious meal with us. So we stuffed our bellies with cheeseburgers, Argentina style, slept very well in the tent, and were off again the next day, ready for our 26 hour bus ride down to El Calafate, the gateway to our adventures in southern Patagonia! I´m tired of writing. Crowley´s turn.
Hello readers, it´s B-hottie wit da body. From El Calafate, our first stop was the Perito Merino Glacier. Dan tried to tell me that it is the only advancing glacier in the world, which is untrue--it´s one of a few advancing glaciers in Patagonia. Hennyway, the glacier was awesomely huge and fun to explore. We opted for an hour long boat excursion that went up alongside the glacier and got some great views. The remainder of our time at the glacier we spent on catwalks that provided views from almost every angle as we patiently waited for massive chunks of ice to fall from the glacier and crash into the water below. Having spent a solid 3 hours admiring the expanse of ice and snow, the two of us grew tired of the tourist-packed and overpriced venue and waited another 3 hours for our return bus to El Calafate. The next day we were off to Parque Nacional los Glaciares and our first multi-day trek in the Fitz Roy sector.
In order to get to the park, we had to catch a bus to the tiny town of El Chalten, the self-proclaimed trekking capital of Argentina. The town was thrown together in 1985 in the midst of a border dispute with the evil Chileans, and as a result there are tons of half-finished buildings and development projects in the works. The town´s only function is to serve the tourism industry, and it has a whopping population of 100. Trail heads to the Fitz Roy hikes were found at the edge of town and we made our way to our first campsite at the base of Cerro Fitz Roy. The hike up to the lookout the following day was incredible and that was where we made our first friend, Lamar, a math teacher in NYC.
If we continue to detail our travels like this then the next 2 weeks will be spent sitting at this computer writing this post, so here begins a much briefer summary:
We enjoyed fair weather in Fitz Roy and headed back to El Calafate for one night before catching a bus to Puerto Natales, Chile, gateway to Torres del Paine National Park.
Dan here. I´d like to clarify that I mentioned hearing or reading somewhere that the glacier was the only one advancing, but that it didn´t make sense and probably wasn´t true. Crowley sits on a throne of lies.
Torres, in a word, was stunning. The best hiking I´ve ever done, easily. This is due in part to our incredible luck: in our six days of hiking, we only had one cloudy day. The rest were filled with sunshine and incredible vistas. This is unheard of in Patagonia, a place known as much for its summer blizards and knock-down winds as it is for its wonderful hiking. We were fortunate enough to have time to do the full circuit, a trip that took us around the back of the towers before heading over the mountain range to do the ¨W¨, the more popular and crowded section of the park. So for the first few days, we were able to hike through some stunning scenery in almost complete isolation, going hours on the trails without seeing another soul. This was wonderful, but at the same time, it´s easy to see why the W is so much more popular. Standing on a rock surrounded completely by mountains, glaciers and pure, clean glacial streams was an experience I´ll hopefully remember forever. Not to mention our sunrise hike to the towers on our last day: seeing the first bright orange light of the day spread across the formation was as warming to the soul as a good peppermint hot chocolate in February. Mmmmmm.
After our incredible trek, we treated ourselves to showers, pizza, delicious pastries from the supermarket and a big bottle of damn decent wine (for $3). Then we were off to Punta Arenas, where we are now, awaiting a tour of a penguin colony tomorrow!
All for now. Peace out cubscouts.
Hello readers, it´s B-hottie wit da body. From El Calafate, our first stop was the Perito Merino Glacier. Dan tried to tell me that it is the only advancing glacier in the world, which is untrue--it´s one of a few advancing glaciers in Patagonia. Hennyway, the glacier was awesomely huge and fun to explore. We opted for an hour long boat excursion that went up alongside the glacier and got some great views. The remainder of our time at the glacier we spent on catwalks that provided views from almost every angle as we patiently waited for massive chunks of ice to fall from the glacier and crash into the water below. Having spent a solid 3 hours admiring the expanse of ice and snow, the two of us grew tired of the tourist-packed and overpriced venue and waited another 3 hours for our return bus to El Calafate. The next day we were off to Parque Nacional los Glaciares and our first multi-day trek in the Fitz Roy sector.
In order to get to the park, we had to catch a bus to the tiny town of El Chalten, the self-proclaimed trekking capital of Argentina. The town was thrown together in 1985 in the midst of a border dispute with the evil Chileans, and as a result there are tons of half-finished buildings and development projects in the works. The town´s only function is to serve the tourism industry, and it has a whopping population of 100. Trail heads to the Fitz Roy hikes were found at the edge of town and we made our way to our first campsite at the base of Cerro Fitz Roy. The hike up to the lookout the following day was incredible and that was where we made our first friend, Lamar, a math teacher in NYC.
If we continue to detail our travels like this then the next 2 weeks will be spent sitting at this computer writing this post, so here begins a much briefer summary:
We enjoyed fair weather in Fitz Roy and headed back to El Calafate for one night before catching a bus to Puerto Natales, Chile, gateway to Torres del Paine National Park.
Dan here. I´d like to clarify that I mentioned hearing or reading somewhere that the glacier was the only one advancing, but that it didn´t make sense and probably wasn´t true. Crowley sits on a throne of lies.
Torres, in a word, was stunning. The best hiking I´ve ever done, easily. This is due in part to our incredible luck: in our six days of hiking, we only had one cloudy day. The rest were filled with sunshine and incredible vistas. This is unheard of in Patagonia, a place known as much for its summer blizards and knock-down winds as it is for its wonderful hiking. We were fortunate enough to have time to do the full circuit, a trip that took us around the back of the towers before heading over the mountain range to do the ¨W¨, the more popular and crowded section of the park. So for the first few days, we were able to hike through some stunning scenery in almost complete isolation, going hours on the trails without seeing another soul. This was wonderful, but at the same time, it´s easy to see why the W is so much more popular. Standing on a rock surrounded completely by mountains, glaciers and pure, clean glacial streams was an experience I´ll hopefully remember forever. Not to mention our sunrise hike to the towers on our last day: seeing the first bright orange light of the day spread across the formation was as warming to the soul as a good peppermint hot chocolate in February. Mmmmmm.
After our incredible trek, we treated ourselves to showers, pizza, delicious pastries from the supermarket and a big bottle of damn decent wine (for $3). Then we were off to Punta Arenas, where we are now, awaiting a tour of a penguin colony tomorrow!
All for now. Peace out cubscouts.
Friday, February 3, 2012
I´m pathetic at this
Okay so I´m sitting in a bus station in Mendoza with nothing to do for six hours until my bus comes, and even though I haven´t eaten anything in 15 hours because the damn chilean airline I was on promised a meal and forgot to pack it onto the plane (?), all the shops in Mendoza are closed for siesta! So this is my way to not think about the delicious cheese sandwich and fresh apple that await me at the corner bakery in an hour.
I am clearly terrible at updating this blog, and I feel like highlights aren´t enough...I have to go into story mode, so this is going to be a stream of conscience style post that hopefully not digress into romanticized food poetry. the last time I updated this was November 18. That´s kinda a long time ago. As you might guess, some things have happened since then. Among them, delicous Argentine asados, beautiful hikes into the mountains of northern Patagonia, poorly suppressed freakouts in internet cafes at the incompetenece of DHL in Argentina, and a mad dash through Mendoza to grab my passport before catching a bus to Santiago just in time for my flight to Costa Rica. okay the shift button on this computer sucks so i´´m ditching the caps. anyways, after screaming at a computer and pulling my hair out with at least 10 people eyeing me, i finally figured out that the new passport i had ordered to be shipped to me had not even left the embassy the day before i had to leave for my fligh, despite dhl´s assurance that it would arrive at least two days prior. this i discovered despite the dhl employees deliberately ignoring my 10 emails inquiring asto the location of the passport. luckily i was able to shift bus tickets around and get my passport shipped to mendoza, where i had to go anyways, just in time to pick it up.
after 3 days of travel, i made it to costa rica and got to see my family for the first time since september. we had a blast of a vacation in two beautiful spots: the osa peninsula on the southern pacific coast and orosi, a cool little town just outside of san jose. we went snorkeling, night hiking through the jungle, and toured an awesome national park. we saw white faced monkeys sneak into the resort kitchen and make away with a loaf of bread, then we heard them howling and fighting over it in the nearby jungle. a few minutes later, a monkey actually jumped into the living area (full of people), lifted up the cookie jar and made away with two cookies! crafty little buggers. we also saw parokees, toucans, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, sloths, and all sorts of poisonous frogs. christmas was relaxed and awesome. after a day of river rafting, we sat around and played cards all day. one of my favorite christmases to date. I was sad to see my family go the following morning and pretty apprehensive about my next stay, but I hopped on a bus and headed to puerto viejo to see my cousin Dave, who runs a hostel down there, and whom I hadn´t seen in like 5 years.
so I´ve traveled a reasonable amount through central and south america, among other places, but i´ve never found a town as compelling, relaxed, inviting and fun as puerto viejo. i had such a good time living in a hostel, helping dave build bunk beds and doing random cleaning and what not in exchange for a room. i tried to get a job, but most of them paid about a dollar an hour, so it didn´t seem worth it. eventually I found a job bar backing at an awesome, awesome bar called tasty waves on tuesday nights. god, that was easily the best job i´ve ever had. i got paid to stack beers, shoot pool, dance, drink and generally be debaucherous. amazing. the people there--all of dave´s friends--were some of the coolest people i´ve ever met. as dave put it, the people who stay are the people who get it. true. good thing i´m heading back there for at leat half a year at some point in teh near future.
living in a hostel, especially one as cool and relaxed as dave´s, means meeting people--interesting, adventurous people--from all overthe world. and they cycle through, so there´s a constant supply of new fun characters. i learned a lot about the environment, writing and rocks in school. I learned a lot about argentine culture and the spanish language in argentina, but i think i learned the most about people and life and what´s really important in puerto. just way too many interesting, excited individuals who want to share ideas, meet people, have fun and generally do all the awesome things that go along with traveling.
of course, there were some downsides. for one, i burrrned through money. costa rica is not cheap, and i was frugal as ever. still blew a lot of it. oh well. worse, though, was don klause. he´s this old german dickbag who rents out the hostel to dannie (dave´s girlfriend, who is awesome) and dave. basically the double d´s do all the work, all of it, and don klause makes most of the profit and just gets in the way of all the improvements they try to make. the hostel doesn´t have internet, for example, and everyone knows it needs it, but trying to convince this guy was like talking to a brick wall. if at any point he sensed that you were winning the argument, he´d just wave his hand in your face and say he was done talking about it.
but tha wasn´t the worst of it. the guy would show up periodically (twice in teh five weeks i was there) with a small suitcase that, as far as i could tell, he would never open. after three days of not showering, he really just reeked of bo. after four it was unbearable to be in a normal sized room with him. it probably didn´t help that he spent every night pounding two liters of box wine by himself with his back turned to everyone else sitting around and talking in the hostel. and, as it tends to go, when he got plastered he would share his opinions. some unsuspecting well-intentioned backpacker would usually strike up a conversation with the mysterious antisocial alcoholic in the corner who smelled like when the raccoon got in the copier, and klause would talk at this backpacker until he or she was able to escape. he would tell them about himself, about how incredible a person he is, because he loooved to mention that he is ¨a very important person¨. it was never made clear why he thought this. he´d also share his views on economic gaps and race discrimination, because as don klause knows and is willing to tell you, poor people arepoor because they are dumb, and rich people are rich because they are smart. i won´t go into what he said about race, but suffice it to say that you would easiy drop your jaw at his opinions. and again, you could not argue with this guy. ever. brick wall.
so besides don klause being a terrible, terrible person, i had a fantastic time at the residencia. even got a visit from that badass mofo neil for a week, which was a blasty blast. he´s set on coming back to pv for a longer stay as well. although i was sad to leave costa rica and all teh awesome people in puerto, i´m absurtly pumped for my upcoming adventure with crowley through patagonia, so i can´t really complain. hopefully i´ll be better at updating this and will be able to get into actual stories instead of generalized summaries, but that´s probably not going to happen. anyways, 20 minutes until food! then a 22 hour bus ride to el bolson to meet up with b hottie and start the great patagonian adventure!
I am clearly terrible at updating this blog, and I feel like highlights aren´t enough...I have to go into story mode, so this is going to be a stream of conscience style post that hopefully not digress into romanticized food poetry. the last time I updated this was November 18. That´s kinda a long time ago. As you might guess, some things have happened since then. Among them, delicous Argentine asados, beautiful hikes into the mountains of northern Patagonia, poorly suppressed freakouts in internet cafes at the incompetenece of DHL in Argentina, and a mad dash through Mendoza to grab my passport before catching a bus to Santiago just in time for my flight to Costa Rica. okay the shift button on this computer sucks so i´´m ditching the caps. anyways, after screaming at a computer and pulling my hair out with at least 10 people eyeing me, i finally figured out that the new passport i had ordered to be shipped to me had not even left the embassy the day before i had to leave for my fligh, despite dhl´s assurance that it would arrive at least two days prior. this i discovered despite the dhl employees deliberately ignoring my 10 emails inquiring asto the location of the passport. luckily i was able to shift bus tickets around and get my passport shipped to mendoza, where i had to go anyways, just in time to pick it up.
after 3 days of travel, i made it to costa rica and got to see my family for the first time since september. we had a blast of a vacation in two beautiful spots: the osa peninsula on the southern pacific coast and orosi, a cool little town just outside of san jose. we went snorkeling, night hiking through the jungle, and toured an awesome national park. we saw white faced monkeys sneak into the resort kitchen and make away with a loaf of bread, then we heard them howling and fighting over it in the nearby jungle. a few minutes later, a monkey actually jumped into the living area (full of people), lifted up the cookie jar and made away with two cookies! crafty little buggers. we also saw parokees, toucans, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, sloths, and all sorts of poisonous frogs. christmas was relaxed and awesome. after a day of river rafting, we sat around and played cards all day. one of my favorite christmases to date. I was sad to see my family go the following morning and pretty apprehensive about my next stay, but I hopped on a bus and headed to puerto viejo to see my cousin Dave, who runs a hostel down there, and whom I hadn´t seen in like 5 years.
so I´ve traveled a reasonable amount through central and south america, among other places, but i´ve never found a town as compelling, relaxed, inviting and fun as puerto viejo. i had such a good time living in a hostel, helping dave build bunk beds and doing random cleaning and what not in exchange for a room. i tried to get a job, but most of them paid about a dollar an hour, so it didn´t seem worth it. eventually I found a job bar backing at an awesome, awesome bar called tasty waves on tuesday nights. god, that was easily the best job i´ve ever had. i got paid to stack beers, shoot pool, dance, drink and generally be debaucherous. amazing. the people there--all of dave´s friends--were some of the coolest people i´ve ever met. as dave put it, the people who stay are the people who get it. true. good thing i´m heading back there for at leat half a year at some point in teh near future.
living in a hostel, especially one as cool and relaxed as dave´s, means meeting people--interesting, adventurous people--from all overthe world. and they cycle through, so there´s a constant supply of new fun characters. i learned a lot about the environment, writing and rocks in school. I learned a lot about argentine culture and the spanish language in argentina, but i think i learned the most about people and life and what´s really important in puerto. just way too many interesting, excited individuals who want to share ideas, meet people, have fun and generally do all the awesome things that go along with traveling.
of course, there were some downsides. for one, i burrrned through money. costa rica is not cheap, and i was frugal as ever. still blew a lot of it. oh well. worse, though, was don klause. he´s this old german dickbag who rents out the hostel to dannie (dave´s girlfriend, who is awesome) and dave. basically the double d´s do all the work, all of it, and don klause makes most of the profit and just gets in the way of all the improvements they try to make. the hostel doesn´t have internet, for example, and everyone knows it needs it, but trying to convince this guy was like talking to a brick wall. if at any point he sensed that you were winning the argument, he´d just wave his hand in your face and say he was done talking about it.
but tha wasn´t the worst of it. the guy would show up periodically (twice in teh five weeks i was there) with a small suitcase that, as far as i could tell, he would never open. after three days of not showering, he really just reeked of bo. after four it was unbearable to be in a normal sized room with him. it probably didn´t help that he spent every night pounding two liters of box wine by himself with his back turned to everyone else sitting around and talking in the hostel. and, as it tends to go, when he got plastered he would share his opinions. some unsuspecting well-intentioned backpacker would usually strike up a conversation with the mysterious antisocial alcoholic in the corner who smelled like when the raccoon got in the copier, and klause would talk at this backpacker until he or she was able to escape. he would tell them about himself, about how incredible a person he is, because he loooved to mention that he is ¨a very important person¨. it was never made clear why he thought this. he´d also share his views on economic gaps and race discrimination, because as don klause knows and is willing to tell you, poor people arepoor because they are dumb, and rich people are rich because they are smart. i won´t go into what he said about race, but suffice it to say that you would easiy drop your jaw at his opinions. and again, you could not argue with this guy. ever. brick wall.
so besides don klause being a terrible, terrible person, i had a fantastic time at the residencia. even got a visit from that badass mofo neil for a week, which was a blasty blast. he´s set on coming back to pv for a longer stay as well. although i was sad to leave costa rica and all teh awesome people in puerto, i´m absurtly pumped for my upcoming adventure with crowley through patagonia, so i can´t really complain. hopefully i´ll be better at updating this and will be able to get into actual stories instead of generalized summaries, but that´s probably not going to happen. anyways, 20 minutes until food! then a 22 hour bus ride to el bolson to meet up with b hottie and start the great patagonian adventure!
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