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.