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!
