City of Tango

Beunos Aires has been our home for the last week. This place is huge, modern and feels european with all of its street cafe´s, old architecture and clothing boutiques. As we wander the borro´s or neighborhoods, however, we are constantly reminded that we are in Argentina by the beautiful spanish being sung, the tango music blasting from all of the resturants and music stores and the cow parts hanging in the windows of the typical parrillo (grill) resturant. I guess Argentina is home of the best steaks and I think Jared can now vouge for that ("that was the best steak I have ever had").

This city is devided into distinct areas and we have explored all of them by foot. San Telmo (where we are staying now after three hellish nights in the worst hostel yet) is home of the tango and rustic antique markets. There are people dancing the tango in the streets and the restaurants offer free tango shows when you come in to eat. I love the tango, attempted it once, but the dance and the music is so fun to see here in the heart of Beunos Aires. I have even got Jared to come watch the shows 2 nights in a row, one night was in the basement of Cafe Tortoni, the oldest cafe in the city, very cool. The sunday market in San Telmo is also great. It is really an antique market in the square, but all of the surrounding streets have artists and vendors selling their goods. There are street performers and Tango bands/dancers all over. The antique vendors are all dressed up in ancient vintage wear, wigs and makeup, it is full of constant surprises.

We explored Ricolletta, where there are art museums, great boutiques and a beautiful cemetary. Palermo is the quieter part of the city with huge botanical gardens, parks and a great little mexican food restaurant that we happened upon while visiting the Saturday market (I made Jared take me back there the next Friday but it wasn´t open, how dare they!). The city center is fast and hectic with a lot of historic buildings and a great pedestrian street (Florida street) full of shopping. We stopped in La Bocca for a quick lunch but the only street to see (very vivid and colorful) was a bit overplayed and only sold rack after rack of tourist items (postcards, mate mugs, tee shirts, etc, things we definately don´t have the space or the money to buy). We have even gotten in a few popcorn and movies (in english) which we miss from time to time.

Overall it has been a nice stay but we are definately ready to leave this huge city. The loud traffic is a bit hard on the nerves, especially after our tranquil time in Pategonia. Our hostel is on "bus street" which is a very narrow street (think echos), but somehow manages to have every bus in the city doing loops on it (our room is probably the loudest room we have ever been in). Also, the exhust is getting to us. We are ready for some quite beach time in South Africa (after our stay in big Cape Town of course).

Hanging with the Whales

After a gruelling 22 hour bus ride (we are getting quite used to these) we arrived in Peurto Madryn (and Penninsula Valdes) home of the worlds best whale watching and penguin viewing. This city was great and warm! We relaxed on the beach, enjoyed meals outside with ocean views and calmly walked the streets all without chattering teeth and frantic sprints to the next warm shelter.

The town has a great ecomuseum dedicated to the marine life found in this region i.e. Sea lions (by the thousands), Penguins (by the millions), Sea Elephants (big fat creatures with creapy noses), Right Whales, Orcas, etc.

After the museum we walked back along the beach with the sun setting (not on the water since we are on the Atlantic ocean coast). There weren´t very many people around and we got a private whale show right there from the beach. It was amazing watching it playing about, blowing spay and flipping its tale.

The next day we actually took a tour of the Penninsula Valdes where we saw sea elephants, penguins and sea lions all along the beaches. The creepy gigantic sea elephants are so funny to watch I could have stayed there all day, laughing. It takes them so much energy and time just to move a few measly inches where they then plop down for a rest before there next attempt. Life would be so hard- move. rest. flip sand. rest. sleep. rest. move. rest...

We took a boat out into the ocean where there were right whales all over the place ( and yes, that is the new, very orange, fashion that the gringo's all over are wearring. It's so cool, I don't know why all the tour guides and the boat drivers haven't caught on!).

The guide said that during this time of year the waters just off the shore has thousands of these right whales swimming about. You could see their spray all over the horizan & their tails sticking out. They are supposedly really playful, curious and therefore they would come right up to our boat to check things out. Can´t say that I wasn´t just a bit nervous about the old "whale under the boat, whale tip the boat, whale eat the tourist" thing but I guess they only eat krill so "don´t worry about it".

Heading North

Since there wasn´t much more continent to keep heading south on we decided to start making our way back up through Argentina. The first stop (on the long, long road to Buenos Aires) was El Calafate, which sits on southern shore of Lago Argentina, the country´s biggest lake. At the other end of the turqoise waters is the Perito Moreno Glaciar--one of the last advancing glaciers in the world. There´s something about an absolutely massive block of snow and ice that is completely mesmorizing. It might sound like watching paint dry, but believe me, watching a glacier is way better. Gigantic blocks of ice regularly crack off the giant massif and into the water with the roar of an avalanche. Once again, everything in Patagonia is so overwhelmingly huge that its hard to describe seeing something like this. Save the Glaciers! And the Whales! In case you were curious, yes, we stared at it for hours. But, we really had no choice because the bus drops people off at about 10am and doesn´t come back until 3pm. That´s lots of glaciar staring time--and there´s not much else to do there.

El Calafate itself was nothing to write home about--even though I guess that´s what I´m doing. There is one main drag, bustling with travelers coming from every-which direction. We did spend Halloween there, and there were all kinds of little monsters running around--although, here they go to the chocolaterias, restaurants and gift shops and not through the neighborhoods.

Strange not to have to do last minute shopping for costumes for ourselves...we are usuually scrambling for costumes on Halloween day, but not this year. I myself wanted to make sure I didn´t loose the spirit entirely, so I decided to dress up in lots of facial hair. See below:

(NOTE: Anyone that knows me well also knows that I can't really grow facial hair--in fact this is the closest thing I´ve ever had to a mustache. Sorry, I had to throw in the photo just because it´s awesome.)

Anyway, up the famous Austral Highway (Route 40--which is partly paved and partly dirt) we made a quick visit to a small town in the middle of nowhere, called El Chalten. This place was really cool and rediculously overpriced. The main attraction is the giant granite tower Fitz Roy. Since we were still a little ahead of the summer climbing weather the crowds weren´t too bad, but this little place gets packed in the summer--and with good reason. We literally hiked right out the back door of our hostel and into the backcountry. Not bad living.

The roads in town are all dirt, and the day we pulled in the wind was ripping down the main street making it hard to walk and/or see. Big changes are on the way for this little palce though as they are in the middle of paving all the streets in town--as well as the road in from Calafate. I´m sure this remote little mountain village with about 1500 residents will see big changes once there´s a smooth ride in--because the ride in was not smooth.

One of our last views of the Patagonia Steppe and the southern Andes.

the W

All you Gortex clad, hightech owning backpackers watch out for the plastic poncho wearing fools (or old farts as we now feel)! We just finished hiking "the W" circuit in Torres del Paine National Park. The ciruit is named the W because it makes the shape of a W as you hike up 3 valleys in this beautiful national park. Wow! Fantastic! Stunning! Unbelievable! Freezing! Sorry the words used in this blog are overused and a bit cornball but this is all I have to try to describe this amazing place.

The hike itself is a 76 km (47ish mile) trek. It is absolutely breathtaking and also a bit ####### the old bones. We had been doing a bit too much sitting on buses and boats, but it felt great to be "aching" the way we did. Along the trail, there are hostels that you can stay in but they were really expensive (45 dollars per person per night, in a dorm room and not including sheets or a sleeping bag, those are all extra). So, being the money pinchers that we have to be, we decided to rent all the gear in town before we left and carry it all with us. It made the hike a bit more painful but in the end we saved a whole lot of dinero. Also, being as unprepared as we were for this part of our trip, only having plastic ponchos and cross trainers and some rental gear from our shoddy little pretrek hostel, we definatley got a few sorry glances from the seriously teched out fellow backpackers that we passed on the trail.
The first night was a little disheartening as we climbed up the last boulder field to look out at the famous Torres (towers) only to wait 2 hours in a snow storm (snow blizzard) and to no avail, they were hiding in the clouds. The next moring we ran (literally) up that part of the trail again to try to catch a glimpse of the towers, but again the snow started just as we were about 45 minutes from the top, so we tucked our tails between our legs and started toward the next campsite. They warn you that you can experience the 4 seasons in one day down here.
From that time on, however, the views got better and were so amazing that we forgot that we didn´t get to see one of the lookouts. The campsite on the second night was set right on the bluest lake we have ever seen (turquoise blue) and the sheer cliffs just made us stare in awe throughout the evening (sitting at the table in our sleeping bags of course). The third day involved 11.5 hours of hiking (luckily, only 5 with our packs) to the next campsite, but the top was a cirque surrounded by glaciers and sheer cliffs and in all directions. The colors in this park are brilliant. The last day, we hiked to Grey Glacier, a huge glacier which is not really grey but bright blue. Something that I have never seen before. This park is so beautiful, it is no wonder it is the most visited national park in South America. Patagonia, what a place. This is recommended to anyone who loves to backpack (or day hike) and who needs a trip to the bottom of the globe.

¿Where in the Fjord?

A lot has happened since our last update, and life is blustery and frigid here at the ends of the earth. When we last checked in we were embarking onto the Navimag ferry from Puerto Montt, Chile, to Purto Natales (it was the first time we had ever ´embarked' so it was pretty exciting). The boat trip itself was about 4 days through the canals, fjords, and the open sea of Chile´s southern stretch.

Although the trip itself was a little pricey it was a welcome change from our regular mode of tranportation. We stayed in a four person cabin, oddly enough our roomates were a great Isreali couple who we had met several weeks earlier in Argentina--small is the path of travellers. The quarers were tight with no privacy to speak of except a curtain that covered the small bunks.

Since the majority of the trip was through the fjords the water was calm, and for the most part the weather was relatively good--not sunny, but not pouring rain with zero visibility. The scenery from the deck of the boat was great, especially when it was navigating the narrow chanels (the smallest being only about 85 feet wide). Of course a good thing can´t go without a mishap, and on the second day as we glided past towering green mountains and an uncountable number of waterfalls, our camera decided to stop working. (We think the culprit may have been a grain of sand that started causing problems a month earlier when I dropped the camera in my pocket--which was full of beach sand. Woops.) Although the scenery on this day was amazing, for us, the beauty turned to tragedy as we were not able to take hundreds of photos like everyone else. After a relentless pity party full of scowling, moping, banging the camera on my hand and telling others of our misfurtune, it started working again. It was now 8:00 at night, but the problem, what ever it was, was now gone. Whew...anyway, back to the boat.

At percisely 2:15 pm on the second day the tour conductor on the boat makes an announcement in English, with her strong Chilean accent, ''Passengers, now is the exact time to take the sea sick pill.'' Which we did. Turns out I am not meant to be a sailor, or a pirate, or an old sea dog, because as soon as we hit the open ocean and the I could see the horizon through the windows of the boat turn from the gray of the sky to the gray of the sea, I had to retire to my small bunk and lay in the fetal position for the rest of the night, struggling to keep down my spaghetti dinner. Shanon, on the other hand, lazily read her book in the lounge and then watched a movie in the cafeteria.

The experience itself was nice overall, and a good change of pace. The food was good (Shanon ate fish), our friends from Isreal were great to hang out with, and like I mentioned, the scenery was great, and it feels REALLY good to go a few days without having to make any decisions about where to go, what to do or where to eat. That's as easy as it gets in South America.

Once again we are just ahead of the summer tourist mahem that's about to begin down here, and in case you were wondering, life is cold and blustery down here at the end of the earth where Antarctica is just a long stone throw away.

Spring in Chile and the Push for Patagonia

We´re back in Chile again and just made it through another weekend. We always thought it was difficult to find stores or restraunts open in SLC on a Sunday, but in Chile and Argentina life nearly comes to a grinding halt. Almost all the stores are closed, and restraunts keep strange hours that are not consistent with our fickle eating habits. Yet, we perservere. To the left is a pleasant view from our room in the hostal. Brrrr.

And this is the only action we get on another lazy Sunday afternoon.

We´re heading out on a ferry this afternoon from a bustiling city called Puerto Montt. The city itself it nothing spectacular so we stayed about 30 minutes outside of town in a place called Puerto Varas (this port is on a lake though), which is much more quiet and has a great view of three massive volcanoes...or so we hear. It´s been cloudy and raining like mad for the past three days. We did make it out to another small national park one of the days when there was a break in the weather, and saw some waterfalls in a massive river that were formed by a fairly recent lava flow. The water rages with so much force that it actually shakes the small bridge (capacity 10 people) that crosses one narrow section. Since it's still early in the season we had the fals to ourselves for almost 45 minutes before people started to show up--one of the benefits of going places in the off season.

Waterfall Salto de Petrohue

Another pretty place in another pretty National Park.

The downfall, as I mentioned before, is the weather. Eventually the rain started again and we hopped back on the rickety old mini-bus for the voyage back to our hostel. Although the safety if the buses here in South America is occasionally questionable, we had reassurance on this dilapidated old jalopy, and out minds were at ease....

....it´s a dark photo, but that´s an old hammer on the left fastened to the bus. Even if there were an emergeny you wouldn´t be avle to move that sucker. Fewwww....safe at last.

The travelers on yet another mini-bus.

Next up is Patagonia. We´ll probably be off the radar for the better part of the next week or so, but hopefully the weather will be kind to us and we will return with some more tales and stunning visual imagery. Until then, Viva Chile!

Car Rental Day

Yes, freedom at last. Nothing compares to a road trip; and as much as we have grown to love crowded, swaying, cheese smelling buses, the last 2 days have been blissful in our own rental VW.

We got the sweet ride in Bariloche, traveled to the ski resort above the town of Bariloche (it closed for season the day before) and then around Lake Nahuel Huapi to a small town on the opposite side of the lake called Villa La Angostura. It was so tranquel there, a small ski town, but this is definately where the wealthy settle down. The lake front houses look out across the glacial lakes and amazing Nahuel Huapi National Park.

The views of the Andes from all angles of this town were breathtaking. The pictures will never do justice (I know I´ve said this before).

From this town, we hiked 7-8 miles to the end of a penninsula where the Los Arraynes National Park is. It is a very small park which protects a rare forest of trees (arraynes) that are only found in a few places on earth. They are really beautiful and have no outer bark to protect them. It was nice because the only way to reach the park is by hiking in 7 miles or by boat (really expensive, but we took it back one-way to save time).

It was a nice car trip out here with our music, space and no other people reclining all the way back in the seats in front of us. To bad the budget doesn´t allow a car rental in every place we go, because that is the way to really see the land.