The Rest of Argentina

disclaimer: yea, its a little behind schedule, but here is the rest of semester 1 (also, there are no accents in this because i used my dad's computer and have no idea how to put them in....its a PC):


Saturday 25 November – I left the beautiful city of Ushuaia and headed to the airport, which is on a peninsula sticking out into the Beagle Channel. While at the airport, I bumped into Alicia, Pedro and Pilu, three Spaniards who had been on my Beagle Channel excursion days earlier. They were going to El Calafate and had to be in Chile the same day as me. We shared a cab to Calafate and I went to my hostel, which wasn’t that great. Alicia called my cell phone to tell me that the tour company at their hostel had organized a way for all of us to go to the glaciers, fitz roy and torres del paine while still making it to Chile in time. I ran over there to figure things out and while talking to the tour organizer managed to score myself a free hostelling international member ship for a year (costs between $15 and $25 US, already saved me money at Chilean hostels and the bus back to BsAs).

Sunday 26 November – We were picked up and taken to a boat where we took an all day tour on a Catamaran. We went and saw the several glaciers from the boat, but the icebergs were by far my favorite part. They were so blue and huge and different. The ice was textured and really beautiful. From there we went to a bay and docked and had lunch while looking at the icebergs and more glaciers. It was really really cool!

Monday 27 November – the tour company came to pick me up, but there was already one person on the bus: Eitan! The same Israeli guy who though I was Israeli in Buenos Aires and then showed up at my hostel in Ushuaia. It was great to see a familiar face. Perito Moreno is huge. Its absolutely amazing. We took a boat to get closer to it and we watched in break and fall. Its one of the few glaciers that isn’t in danger of receding: it replenishes itself every year. We hiked around the hills overlooking the glacier and then went to the look-out area and had lunch. It was really cold and raining, which kind of sucked, so we went and sat on the bus and got back to town earlier than planned. That afternoon, the Spaniards and I took a bus up Ruta 40 to El Chalten. Ruta 40 is an unpaved “highway,” aka the only inter-city road, up the western park of Patagonia. It winds around hills and mountains and had some really nice views. We got to El Chalten and found our hostel and went to sleep.

Tuesday 28 November – We took a mini-bus thing down the road to a spot where it would be easier to climb to the Fitz Roy look-out area. From there it was two hours to the base of the climb for the look-out, which is called Laguna Los Tres (the three lake). At that point we had to cross a river on a one-person-only bridge and start a steep uphill climb. At most points the rocks were like stair steps and we had to figure out the easiest way around the large steps or large rocks. My asthma was bothered a little by the climb. We got to the top and Fitz Roy was cloud-covered, but the view of the valley below was amazing. We couldn’t stay long at the top because we didn’t want to miss the bus back to Calafate. The way down was actually harder than going up (but better for my breathing). This is because all of the little rocks/gravel move as you step down and you have to work hard to stop yourself from going to fast and falling. Once we got to the bottom, we turned around and there was Fitz Roy….no more clouds! It was kind of upsetting that the clouds left when we left, but it was still really beautiful from below. We got back to town with about an hour before we needed to leave for El Calafate, so we went to a café where I had a lemon trout tostada (warm sandwich of trout in lemon juice). I slept the entire 4-hour gravel drive back to El Calafate.

Wednesday 29 November – We woke up at 5 AM to get a 5:45 bus to Chile. I slept the entire way to the border, three hours later. Leaving Argentina and entering Chile was relatively painless. We got near Torres del Paine and saw some really beautiful and colorful lakes. We got up close with some guanacos (a cousin of the llama). Torres del Paine was beautiful, but somewhat disappointing because the weather was terrible and we couldn’t see the torres, we saw the cuernos (horns) with some clouds, but the torres were completely covered (I later talked to some people who spent several days there and never saw the torres – that made me feel better). The weather was absolute shit. It was terrible: rain and so windy we could barely walk or stand. After debating whether or not to stay a night in Torres, I left for Puerto Natales where we found a HI hostel and slept in a real bed (I would have had to camp in torres). In Puerto Natales, I met three people who were going to be on the Navimag ferry with me the next day.

Thursday 30 Nov – I spent the day wandering Puerto Natales, which for a travelers’ town, where people are going to/from Torres del Paine or Navimag, was not such a bad place. I actually really liked it because it had a personality. On my walk, I found a guy going door-to-door selling fish out of a cooler in the back of his pick-up. He would open the cooler, pluck out a dead fish, put it in a plastic bag and knock his client’s door. I also went and bought grapefruit to bring with me on the boat. One of the differences between Chile and Argentina is that while both have verdulerias (fruit/veg stores), the produce in Chile is much larger and four of the same kind of verduleria in one city block can survive without a problem. Chileans actually eat their vegetables, which Argentines are more meat and carbohaulics. That afternoon I met up with the people who were going to be on the boat with me and we walked around and used the internet a bit. They were: Sammi, an Aussie (27) who had been living in England, Siobhan, Sammi’s Irish friend with whom she was traveling around the world, and Chad, a 32-year-old Brit who I swore couldn’t be any older that 22….so immature. They were loud and fun, we all had different English-speaking accents, which was interesting. We boarded the boat and went to the first night meeting.

Friday 1 Dec – The PA system woke us up at 7AM to tell us we were passing through the narrowest point of our journey. It was interesting (not really) and mostly just freezing cold and windy. Being a boat that far south is very very very cold and super windy…aka not fun to be outside especially that early in the morning. Then we went inside and had breakfast which was amazingly Americanized: there were scrambled eggs!!! I was super excited about that because in Argentina and Chile there are no eggs at breakfast time. We began the three-day eating adventure. The first day it wasn’t so boring because I was very into reading my book (Boquitas Pintadas by Manuel Puig) and keeping a journal. At night I watched a Chilean movie about the Allende years.

Saturday 2 Dec – We were again woken up by the PA system, but this time at 6:30 AM, to let us know we were near Puerto Eden. We took small boats (with about 20 people each) to the settlement, which houses about 2,000 people. Their land has walkways around it. It was nice to walk around a bit, even though it was chilly. Really the entire reason I went was to walk. I wasn’t expecting anything amazing (which it wasn’t), I just wanted the exercise. Then we went back to the boat and had breakfast. After breakfast, I went up and down the stairs 20 times (it was a three story boat) because I couldn’t sit any longer. Saturday was “seasickness day.” Siobhan had bought medicine in Puerto Natales, which turned out to be glorified sleeping pills (I am told that is what most seasickness meds are). I took the pills at 2 PM and by 5 PM was down in my bunk sleeping. Robin woke me at 8ish for dinner, which I ate and then went back to sleep until 7:30 the next morning. All I felt was that it was hard to walk around on the boat when I went up to dinner and back down. I didn’t get sick at all.

Sunday 3 Dec – Saturday it was finally warm enough to go outside and walk around the boat, which I did for ½ hour. We watched some documentaries and movies and played a lot of card games. That night was a bingo party in the pub. It was also warm enough to go outside and watch the sunset and see the mountains. During the bingo game there were trivia questions. I was the only person to name three Chilean authors and one book by one author. My answers: Pablo Neruda, Isabel Allende, and Luis Sepulveda and his book Mundo del fin del mundo, which I was reading at the time. I won a bottle of wine and wildlife stickers. We drank the wine on the boat because there was no way I was carry a glass bottle around in my backpack.

Monday 4 Dec – We were already in Puerto Montt when I woke up. I had breakfast and then all of us young backpackers walked to the bus station. I opted to take the cheapest bus to Castro, Chiloe, which wound up being a local bus which went to the local terminal instead of the tourist terminal. This meant that I stayed at a hospedaje (someone’s home with one room converted into a guest room) in the cheaper part of the city. I went and wandered around Castro and bumped into three Germans and a French girl (all from Navimag) at a market. We ate lunch, curanto, a seafood mixture which wasn’t that good…well, it was fine, but lacked flavor of any kind. Then we walked around Castro and found the palafitos (houses built on stilts). That night I ate at my hostel and went to sleep.

Tuesday 5 Dec – I woke up early and took a bus to Dalcahue where I saw the church and the cute tiny town. Then I took a ferry across the the Quinchao island, where I hitchhiked to the Aacho to see that church and town. Then I took a little bus to Curaco de Velez and walked around. From there I went back to the ferry and had lunch in Dalcauhue. My lunch was called a complete which consisted of: a bun, hotdog, pico de gallo, sourkraut, smeared avocado, mayo, ketchup, mustard, and aji (spicy sauce). This elaborately prepared snack only cost $1US. Then I tried to get to another town more north of Dalcahue, but was unsuccessful, so I just went back to Castro and walked some more. That night our navimag group had a pot-luck dinner. We had a huge salad (made from our huge Chilean veggies), empanadas, milcao (fried patties of mashed potatoes filled with pork), grapes and a variety of crackers and cake. It was really fun because they were such nice people and we talked about traveling and stuff like that.

Wednesday 6 Dec- I left Castro at 6:50 AM and got to Valdivia at 2ish. The bus ride was tedious because I sat next to this annoying Chilean guy whom I could not understand at all because he didn’t open his mouth wide enough when he spoke. I had to wait almost three hours in Valdivia because the other bus was delayed. When it arrived I was pleasantly surprised to find Robin (an Irish guy who I was friends with on navimag) and a bunch of backpackers…I felt like I was back in that world after a weird two day hiatus. The best part about Robin being there was that he wanted to climb the volcano and he knew where to find Sammi, Siobhan and Chad, which we did and we stayed at their hostel. They had just climbed the volcano and were full of advice, and Chad fed lme dinner. They helped us book the volcano and then Robin and I went food shopping at this mini-market. The food store turned out to be a total disaster. Robin tried to buy a roast chicken which ended with an entire roast spit (an four chickens) in his arms and me having to translate to the guy at the store that it was an accident and Robin only wanted one chicken. Then the power went out while I was looking at vegetables. It took a few minutes for them to restore power to the market and we paid and left. We went out with Sammi, Siobhan and Chad to celebrate our last night together.

Thursday 7 Dec – Volcano day! Robin and I were very prompt, arriving before the tour company. We took a bus until we were above the clouds. Our group was comprised of three Israeli girls (our age, but wound up being the worst climbers and most whiny), a Scottish couple and an older couple (one who turned back) Then we went on to the mountain. Even though we were one of the first groups to the mountain, we were the last group to reach the very cold and windy top. The climb took us about 5 hours (4 of which were us moving and 1 was breaks, we took several). The problem was the Israeli girls kept stopping and resting as we were climbing. At the top we looked into the mouth of the volcano, but couldn’t see anything like lava. We did, however, get a lungful of sulfur, which was delightful. By far the best part of the day was getting down the mountain. We strapped black diaper-like cloth contraptions onto ourselves and slid down the mountain. It was so much fun, kind of like a big water slide except you can keep going as long as the slide lasts and only have an ice ax to stop you. We didn’t get back to town until 5PMish and all of our stuff was soaking wet because water entered our backpacks while we were sliding down. We were also generally wet and muddy (aka absolutely filthy). We got to the hostel in time to say goodbye to the rest of the group as they took a bus to Santiago. Then I went and got the last ticket for the bus to Argentina the next day. Also that night, I went to the grocery store which took more than an hour because I couldn’t find things and just didn’t know what I wanted to buy. I was so tired that I kept walking in circles, really lost and confused. Both Robin and I went to bed at 10:30 that night because we were beyond tired after all of that climbing.

Friday 8 Dec – I woke up early and made eggs for breakfast because I wanted to have something substantial on the bus (rather than just crackers). The ride to Argentina was full of Israeli backpackers, but I was seated next to a Canadian photography nut who had been all over the world, literally. The border crossing was right next to a volcano, which was cool. I had no problem leaving Chile, but entering Argentina, the immigration officials had to “decide how much time to give me” on my visa. A side-note, my visa is a year-long student visa. Its very simple, I entered on 18 July 2006 and need to leave less than one year later. This isn’t like the 5 or 6 month visa where actual math may be involved. This is one year. One year is not difficult, however they like to screw it up because the first immigration official didn’t give me an exit date. She wrote in 1 year. The next one (return form Uruguay) wrote 17 July 2007, next in Tierra del Fuego the guy wrote 18 July 2007 (one year and one day), and this time the guy had no clue what to do. My passport was then moved to the bottom of the pile to be dealt with last. The bus ride took longer than we were told, which was to be expected. We arrived in San Martin de los Andes as the last bus was leaving to Bariloche. I called the hostel there and found out that it was full, which meant I really had to get on the bus. The problem wasn’t a lack of seats, it was that the ticket sales guy didn’t want to hold the bus up. Luckily my Spanish was good enough to get really pissed off at this guy and I had the cash to pay for my ticket and for two Scottish women (who paid me in American money). The three of us and the Canadian guy were only allowed on the bus after the driver okayed it. Also, by luck, we wound up on the bus that went by all of the lakes in the seven lakes region, which was a really beautiful bus ride as the sun was setting. Gilda’s cousin, Papi, picked me up at the bus terminal and drove me to his house, where they served me dinner and I spent the night.

Saturday 9 Dec – I was not able to stay longer at their house because they had family coming to visit. It ended up being a good thing because there wasn’t really much for me to do there except use the internet and they lived outside the town by a fair amount. I went to a hostel where I got the second-to-last bed. I left my stuff and wandered Bariloche a little bit…the town was cute, but super touristy. I had trout for lunch and tried some of their chocolates. I also went food shopping and then back to the hostel, where I met a bunch of people, include a girl who was raised in the next town in New Jersey. We went to the same high school district but different school. We also were in the same Hebrew school class (I only went for one year).

Sunday 10 Dec – Kate, the girl from NJ, three guys (from Arizona, Holland, and Australia) and I went to climb this mountain to Refugio Frey. We took a bus to get to the start of the hike, which was actually a ski resort and began our climb. It took about four hours to get to the top, which was totally worth it. Near the top we had to cross a snow-covered waterfall (which wasn’t so snow-covered on the way back down). At the top there were a lot of people hanging out and camping. For the first time I encountered (and used one) squatters (toilets which are basically just holes in the ground and outlines for your feet). Then we hiked back down, which wasn’t that difficult, but we were really tired and these huge mosquitoes were attacking me. By the time we reached the bottom we were exhausted and still had to walk 1 km to get to the road where the buses left from. All-in-all, we walked/hiked about 22 km (13 miles). After we got off the bus in the center of town, we went for ice cream which is supposedly the best in Argentina…it was good, but you can get ice cream like it in BsAs. After dessert, we had $5 peso pasta from this take-out place.

Monday 11 Dec – I slept late and then went and did the Circuito Chico (little circuit), a path/road near the lakes. I didn’t do all of it, just some paths through the woods, which were nice, but I had already seen a lot of the lakes from my bus ride three days earlier. The walk was super easy, especially after the crazy hiking the day before. I got a little lost (even though I had a map) because one part of the trails were not on the maps….however I didn’t really get lost because I took 10 more steps and found a beach with people and a road. On my walk back, I was unsuccessful hitchhiking, so took a bus to get to cerro catedral, where I walked uphill for 30 minutes to see the lakes from above. Then I went back to the hostel, had dinner and went to bed.

Tuesday 13 Dec – I woke up and walked around town a lot, in preparation for my 24-hour bus ride back to Buenos Aires. Then I went and got on the bus. It was an average bus ride, except that I didn’t think we were getting dinner, so I took a Tylonol PM at 11 and they started serving at 11:05….it was an interesting meal of me struggling to keep my eyes open.

Wednesday 13 Dec – I got to my apartment at noonish and was relieved to find it empty (I didn’t want to have to describe my trip before showering). My host mom was on her way to COPA, so I went with her and organized my photos/used the internet.

Thursday 14 Dec – I walked around Palermo to the rose gardens with my friends. The gardens were really pretty, even though they were right on the road and kind of noisy. Then we went and saw Children of Men at the movie theater.

Friday 15 Dec – I wandered around during the morning and then went to help Amy pack. She was mostly packed and very stressed. Sierra and I took a huge bag of stuff Amy couldn’t fit in her bags to Sierra’s house. Then Meagan and I helped Sierra pack nda then they left. I walked back to my apartment and showed, then went to the airport and sat in a lot of traffic on the way. At the airport, there were a million lines to wait on: pre-check-in security questions (has your luggage been unattended at any time?), check-in, airport tax, security/metal detector, immigration, pre-boarding security questions (has your hand luggage been unattended at any time?), hand-luggage hand-search (for liquids). I got on the plane, ate bad airplane food and went to sleep.

Saturday 16 Dec – We landed at 5 minutes before 6 AM. My mother didn’t cry, which was kind of weird. My dad took us home and grandma came with bagels and lox for lunch. I had dinner at my grandfather’s house.