Two Beers and a Pretzel

San Carlos de Bariloche is in the center of Argentina’s ‘Lake District’, is a tourist magnet, and is beautiful.  The town is unabashedly touristy, which I find more palatable than the comercialized hippie utopia like El Bolson.  Bariloche has a stunning array of chocolate makers and some pretty darn good Italian gelato-style ice cream.  The top ranked chocolatier im Mamuschka - where they apparently have participated in world events as important as WWII Paris peace talks and Einstein’s theory of relativity…

So after getting to town on the 26th and meeting Erin & Katie again, we explored the town a bit and chilled out at the hostel to get ready for Kayaking on Friday.  We booked a 1/2 day for about $40 each in tandem Kayaks across the clearest, darkest blue lake I’ve ever been on.

Erin & Katie were paired up.

I was matched with a rather robust german woman named Ingrid.

We paddled out for about 90 minutes to a beach on a point, had coffee and cookies, chilled on the beach, then paddled back into a headwind.

Now for “Blood Runs Red on the Highway”…

Today (Feb 28th), we went mountain biking around a 30 km circuit thru the lake district with some stunning vistas, gut wrenching uphill climbs and some long and fast downhill runs.

I had bike issues…  loose handlebars, no usable first gear… then with about 8 km left to go, I had a massive, truly dangerous wipeout.  I was going down a huge paved hill and I passed from the light into the shade just as the potholes started and I was going too fast to avoid it.  I’d estimate that I was going about 40 kmh when I hit a pothole and the front wheel bent enough for me to lose control.  I hit another chuckhole and may have gone airborne.  I slid off the road and flipped over.  I don’t remember exactly what happened after that, but the rear tire was mangled.  Erin and Katie were surprized that I was standing up again after flipping over into a bush.  Luckilly I was wearing a helmet.  We don’t have a photo, but I re-enacted it back at the bike shop (happy that I didn’t have a concussion).  Note the severely bent rear tire.

I had to pay about $150 pesos for both bent rims and the bike shop dog bit me as I went in the back to clean up.  I slowly came out of shock and started remembering details of the crash.  Then the owner of the bike shop gave a video testimonial that I had done the most damage to one of his bikes that he’s ever seen…

Leaving El Chalten on Monday, I boarded an overcrowded bus and sat next to Enzo - a very personable Italian guy.  The bus was so packed that we became friends with pretty much everyone.  Then a few hours outside of El Chalten, the bus stopped for 2 hours to help fix the A-Team van…

B.A and Murdoch were arguing while Faceman and Hannibal plotted their path along route 40.  And for anyone who’s heard the adventurous tales from legendary Route 40, here’s what is looks like for about 1000 miles…

Yep.  Gravel.  You’d expect to see Wile E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner.  Endless miles of gravel road.  So mundane that during our repair stop with the A-Team, one guy unloaded his pack and just started walking out into the nothingness…

That was about 3 hours into the 14 hour bus trip that day…  I’m guessing he didn’t get his money’s worth on that ticket, but he probably didn’t care…

Around 11PM we pulled into Perito Moreno city and everyone crashed at the same hotel.  I ended up rooming with Enzo because one person renting a room was 120 pesos, while 2 sharing was 50 pesos each.

The next day, another crappy bus ride, but we did see lots of Llama and Emu.

Hard to photograph from a moving bus, but you get the idea…

Enzo was all excited about stopping in El Bolson and having a very likable personality, he talked a mess of us into staying there for a few days.  El Bolson is a former Hippie commune that is hyped as a utopia in most guidebooks.  My impression was that it was a very odd town.  The locals and gringos did not look each other in the eye, much less say ‘Hola’.  Aside from the people you met on the bus, the friendliest people in town will talk to you for 5 minutes, then ask if you want some acid, coke, extacy, or weed.  At least they are friendly drug dealers.  It’s got a hippie reputation, but is much more commercial than you’d expect.

Luckilly, we stayed about 3 km outside of town on an organic farm.

We arrived pretty late, so Enzo, Francesca (Swiss), Adell (Egyptian) and I went to the nearest place we could find for dinner.

Then we ran into Drew (American) and Heather (Aussie) from the farm - on their way to a Reggae bar.  So we tagged along and drank a bit too much.

I woke up around 6 PM on Wednesday.  OK, I woke up at 7 AM with a massive hangover and went back to bed until 6 PM.  Everyone was planning an Asado (communal dinner), so I went to the store to buy my share and ran into almost everyone from the bus.  I also hit an internet cafe and got an e-mail from Erin about Bariloche… We also had a monster jam session on 2 guitars that lasted until 2 AM.

Oddly, that also goes along with another e-mail I got from an old roommate saying “We’re getting the band back together!”

Seeing as how Bolson was so strange to me, I elected to get to Bariloche ASAP, So on Thursday I got to the bus station at 11:30 and got a ticket for the 11:45 bus to Bariloche.  This is a much larger, touristy town, but at least it doesn;t maintain a false pretense of maintaining a hippie utopia.  I like it here.  Tomorrow, the girls and I are probably renting bikes for a 60 km loop thru the lake district.  Enzo, Adell and a bunch of the others will probably show up in the next few days.

I’m also looking into some river rafting and kayaking.

Saturday the 21st -

After renting those boots for the glacier hike and in lieu of the soles of my shoes already become worn, I decided to buy a nice pair of ankle high boots.  To break them in, I hiked another trail to the Southwest of town that takes 12 km to rise 1 km.  Katie and Erin were also on the trail ahead of me, but there was no way O could catch them.  I could tell these were heavier, and only made it about 10km and 750m before meeting the girls and turning back.  The way my knees feel today, I made the right choice.

Early in the day, you could actually see Fitz Roy in it’s entirety, so I got a pretty cool pic mid-hike…

However, instead of boring everyone with more and more photos of stunning scenery, I took a 10 minute time lapse video (compressed into 40 seconds) of clouds rolling around Mt. Fitz Roy.  This ought to give you an idea how patient you have to be to get a picture like the one above of the mountain without a veil of clouds.

I got back into town and stretched and rested before going out for dinner.  The sun had already descended past the mountains, but after dinner, the low clouds became luminescent, then dark as the sky turned dark blue and pink…  but I never actually saw the sun set - not that I feel like I missed anything…

Yeah, Patagonia is pretty nice…

So today, Sunday, is dedicated to letting my knees recover from 4 days of mountain and glacier trekking, catching up on the blog, and planning the rest of the South American portion of the trip - which is already a month beyond the original plan.  Tomorrow morning I leave for 2 days on buses with a night in Perito Moreno (the city) to get to Bariloche.

Friday, Feb 20th-

Cool Baby!!

That was today in 2 words.  We all took a bus and a boat to the ‘Glaciar Viedma’.  This is the largest glacier in Argentina (33km long) - although our guide noted that it had receded nearly 200 meters in the last few years - where Moreno (the one from last week) is one of the few ’stable’ glaciers in the world.  Both are fed by the Patagonian ice field, which is the 3rd largest in the world behind Antarctica and Greenland.  Look on a satalite map of Chile and Argentina and find the massive white spot between the two countries in the Andes…  That’s the Patagonian Ice Field.

Although the face of Viedma is not as impressive as Moreno was, this glacier seems to send off a lot more large icebergs - which our boat pulled right up to…

Once the boat landed, our groups broke up.  Erin, Katie and I went with 2 other girls and a guide to attempt ice climbing.  Lynne had an early bus to catch, so she went with the other group to trek on the glacier.

So yes, with pick-axe and crampons, we climbed a near vertical wall of ice.  I actually had to buy some waterproof gloves, a hat that covered my ears, and rent some ankle hich boots.  It’s surprisingly easy once you get used to the motion. Our guide brought us to a cliff on the glacier that was about 15-20 meters tall (50-60 ft) and pretty close to vertical - probably about 80 degrees.

When I climbed up, the guide asked if I used to row because I went up really fast, pulling myself using my upper back.  I assume Erin & Katie my former rowing to the guide.  Either way, Ice Climbing was very fun, and surprisingly easy.  We each climbed twice.

After the climbing, the other 2 girls the we didn’t know left to go back to El Chalten with the trekking group.  Erin, Katie and I hiked down to base camp to have lunch with our guide.  Then we got to go ice trekking on the glacier ourselves.  Just three of us with a guide - it felt like a private tour.

We hiked across crevasses, caves, arches, overhangs.

Here’s a sweet arch..  the thin spot is about 1 meter, so we could have risked walking on it - except for the sheer cliff with a 30 meter drop on the other side…

I even filled my water bottle with fresh as you can get - glacier water.  It was really, really good.  Here’s what it looks like underwater in a creek flowing on the glacier…

Finally, our guide had a treat for us at the end of the trek.  Bailey’s on the rocks - in fresh glacial ice!!

Erin and Katie are catching a bus on Friday night.  I couldn’t find a bus until the 23rd, so I’ll try to meet them in Bariloche later in the week.  Lynne left just after we got back to town (good luck at school!!).  Erin, Katie and I may be crossing paths again, as we’re traveling to many of the same places in the next 2 weeks.  If not, I had a blast trekking with these girls.

Thurs, Feb 19th

If yesterday’s hike wasn’t enough, we tried another one… and I overted a near disaster -

After booking tomorrows glacier hike I walked out of the office and a massive gust of wind blew my cap away.  I couldn’t find it anywhere, and it was my favorite orange cap that I got at the Ryder Cup last year in Kentucky.  I walked down-wind along the street and could not find it.  The nearby construction crew tried to help.  Lynne looked for it too.  Finally, when the lady from the booking office came out we had all but given up hope when another massive wind gust blew the hat into plain view.

WHEW…  close call…  It must have been either on the roof, or up in the porch rafters.  I felt like Indiana Jones when his hat always finds him…

Anyway, back to the real story…  Erin and Katie had started the trek to Laguna de los Tres (under the 3400 meter peak of Fitz-Roy) about 15 minutes before Lynne and I.  They said they would dilly-dally until we caught up to them.  It never happened because we were all too tired from the previous hike, so I walked as slow as possible while observing some interesting signs along the way…

…along with some stellar views… like the West side of the valley where El Chalten sits.

And Fitz Roy…

I thought this one was kind of zen looking…

Lynne and I stopped at a campground 2.5 km short of the Laguna - which was fine with me.  That last section rises 400 meters in just 2.5 kilometers, and we’d already seen some amazing views of Mt. Fitz-Roy.

The hike back was gruelling - shin splints and sore soles.  Even with cutting the hike short, Lynne and I hiked 9.5k each way with a 350m ascent.  So that was 41 kilometers total with 600m of ascent and descent in less than 24 hours.

The next day, Katie and Erin were in more pain than Lynne and I.  I’m pretty glad we didn’t attempt the last 2.5K.