Chi Chi Chi Lay Lay Lay

I made a mistake when I arrived in Santiago. It wasn't a huge gaff by any means but I've been doing this travelling thing for a while now, so it sort of bugs me when I make a mistake. Ideally, I should be learning from these errs and improving my efficiency, if you take self-realization goals as far as your vacation which I try to.

It stemmed from my experience in Buenos Aires, the last capital I had visited over two months ago. An incredible city and a great time. But I chose a hostel in a nicer neighbourhood about 15 minutes subway ride from downtown (that I usually walked since rush hour in the subway is a nightmare). The "commute" to sightseeing and the taxi ride home at night were a bit of a bother. I would even dare some personal analysis and point out that it reminded me of living most of my life with a very long commute into Toronto. So I figured that while I was paying for "rent" I might as well choose the location I always wanted. That is how I ended up staying on Calle Londres, a cobblestone pedestrian street sandwiched between office towers in the busy downtown core of the nation's capital.
The mistake was not the high cost nor the windowless room. It was a total lack of vibe or backpackers, of any hostelers in general. I ate a delicious, full breakfast every morning and the only ones in the room were staff watching some Spanish Jerry Springer-type morning show. I was the only inhabitant of my four-person room, probably of the entire wing of the place. There was never a line up to use the computers. All the things that normally irk you about a hostel were missing, but instead of celebrating I was lamenting. Who was I going to do anything with?

Luckily, a friend I had met at the wind-chime making factory a month earlier had moved to Santiago to live and work for a while. It's interesting how these things happen, how a huge continent actually becomes a very small place. One day we took a funicular up Cerro San Cristobal, a great way to experience the city's crippling smog problem. A huge bike network, a hilltop pool, and the highest elevation in town are nothing when you can barely make out where the city is. Santiago has a lot to brag about (WIFI in the shiny subway stations) and would be quite a nice place to live, were it not for an unrelenting smog soup in every direction.
Caitlin worked for next to nothing by North American standards waiting tables at a sports bar. She's the sort of person who comes down to South America with a one-way ticket and a few thousand dollars and doesn't have any plans to come back home. She was the one who first mentioned Chilean soccer to me.

Futbol is insane in South America. Actually, futbol is insane anywhere else in the world besides Canada and the US. For us, the whole experience is incredibly foreign. How can people care about something so much? We have hockey, you might say. No, even in Toronto, hockey doesn't even compare. People have died at futbol games. People have gotten messed up just for wearing the wrong colour on the wrong day. A British guy told me how a Swiss referee had once made a really bad call at a match. The next day every optometrist in town was offering "Free eye tests for Swiss people".

My last experience with futbol had been in Buenos Aires. Actually, the stadium in Buenos Aires is located not far from where my camera got hijacked. The Boca fans there have a widespread reputation for being hooligans, and they are indeed the fundamentalists of the futbol religion. Stories circulate of visitors getting concrete chunks thrown at them from seats above during the game. You'll probably get spit on too. Fans get let out after the game at different times depending on the team they cheer for. You could pay $10 for tickets at the stadium or $150 for the bus-guide-match combo. That price tag is an easy sell since everything you hear makes one overriding rule very clear: don't go alone. If Chilean fubtol is anything like its Argentine equivalent, then I would need to at least find someone to go with.

Fast forward to my last day in Santiago and one of the greatest days of the trip so far. I had done a lot of walking in the city, but hadn't really done anything cool. Waking up at 11am didn't help that any. So the last day I lined up some excursions. It started with a guided visit to the Santiago Cemetery. Not to extend this long post too far, but cemeteries in South America are remarkable. There's no grass, it's more like a little city enclosed in tall stone walls, crisscrossed by streets of mausoleums for each family. Some are small, some are imposing, some are architectural and artistic wonders. All presidents save two have been buried in the cemetery (they're still debating if they should house dictator Pinochet's body right next to Allende, the beloved predecessor he drove to his death during the 1973 coup). The entire place is a hive of construction repairs and mourners and many stories. What's more profound: the blank wall paying tribute to "The Disappeared" during the Pinochet regime, or the tomb of a young girl entirely covered in prayers and notes?
My next stop was down the subway line to a less-than-stellar industrial area. I wrang a bell and was ushered inside, to Santa Carolina winery. Santiago sits in a valley of grapes and most of the production in the country is actually bottled right in the capital. Santa Carolina is the fourth biggest producer, running an export-heavy ship under a variety of labels from their small colonial building headquarters. They age the good stuff in their basement cellar, and that's the stuff that we get. Canada is a big buyer of Chilean wine, and I felt at times I was being welcomed as a client as opposed to a tourist.

"Wine tour" is only slightly more academic than a "brewery tour". We sampled a few wines while touring the grounds, and then a bunch more after the other guests left. I did learn a lot about proper winetasting. "What do you remember when you smell this wine?" asks our tour guide. A hangover.
By this point I had decided to go for the futbol game, which was even moreso a resounding success than the cemetery and wine tours. Of course, that is a story for another day: the short of it is Palmeiras vs. Colo-Colo: Palmeiras wins 1-0 and knocks Colo-Colo out of the Copa Libertadores, the South American equivalent of the Stanley Cup. This is a huge deal and the coach is fired the next day and the team cast into shambles.

The night ended in a club in the trendy Provencia neighbourhood, with a dancing Matt high on the success of the day. I made a mistake in Santiago, and I stayed in dud when I should have followed the crowd. But I emerged from "make your own fun" Santiago with a new confidence, for I had conquered the futbol game. That final day in the capital, two months into my trip, was the first time I felt like a seasoned traveller who knew what he was doing. And I could do this for a while...

A Fork in the Road at Valparaiso

Valaparaiso is a dangerous place. I heard it a half dozen times before going and then a few more upon rolling in. The guidebook made some serious security recommendations and a full page of instructions were plastered on the walls of our hostel. Two months since my camera theft, I was still a little edgy, and I think my confidence would have been downright shattered if another incident occured.

Just over an hour outside of Chile's capital, Valparaiso sits on the sea and spent much of its history as an important port town. It's hilly terrain, with the downtown on the narrow strip of flat land next to the ocean and the homes built willy-nilly on the rolling hills beside it. A dozen scattered ascensors, or funiculars, will take you up to the hills if you're not up for the narrow alley stairways. Great place for funicular lovers! The entire town looks like a glorified slum, a maze of winding roads, stairways, and passages.


It was my last day traveling with the girls. We began it with them almost missing a bus connection in Santiago while getting breakfast and followed up with some more earring shopping. We snuck a few pictures, but were so wary of the dire warnings we didn't end up with much and what we have definitely don't do justice to what a spectacular-looking city it is. At the top of Cerro Conception, after a rickety 50 cent ride up, you see the true beauty of the city. Quiet cobblestone roads criss-cross a small neighbourhood, sitting above the noise and of the city. From up there you had views of the sea, the bustling port, and the rolling hills of houses extending beside them. It was easy to get lost and easy to find funky lunch places. We did both.


Valparaiso has its place in port-town lore, as a once-great, wretchid hive of scum and villainry. But just down the coast, if the smog is low, you can spot Vina del Mar, long regarded as the beach retreat of the capital's elite. The sinewy streets of Valpo are countered by the ordered, numbered lines of Vina. The roads are guarded by towering palms and expensive looking condos, and I spotted several fast-food chains I hadn't seen in months. Valparaiso and Vina grew over the years, creeping along the coast till they met at the middle. We took the new shiny Metro to Vina, and we didn't notice the transition. But I kept the rechargable Metro card, so we can go back and try again.

The sand was beautiful and the water frigid. We saw our share of wealthy-looking old ladies, sand carvings, and chorro carts. The sun sink into the horizon. Time to go home.



I walked the girls to the bus the next day; their last ride would take them back to the capital, onto a plane, and then have them arrive in Toronto early Monday morning to go to work (what a pipedream!). Was I walking them just out of gratitude that they were taking home several pounds of crap for me (tent, sleeping mat, pots, souvenirs, partially-completed wind chime)? Not a chance: I would certainly miss my travelling buddies. The best way to enjoy a long voyage is to share it with someone else, and although I will no doubt bombard all of you reading this with thousands of pictures, you won't share the laughs, sights, and anxiety that we did.

But electrical grids and national grocers need to continue to function and it's an ugly reality that all trips need to end. It's interesting that in most of the places we stopped, Trish and Barb were actually the phenomenon (the freaks, really). They were the only ones on a two week schedule. South American backpackers are a community of nomads and deadbeats who are in the trip for the long haul. And whereas quitting your job to go see some mountains and sand seems like a ridiculous notion in the land of profit margins and afternoon rush hour, it makes perfect sense once you get down here. In fact, it's almost a prerequisite.

I spent a few more days in Valparaiso, quietly wandering the streets, a little friendless. I took a local bus through the hills and systematically combed through the Sunday flea markets (managed to find a cheap copy of 100 Years in Solitude in Spanish to use as a literacy project for myself; that proved to be a very misguided idea). There are dodgy sections to the city and there are alleys I wouldn't want to be in at night. But the artistic graffiti scattered across the winding roads was captivating. And I can hold my head a little higher after nothing went wrong; the only thing I lost in Valparaiso (wait for it) was two of my friends.
Subsequently, Barb put together two awesome videos of our travels together. They may use a wee bit of copyright material, but I'm sure all involved parties would agree it was for a good cause. Nice job Barb, here's to the ones who stood their ground:
The Trip Slideshow
Jumping and Falling

Don´t Pucon Me

Why do we travel? For me, part of it is to experience a culture; another part is to see something I've never seen before. There's eating, language, and the thrill of something completely different than life in my happy little suburb. But every once in a while, the purpose is to have an ass-kicking wild adventure for cheaper than back home. And our three nights in the Chilean adrenaline destination of Pucon did just that.

People live in Pucon, but if they don't work in tourism I really don't know what they would do. The city has two major streets, both ending at the lake, lined with restaurants, tourist shops, and tour operators. Most of these places have big signs and mountaineer garb on the sidewalk, and you'd be surprised at the amount of Hebrew there is in shop windows to try to cater to the enormous travelling groups of Israelis. We stayed in a hospedaje, essentially a room in a lady's house (though she was a friendly lady).

Pucon was shrouded in typical Lake District low-hanging cloud the first morning, but after the disaster in Esquel, we were determined to get an early start. It wasn't long before we were on a bumpy bus to the Trancura Alto, a local river of Class IV rapids. Roman numerals make anything look intimidating. The equipment facility, at the end of the route, looked like it was designed to handle three hundred guests as we donned battered-looking wetsuits in the perpetual rain. But April, the height of southern Chile's fall, had reduced the guests to a trickle, making the whole experience feel like we were test driving Jurassic Park before it was unveiled to the public.
A Class IV rapid is a formidable opponent, and it only gets more menacing as you get closer. First the guide explains the technique and the name of the upcoming rapid - usually something like the Widowmaker or Dragon's Teeth. Then the water starts careening you in and out of giant rocks and the guide starts barking orders to Barb who can't hear him very well ("Hey Lady!"). In the last few seconds before impact, you see the giant, heaving mass of water that you plan on navigating through. Though the drop is terrifying, it's the amount of water, the sheer quantity of white foam, that looks like it's going to chew you up and spit you out as a wetsuited carcass. The anxiety reaches a peak of adrenaline, the raft bounces, shoots up, and whips its occupants against its inflated walls. A heartbeat later it's over and we realize we've been smiling the entire time as we begin paddling to the next rapid.

That night we rested our weary arms at Puzones, a rocky, all-natural hot spring an hour outside of town. I snuck outside in the dark to stealthily fill up my water bottle with wine, and prompty fell completely over in the soft spa-like mud. In the cool autumn air, the amount of joy upon entering the hot spring is almost overpowered by the shock of leaving.
The adventure tours continued, and the next day we wolfed down another meal and ran to catch the tour bus to ziplining. What is there to say about that? How can you not enjoy flying 100 ft above a valley, clipping trees along the route, with only a little pulley and a rope to secure you? I can only dream of a world where ziplining is a dominant means of transportation: where going to the mall is simple matter of a few steps and then six minutes of absolute bliss sliding down a direct cable.
Sandwiched between the sea and the Andes, Chile is a land of volcanoes. In March, the town of Chalten was evacuated after a nearby volcano blew its top. Tremors are a fact of life in the country. Pucon hosts several traffic lights in town that indicate the status of the volcano, and a weekly siren drill and evacuation signs make it hard to forget the last eruption in the 70s. Our second morning the clouds clear and our hostel owner tells us to go look at the volcano. We stumble down the street but don't see anything. Perplexed, we head back to the house. And there it is.
Volcan Villarrica sits at 2847 m high, a perfectly formed cone with an everpresent plume of smoke emitting from the cap. From its base, essentially the town of Pucon, it is enormous. Paradoxically, it is both one of the most active volcanoes in Chile and one of the most climbed. No surprise then, that our last day in town we woke up well before the sun, armed with crampons and sunglasses, for an attempt at the summit.

It's not long before we reach the top of the skiable part of the volcano. It only gets steeper as we pass a destroyed ski chair terminal, a relic of the last eruption. The sun crests the nearby peaks, illuminating the icy slopes to come. We seem to gain less ground between breaks, and soon even the eager ones in the group are panting as we complete yet another switchback in the wall of snow. Breaks become shorter too, and I realize why when a tiny stone from above clubs me in the back with the force of a hammer. You taste the end before you see it: a putrid, sulfur gas sends us gasping for air. A moment later we marvel at the Lake District vista behind us and the bellowing, snowless crater before us. The rocks thunder each time pressure builds up and emits through earth's crust. The guide tells us about the time he was up here and saw fountains of 200 ft lava in front of him. I almost fell in and that was scary enough:
The walk down shamed the 5 hours we had spent going up. There were a few slips though, and on the wet, snowy slope that meant a bit of a slide. It certainly feels bad-ass to whip out the ice axe and use it to "arrest" your fall in typical cliffhanger fashion. But such is Pucon. The midday sun had reached its peak, and over a dozen small groups of single-file climbers were slowly moving their way up the hill. Even in low season, the volcano controls the livelihood of the town, a testament to Pucon's role as all-in-one adventure destination for both Chileans and happy backpackers from around the world. Settling down for an overnight bus journey with sore legs and full stomachs a little while later, you realize that sometimes a healthy dose of action-packed activities is just what you were looking for.

The Terrible Truth About Blogging

Blogs don´t update themselves, and internet time doesn´t seem to grow on trees. I am now one month, or 9 cities, behind in my blog tales. And it shows no signs of stopping.

Blogging brings me loads of joy, and it´s not for lack of trying that we´re still stuck in Esquel somewhere. I can name a few times I´ve been plugged into a terminal late late at night or early before the sun rose. It´s unfortunate because WIFI is prevelant here - on buses, in subway stations, most hostels - and next time (oh God, he´s already talking about next time) I would consider carrying a small netbook to document my fun. As it is, at this moment I am determined to complete telling my tales through to the end of my trip, but it´ll likely happen from the comfort of Markham. Between digesting a few fajillion photos, that´ll be a fun week.

In terms of an update, a paragraph can hardly do justice to the last amazing weeks. Travel has become a much smoother rhythm, and I´m certainly better at all this than I was 3 months ago. To name a few, there have been volcanoes climbed and canyon valleys driven, salt plains, the Tropic of Capricorn, crossing of the desert, parasailing, and swimming in Lake Titicaca. I arrived in Peru on Sunday, a much different world than the other two countries where I spent most of my trip. And much cheaper! I ate my first 3 sole meal the other day, that´s about $1 for soup, salad, rice, and chicken. At this moment I am in a bus terminal in Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca at 3810 m above sea level. In a few minutes I board the last bus of my trip to Cuzco, land of the Incas and starting point for the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu. I can think of no better place to end 3 months in South America. Save the pictures, save the stories, I´ll see you all in a few short weeks. Hasta pronto!

Stranded in Esquel

The reality of trying to make every day count is that eventually your luck runs out. We had been travelling for almost a week with nothing but perfect connections, just in time arrivals, and a new experience in every town. ¨Wasting¨ a day can be a blessing after a busy few weeks. But when you`re on a bit of a deadline, a day without a plan feels more like a day in purgatory.

Our stop is Esquel was motivated by a little town in Chile called Futaleufu. Futaleufu is world reknowned not only as an incredibly enjoyable 4 syllables to pronounce, but also for its first-class rafting. The LP (Lonely Planet) has a habit of pumping up even the smallest stop (in fact, it would be interesting to read its opinion about say, stunning Northern Ontario), but this place has been mentioned in adventure lists and books all over the place. As you know, we were not yet advanced rafters but we wanted to go see what all the fuss was about.

We rented a car and planned for a 2-night escapade across the border. Sorry, the correct term down here seems to be that we ¨hired¨ a car. Driving was incredible: I was getting a little weary of bus travel and walking so getting behind the wheel and spreading the wings of our little Corsa on the open road was a welcome change. The freedom, the blue skies, the journey to a far away place, it all reminded me of Charlene, my loyal 1991 Corolla back home.

Our little Corsa took us into the national park to admire the hydroelectric generating station, to the Welsh town of Trevelin (the LP also has a tendency to praise any city that holds a population that is largely descended from a non-Argentine group), and eventually to a very relaxed border crossing. Finally we arrived in Futaleufu. The town was small, quaint as always, and another one to add to the ¨living an ideal life in a remote sheltered valley¨ list. My first impression was that it was a little quiet, an impression that turned out to be remarkably accurate.

The first tour company we visited had an ¨open¨ sign on the entrance. We knocked and the door creaked open. The little room contained an old desktop computer sitting on a single wooden desk adorned with a few piles of papers. The walls were neatly covered with sun-faded photos of intense rafting trips and a hand-drawn map of the river. Yet the room was eerily empty of people. The second, third, and fourth companies didn´t have the same sort of high quality doors, but the result was more or less the same (the old desktop computer on a single desk was a reaccuring theme).

Finally we managed to speak to a lady from one of the tour companies. She couldn´t take us to the river, as each trip needs a few guides for safety. Where were all the guides? Well, they had left a few weeks earlier. Summer was over in Futaleufu, but summer on other intense rivers of the world was just beginning. There´s very little you can say to something like that, except that you want to become a rafting guide and embrace a life of endless summer.

In relating this crash of morale to the familiar economic slump of 2008, this was the bankrupcy of Lehmann Brothers. And the spiral didn´t stop there. We couldn´t get any money out of the single bank machine in town. We were starting to get weird stares in the town. We explained ourselves to the hostel we had checked into, packed the car, and headed back to the border, crossing before it closed to the chagrin of our favourite border guards. We ate fish that night. It was burnt. The next day we drove to the car rental agency to return the car a day early, on Sunday. There´s something you should know about Sundays in small towns in South America: everything is closed. Thus began our stranded day in Esquel.

Fire up the Corsa! We drove a little out of town to a small, down-on-its-luck ranch to try and salvage the day by going horseback riding. The horses were rounded up at a snails place by a diminuitive old man with a wrinkled face and tattered pants. He looked like he had spent most of his many nights telling tale tales and sipping whiskey from a flask while sitting around a fire in the outback somewhere. His friend, Hector, a man of few words (except for ¨how long?¨ and ¨40 pesos per hour¨) sadled us up and led us on our way. I chose the white horse and named it Shadowfax. ¨I´ve never done this before¨ I explained. Hector simply rolled his eyes.

Our walk into the dry Andes foothills erred on the cool side of South American excursions. The scenery was peaceful and eventually Hector warmed up a little. The dogs that accompanied us darted off chasing ardvaarks and rabbits, Hector took the dead rabbit and hung it from his saddle like a true gaucho. Shadowfax wasn´t nearly as fast as my name choice implied, and my horse seemed more intent on trying to eat grass and lag behind the rest of the group than lead me boldly into danger and heroics.

Despite all this, it was hard to shake the feeling that I was on an extended pony ride. With or without the little skill I had, Shadowfax basically followed in single file the horse in front of it. And we didn´t run like the horses do in the movies, we sort of marched at a pace only slightly faster than human. Hector, on the other hand, was magnificent on his horse: he ran ahead to open gates for us, pulling the horse to one side when it reared up on its hind legs. Maybe one day I`ll have a chance to learn some skills like that and finally earn the right to wear my cool hat. Nevertheless, it was a pretty spectacular morning.

The day continued with some more driving around. We ate lunch at the local ski area called La Hoya. We drove back to Trevelin and checked out the Sunday market. The central square was abuzz with children playing and families sharing picnics and mate in the sun. It was a pleasant moment, very difficult to not feel relaxed as everyone around us seemed so genuinely happy. A perfect place to raise a family, we remarked. Afterwards we taught Barb how to drive standard, and she passed with flying colours.

By this point things were going well. As we returned to Esquel, we passed a big top tent and a sign advertising the circus that was in town. By some stroke of luck, the next show was starting in 15 minutes. One thing led to another, including being escorted from our cheap seats up to the third row. Now my honest suburban life up till now has been largely devoid of circuses, as far as I can remember, so I was a little unprepared for the sheer delight that was to follow. The first act involved a giant cage and giant Siberian tigers (putting aside some likely animal rights qualms). After that there was trapeze, rings, flips, flying, spins, magic, clowns, and anything else you could ever want from a live performance of human ability. We laughed, we gaped in amazement. The final act was a young kid - we guessed he was the son of the ringleader (a word that makes so much sense after seeing the circus...the guy is running the show!) - biking on a floating wooden inclined track. Essentially, the whole experience was amazing, and not just for the spectacle. After spending so much time at expensive tourist spots, it`s hard to shake the buyer-seller relationship, no matter how well you get along with a guide or hostel receptionist. A chance to mix with local people and live how they live for just a short few hours was an opportunity that doesn`t present itself everyday.

At last we waved goodbye to Esquel, having survived our first stranding. We made a connection in Bariloche, my old stomping ground and home to many wooden sculptures displays. Time was short and we didn´t have a chance to see any sights, but we met up with some bus friends and cooked some delicious empanadas. Getting a little boozy with some young Argentina hitchhikers, we wandered outside to the town square with their guitar in tow. There, under the statue of San Martin, we exchanged songs on guitar (my classic tune, Free Falling, made an appearance) and made up goofy lyrics to accompany 12-bar blues. The night was made memorable while talking to one of the Argentina kids, who were just high school grads leaving the city for the first time (and had never seen snow before!). He told me that they had been planning to end their trip in Bariloche, weary of the cold, fatigue, and hunger from hitchhiking so many miles; but meeting fellow travellers and having so much fun that night in the square had enthused them to continue on their journey. Nothing hits closer to the heart than hearing something like that.

Our weekend took a completely different turn than the one we first envisioned, yet ended up being one of the most memorable. No matter how well you can plan out your steps, it`s the small, spontaneous experiences that I`m sure every traveller will say are the ones they remember most. But we´ll be back Futaleufu, one day, and you and your delightful 4 syllables had better be ready.

Route 40: The Only Way Out is Through

El Chalten was our next stop after the glaciER, complete with two days of hiking and some camping in the middle. We just managed to get our gear and food organized as siesta sunk into the quiet, tiny town (where there is one ATM that no one believes is reliable and only satellite internet for $4 per hour). At one point while repacking, Trish remarked that her bag was very heavy. A few minutes later she removed several souvenir rocks she has tucked away in a pocket. Yes, you could call Trish and Barb overpackers.

I was a little reluctant to head out hiking and camping yet again. Doesn`t it all look the same? But the camping was actually very comfortable and warm, and we rolled out of bed somewhere around 10am the next day. The scenery was almost the sequel to Torres del Paine, complete with towering rock formations and lots of mud. Tonnes of mud. At one point we took a trail that traversed near some lagoons, and somewhere between an hour of ankle-high endless puddles and Trish falling into the mud up to her waist we just sort of gave up on being dry. The views of Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy were both obscured by thick cloud, but what we did see was spectacular. I imagine the area, which is very popular with rock climbers, would be a really funky place to come back to in the summer. I hope by now, on blog post 20 or something, I`ve earned the right to use `funky` in a sentence.

Barb and I forgot our waterbottles at the top of one of the lookouts, and didn´t remember until we were halfway down the (rather steep) hill. Is a water bottle worth saving? Well, mine had some commemorative stickers on it and a basketfull of nostalgic memories. I ran back a bit to catch up to some girls who we had passed going in the other direction, and explained where the bottles were. Down here there are only so many towns and only so many spots in those towns; we knew the pair from the glaciER in El Calafate. In fact, as recent as El Calafate I was still bumping into friends from the Navimag ferry in the grocery store. Barb and I endured, bottleless, for the rest of the day. When we got back to the most popular hostel in town later that night, the girls were gone, but the bottles were sitting in the kitchen. A patagonia miracle!

The stretch of land between El Chalten and the Bariloche area is mostly a dry, empty, endless plain. Travelling on the one lone road that links the cities, Argentina Route 40, is one of those quintessential Patagonia travel experiences that sounds like such a good idea on paper. Two small lanes. Gravel. 1400km. Car rentals were prohibitively expensive (2400 peso drop-off fee) so we booked tickets with the only operating company that made the 28 hour trip north. That bus left at midnight from a small house in El Chalten with a full load of intrepid gringos, a full metal screen across the front window (to protect from rocks), and very few perks.

Given the delay in writing these entries, I admit that the ride was a bit of a blur. It was incredibly hot the first night, I remember waking up in a sickly sweat and seeing the bus windows covered in condensation. There were no movies of any food, I figure the rattling of the road made any sort of disk playback impossible. It sure made reading a stomach churning delight. At one point the bus suddenly stopped at the side of the road and the bus attendant ran out, running up a small hill next to the road. It took a few seconds to realize that he was chasing some sort of ardvaark. Eventually he grabbed it and brought it down for us to take a look at. Adorable. Three minutes later we were back to monotonous open road.

We stopped at towns en route, if you can call them that. Bajo Caracoles was a gas station with some small yards around it, I peed behind one. Rio Mayo had two little corner stores where I bought bananas. We ended up in Gobernador Costa around midnight on the second night. The driver and attendant immediately sat down in the only restaurant to enjoy a spaghetti meal. The 30 minute stop pushed iteself to 90 minutes. The biggest stop, where we switched buses, was Perito Moreno. We ate pizza there. How many of you can brag that you`ve eaten pizza in Perito Moreno?

Did we go a little crazy on the bus? You bet. It`s hard to say whether diving into such a tedious overland experience was a mistake or not, but we got where we needed to go. At somewhere around 3am, Barb jostled me awake. We quickly passed through the bus aisle, exchanging some brief, groggy eye-contact goodbyes with some of our new bus friends. Lights flickered on in the deserted terminal, heralding our arrival in civilization at long last, in the city of Esquel.

Maybe I can buy a Route 40 bumper sticker now or something. Anything, but not another bus ride.

Now bear in mind that all this happened a while ago, and the inevitability of falling behind in the blog has happened. I have some text amassing but another bottleneck is often finding a computer with the speed and capability to upload pictures. So you`re not getting any pictures today. However, Barb has been kind enough to sort through our thousand pictures and upload some of the better ones. They actually look more impressive than I remember. Check them out here.

Trekking on Thick Ice

By this point in the trip, my glaciar count is getting up there. Don´t get me wrong, these behemoth, ancient pieces of ice are a mesmerizing sight to behold and an intrinsic factor in the shaping of the landscape. But they´re also a bit of a tease since you often have to boat or hike far to see them, you can never get really close for fear of falling in, and unless you´re in a plane, it´s difficult to comprehend the immensity of 14km of ice. And they sort of all look the same since they are, surprise, all made of ice. Nevertheless, I was eagerly awaiting a chance to take a cold walk across one of these giants, and the opportunity presented itself at El Calafate.

I´m beginning to understand that there are about six big tourist stops in Argentina, and that if you end up anywhere else you´re a bit of a go-getter. I´ve already visited Ushuaia and Bariloche, where overpriced souvenir shops, casinos, and expensive tours abound. But El Calafate, jumping off point to see Glaciar Perito Moreno, is the king of tourist villages. This first hit me when we got off the bus and three good-looking hostel representatives came at us with advertising signs and free taxi rides. Is there such a thing as first-class budget travel?

There´s only one company in town that´s allowed to bring people onto the glaciar, and obviously they have figured that one out since the price was about double the one listed in my (fairly recent) Lonely Planet. The booking office has a clean, organized look to it with well dressed staff and big shiny posters of smiling gringos clutching ice axes. We sign up for ¨Big Ice¨, obviously entranced by the intense sounding name, and the warning that if you´re over 45 or pregnant you can´t go on the tour. ¨So no partying tonight¨ the booking girl tells us. A few credit card swipes later and we´re set to go.

Nothing beats an early bus, and it was us who were moving at a glacial pace that morning. The winding drive into the park, with the sunrise unfolding over the lake, was one of those incredible sights you can only enjoy at the moment, as no picture will capture it and there´s no certainty as to when it´ll happen again. The guide explained how the humid Pacific air coming over the Andes hits the cool glaciar air and condenses, dumped a ton of snow that causes glaciar growth. This is confirmed by the fact that the area near the glaciar receives a much higher annual precipitation than the town of El Calafate and the rest of dry, inland Patagonia. There is a good chance that I am explaining this phenomenon completely wrong.

Buildings are being erected all over the park, and a tidy set of walkways allows you to get pretty damn close to the glaciar. It would be interesting to note our pictures per minute rate, since it most certainly skyrocketed over the next few hours. The face of Glaciar Perito Moreno is beautiful to be sure, but the thrill of the walkways was watching the glaciar progress. We hear deep booms as ice calves off and falls into the lake, most of the time looking up too late to see the splash. Apparently this glaciar is stable, unlike most of the rest out there that Al Gore will tell you are shrinking. Every once and a while this one grows out toward the walkways, damning the lake on one side until the ice collapses in one spectacular white explosion.

There´s a boat ride, some hiking, some more marvelling at the landscape as we walk alongside the glaciar. Obviously we enjoy the cool factor in donning crampons and following several guides equipped with ice axes onto the forbidden land. At first we only seem to be paralleling the ¨shoreline¨, and I figure it would be easy enough to do this on our own. Little by little, our single-file group delves in deeper, eventually stopping for lunch in a flat section surrounding by nothing but ice.

As far as days go, you can´t beat the one that we got for our tour. Blue skies stretched in all directions, affording us a view that, according to one of the guides, you only get to see a few times a month. From the white peaks in the distance, you get an idea as to how far the glaciar stretches. It´s as if the Andes on either side are holding all this ice in place, except in certain valleys where it oozes forward toward the foothills and human contact.

The surface is varied with valleys and streams and every type of shape, but it is also without life, a crystal world that reminds me of last year´s trip to the moon. We see ice caves and fill water bottles with the world´s cleanest water. At one point the guides tense up and usher us away from a dark sinkhole. They toss in a rock and we hear it bang around as it falls for a few seconds, 60m, all the way down to the bedrock below. If we fall in they promise to throw in sandwiches. The highlight was the lagoon we came across, a small pond of standing water coloured the deepest blue you can imagine. Starring down into the icy depths, the white ice forms bizarre, edgy shapes that look like something from an alien movie.

It only seems appropriate that we enjoy whiskey with glaciar ice on the ride back home.

You need plentiful amounts of three things to see a glaciar: money, camera memory, and sunscreen. I cringe when I look at how much we paid compared to treks on other lesser-known icecubes in the area, but our walk on the biggest and best was spectacular. The few pictures that I have tried to share on this crappy computer don´t do the experience much justice, though I´m sure somewhere among the 600 pictures between us we managed to capture it. And actually, you don´t need that much sunscreen; but the senior guides had darkened faces of leather, a testimony to a life of walking the icefields, making sure that us non-pregnant tourists under 45 don´t fall in.

14 days

Punta Arenas means point of sand. It is the furthest city south on the South American continent. There are some penguin colonies nearby, but all the penguins are gone for the season. Without them, I don´t know if Punta Arenas has much to shake a stick at in the tourist world.

However, it is an exciting day as I have guests arriving! Sometime around 4pm, while I am warming up food in the guesthouse, one of the Argentines visiting for the weekend tells me there are English speakers at the door and he doesn´t understand them. Awaiting me in the entrance, giddy and luggage-laden, are my university friends Trish and Barb.

Trish and Barb have committed to the more conventional form of travel, the one that doesn´t involve quitting your jobs and galavanting around in far-away places for several months at a time. Their return flight leaves from Santiago on April 26th. What this means is that we have 14 days to travel some 4000km. We still haven´t figured out how all that´s going to work, but it is theoretically possible.

After a little powwow, we decide to set out as soon as possible, skipping a night in Punta Arenas. We walk a whirlwind tour around the town square and the monument to Magellan, a fitting choice since the town sits on our favourite strait, the Strait of Magellan. I can´t imagine being the guy who sailed to a section of map labelled as unknown lands, eventually finding a route to circumnavigate the globe. It seemed that the only appropriate way to honour his memory was to go for a swim in the strait. It was everything you´d imagine of a dirty, sandy beach at the extreme south of the world: cold, salty, and short-lived.

Trish and Barb head to Torres del Paine the next day, I rent a bike to go exploring. The area around Puerto Natales provides the same Patagonia expansiveness that has become familiar over the past few weeks, a landscape that you can only feel insignicant in. The sky just seem bigger down here. You can see forever. Light bounces off the sea, the mountains, the narrow road. 10km into the ride I´m feeling pretty good. A minute later the rear derailleur shatters into pieces. So begins the long walk home.

A pickup with a Chilean family and their German exchange student bring me aboard. It´s a chatty ride back to town, and I tell them that I don´t know if I have the energy to try again. They wish me luck. It´s siesta back in town, and the bike shop is locked and empty. The bikes are just sitting out. I head back to the hostel, then am suddenly filled with determination. I grab another bike and head out into the wind again, armed with a few extra alfajores.

The adventure is in the journey, and the second time was arguably even better than the first. My destination was the Cueva del Milodon, a huge glacial cave carved out thousands of years ago, made famous by the fossils of a giant sloth that were discovered inside. Seen one giant sloth replica, you´ve seen them all. I biked back to town with the setting sun on my side, pausing to watch a rancher round up his cattle on horseback.

Trish and Barb had an equally successful day in Torres del Paine, and it appears our two intense weeks are off to a good start. It´s a welcome change of pace to my schedule of rolling out of bed at 10am and figuring things out one day at a time. As we talk animatedly on the bus, our laughter breaking through the silence of the road, I can only look forward to spending the next little while with friends and taking a break from solo travel. Of course, it will take some getting used to. Thus far there have already been a few incidents: Trish scrambling to find her camera battery minutes before we need to leave to catch the bus, Barb not knowing where her tourist paper is that she needs at the border crossing into Argentina. Hair elastics are suddenly an issue. I imagine we´ll reach a point where we want to rip each other´s hair out, but until then, the road is long and the company is true. Godspeed.

I clogged a toilet at the bottom of the world

Imagine if you will a city that bills itself as the bottom of the world. I picture it as a barren spit of land pounded by constant surf, complete with faded wooden signposts and weathered farmers who just bought their first telephone last year. Well it´s not.

Ushuaia is difficult to spell, pronounce, get to. The bus leaves at 7am. Less than an hour into the journey (and before the riveting ending to the reknowned film Gene Generation), the bus pulls over to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Down here the middle of nowhere is remarkably easy to determine, as you can see for literally ten kilometers in every direction: flat empty land, and the small two lane road. Another bus stops on the shoulder and we transfer; the whole process is actually remarkably efficient. A little later, the bus sandwiches itself between trucks on a small ferry. Can´t they build bridges down here, the other shore is only a 15 minute ride away? Well in fact the ferry takes us across the Strait of Magellan, which is sort of a big deal. The southern shore is the large island of Tierra del Fuego, almost insignificant on your world map, and split down the middle into a half for Chile and another for Argentina. The border crossing is one of the slowest so far, one of those fifteen-people-in-the-room-but-only-two-working places, where grumpy gendarms with names like Serge and Sanchez must be pondering their lives spent stamping passports and scanning luggage for dangerous produce. We arrive in Ushuaia at dark. What a day.

The city is beautiful. You look one way and there are snow-capped mountains. In the other direction there is nothing but sea and more snow-capped mountains in the distance (apparently my impression of a location is based on pretty simple criteria). The town sits on the hill in between, ending at the foot of forests turned orange and red as autumn arrives.

Okay so Ushuaia isn´t really the furthest place south in the world. Cape Horne is actually on a series of island quite a few kilometers away. But there is a small town called Puerto Williams that is just a little further south across the channel, in Chilean territory. Ushuaia has the stronger markering department, is the port of call for all Antarctic bound journeys, and is the only thing big enough to be called at city in the area. In fact, it betrays what Jerry Bruckheimer would make you believe the end of the world should look like: there are 64,000 residents here, brand names, big grocery stores, paved roads, a casino, and a pretty high quality of life. In fact, it would be a nice place to live other than the fact that you´d never have any friends from out of town call saying, ¨hey I´m in the neighbourhood, mind if I pass by?¨

The first night (and every subsequent night actually) we went to an Irish pub called Dublins and got a-talkin´ with a fairly drunk French captain. He was leaving the next day with a group on a 20+ day sailboat ride to Buenos Aires. I ask him how much it would cost to get to Puerto Williams, since I´ve heard it´s an expensive endeavour, a $200 USD endeavour. He says it´ll cost a bottle of rum each. Sounds like a good idea and we cheers over the idea. The whole thing has a Mos Eisley spaceport feel to it, especially with the life-sized R2-D2 in the entranceway.

The next day, Julian and I talk ourselves out of the trip, blaming the previous night´s ambition on the beer. We are both meeting friends later, and worry about getting stranded on the island with no way back, even if we were willing to pay the money. Manou (who we knew from the Navimag) and her friend David spend the day preparing customs paperwork, deciding to embark on the journey.

Rain comes and goes, and I spend the day inside, slightly lamenting having declined the adventure. It turns into a ¨planning day¨ which you are permitted in the travelling world if you are on the road for a few months. People usually justify the decision with ¨I just need a day to relax, you know¨. Eventually I can´t take another page of the Lonely Planet and head out to the museum in an act of desperation. It turns out to be a great choice, full of juicy tidbits on the age of exploration, the old penal colony, and Antarctica. The building is an old prison, meaning I also get to fulfill my desire for prison pictures. Most interesting was stuff on the Yamana people, indigenous folk who were regarded by all the explorers as the lowest form of life on the planet. Incidently, there is only one living Yamana left, and she of course lives in Puerto Williams. Damn.

Ushuaia is a very expensive place to eat and drink, and do just about anything. I imagine it will only get worse, as all the people who haven´t been to Antarctica realize they need some pictures of penguins and seals and fly down here to shell out the big bucks. I did what I do best and went out hiking in the mountains north of town, for the first time in a while encountering deep snow. The wind howled like a beast, stinging any exposed skin with icy rain and threatening to knock me over on the rocky slopes. On the way home I tried taking a different trail, ending up cutting across a marsh and then a totally unfamiliar forest tract. Lost in Patagonia with wet socks, it doesn´t get much more authentic than that.

The bus out of Ushuaia was set to leave at 5am. Obviously that meant that we would check out of the hostel the day before and drink through the night at everyone´s favourite Irish pub. We tried to contact Manou who had been gone in Puerto Williams for three nights. Turns out they were stranded in the small town, hampered by customs and bad weather. David had missed his flight and there was no guaranteed exit even the next day. Am I smug about the whole thing? Maybe a little. I collapsed in the bus as it left the bottom of the world, the beginning of my long trek back home, content with an Ushuaia stamp in my passport and a significantly lighter wallet.