Bariloche

After an exhausting hike through the mountains, we initially intended to move north through Chile; however, an enormous earthquake has a way of changing your plans.

So, instead, we decided to venture back into Argentina and head to the city of Bariloche, which is known for production of fine chocolates.

Bariloche is 1,159 miles from Puerto Natales by road. As the only reasonable option to get there is by a bus, we prepared for some long stretches of open road. Luckily the buses are quite comfortable, and many offer seats that recline to 160 degrees, which helps because we would be spending a total of 20 hours on the bus to reach our destination. For the trip, we chose seats that were at the front of the bus, on the second level, which gave us a really cool view of the open road.

On the right of the road is a pack of animals called guanacos, which are similar to llamas and very abundant down here. I was very impressed by the herds of them that grazed so close to the road, yet, for the most part, did not run across the road in front of a speeding bus. Important, because it doesn't seem like the bus driver ever intended to slow down even with large herds looming on both sides.

Anyway, 20 hours later, we arrived in a nice little lakeside mountain town. Below is a view of the backdrop that you would see in just about any direction. Mountains all around.

Laura is sitting on a wall that we visited a few times during our stay. It was a nice place to sit down, relax, and read a book, or just enjoy the views.

As I mentioned, Bariloche is known for its chocolate, and boasts a number of chocolate shops on the main street of the city. Since many shops have the custom of offering a free sample to anyone who walks in, especially tourists, Laura and I made a point of visiting each and every one of them. Our routine was pretty simple, walk into a store, enjoy a sample, and buy about 1 or 2 bucks worth of chocolate. It was a nice little system that garnered us a fair amount of free chocolate!

Our first visit to the main square was interesting. The building in the background is a government building, and the people huddled around are city workers. They are staging some sort of demonstration by beating a drum and chanting this and that. They wanted more money. They're not striking- just making a public scene about the fact that they don't think they get paid enough. They'll be back at work the next day regardless.
After 5 months of travelling, some things just don't have the same surprise factor anymore. For instance, a vehicle that appears to be a larger version of the train that rides around the mall during Christmas time, only, it serves as an actual form of public transportation here. Can you imagine yourself getting on this baby for the morning commute?
It's always fun to see different flowers that I never knew existed. This particular flower(no clue on the name) was just outside the national park Llao Llao, and caught my eye. It's a pretty cool picture, though I didn't necessarily plan for that.

Llao Llao(think jow-jow) national park is a peninsula that has many hiking trails that we, of course, stomped around on. Here's Laura, part of the way up to the top of the hill.

We spent some time just gazing one way, then another. It was peaceful.
And the views only got better the higher up we went.
Many of the surrounding lakes were so calm that they produced a near perfect reflection.
Other than that hike, we visited another nearby lake, hiked a bit more, visited more chocolate shops, and just had a nice relaxing time in the city. I wish I could say more about Bariloche, but I just don't have anything to complain/rant about. It was almost too nice. Our hostel was good. The city was good. The chocolate was very good. The setting was good. The weather was good. The food was good.

Oh, but speaking of food. We did enjoy one particularly important meal.

Cheese Fondue!!

This meal is important because for more than 20 years, Laura's family, together with another family of close friends, has celebrated what is known as Fondue Day. It's pretty self explanatory, a day full of fondue in three courses. Cheese course. Meat course. Chocolate course. Because Fondue Day is celebrated in late January every year, we missed it. And we were totally bummed about that. Soooo, to make up for it in a very small way, we tried the local flavor.

Although it was definitely not the same without the good company of friends and family, the meal tasted pretty darn good. We were provided with some tasty appetizers.
We had a bottle of wine. (Which was actually our second of the day!)

Our spread of foods was interesting. Sauteed zucchinis, sauteed sweet potatoes, bread, ham, potatoes, and hot dogs. We were a little hesitant about the hot dogs, but they did they trick.

We had an excellent time trying to replicate Fondue Day, and though it was a lot of fun, it will never compare to the real thing.

I shall include no explanation with the remaining photos as the visuals say plenty. Never mind that things got a little hazy halfway into the dinner! That tends to happen on the real Fondue Day too.

Nice little shot of limoncello as a dessert, and we were pleased. Cheers!
And happy (belated) Fondue Day!

Patagonia: Big Time

"For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints." - Robert Louis Stevenson

After enjoying 9 days in Buenos Aires, we got on a plane to El Calafate, which is really far south in Patagonia. Upon stepping off of the plane and taking in the landscape, we knew we were in for a completely different change of pace!

Patagonia is filled with large expanses of dry, flat windblown nothingness that give way to big jagged mountains ranges. Since it is still summer for them and we were so far from the equator, it stayed light until 10pm. However, even with long, sunny summer days, the light quality is different in this part of the world. It is more diffused and less intense. No more hot, angry sun! Patagonia also seems to have a lot of "big" stuff going on with it, as you will see.

The only reason we were in El Calafate is because it is the closest city to Los Glaciares National Park, which is home to the famous Perito Moreno glacier. We wasted no time in booking a tour to the glacier because this part of the world is also rather expensive. We couldn't afford to linger in Patagonia!

On the way to the national park, our tour made a coffee/bathroom stop at a small farm. They had goats, sheep, horses and an incredible view! Note the BIG MOUNTAINS in the background.

They also had a baby llama that liked to make itself at home. It seemed to enter their house/shop as is pleased. The man pictured in the photo below would then prepare a bottle for it. I have to say that it is kind of odd to be sitting in a house when a llama walks in! Some lucky tourists got to feed the little guy. As much as I wanted to feed it, I restrained myself from asking. This farm girl has bottle fed her fair share of baby animals and I am sure that many fellow tourists have not enjoyed the experience. Aren't I such a generous, selfless person? I settled for a photo with the little fur ball. It tried to eat my jacket.

After the coffee break, our bus continued into the park and dropped us off near the lake shore for a short hike with views of the glacier. The size of it surprised us. 95 square miles of ice. 19 miles long. 3 miles wide and 240 feet high where it meets with the lake- Lago Argentino. This is some BIG ICE! Our tour allowed us to spend the entire day in front of the glacier - looking at it from varying angles. This made me happy, because once I saw the thing, I honestly could not keep my eyes off of it. I just wanted to stare at it all day! Below is a shot of our first glimpse of the glacier.

After the hike, we loaded back onto the bus to head to the park's balconies, which overlook the glacier from a closer perspective. Below is a photo of Tim in front of the north face of the glacier.

The fun part about being on the balconies is that you could see and hear giant chunks of ice breaking off and falling into the lake below. It sounds like thunder when the ice falls- which is a phenomenon called "calving". The chunks of ice then become icebergs that dot Lago Argentino.

A unique thing about Perito Moreno glacier is that it is stable- neither growing nor receding. This means that the amount of ice that is calved is equal to the amount of snow and ice that form at the base of the glacier, high in the Southern Patagonian Ice Fields.

After 3 hours at the balconies, we loaded onto a boat that would take us as close as safely possible to the face of the glacier. This was exciting!

As we were cruising around, a giant, building sized chunk of ice did a slow motion fall into the lake. There were lots of "oohs and ahhs" on our boat when that happened!

After an hour of cruising, we took one last farewell gaze upon Perito Moreno. It was a spectacular day!

After our day at the glacier, we hopped on an early morning bus and headed to Puerto Natales, Chile. We just so happened to get on the bus the day of the huge 8.7 magnitude earthquake in Concepcion, Chile. Because we were isolated on a bus all day, we did not even find out about the earthquake until we checked into our hostel at 3pm- nearly 10 hours after it happened. It was a horrible tragedy for Chile and it made us feel a bit weird to continue on our happy adventure. When a crisis hits, I feel like I should not do anything except watch the news and contact family and friends. I was living in Spain during 9/11 and this earthquake brought back a similar feeling of wanting to be safe and at home.

However, Puerto Natales was even more expensive than El Calafate and we had a hike to plan for. Over the course of one afternoon, we found a hostel, rented camping equipment, took unneeded things out of our packs (which were left in storage at the hostel), bought food and arranged a bus for our 5 day, 4 night 50 mile camping trek in Torres del Paine National Park. This was going to be a BIG HIKE.

We set off early the following morning, feeling rushed, a bit unprepared, but grateful for the French guy in our hostel who gave us great advice on how we could break up the trek. I can't lie. I felt a bit nervous when I had my first glimpse of the spectacular beauty of Torres del Paine- our home for the next 5 days. Would we really be able to do this? It was too late to turn back at that point. We might as well just dive right in!

We took a catamaran to the western end of the "w" trail. Our French friend had explained that walking from west to east kept the famous Torres del Paine wind at our backs for most of the trek. We started off feeling quite exhilarated.

Our day's destination was a free campsite at the face of Glacier Grey. It was a nearly 6 hour uphill trek through incredibly beautiful mountain landscapes. The wind was super strong but we eventually ended up in an area with trees that provided good shelter from the wind.

After setting up camp, we paid a little visit to the nearby lookout point to enjoy sunset at the glacier. At this proximity, we could hear the crashing sounds of the glacier calving into Lago Grey. It was a sweet bonus to our campsite.

The next day, we broke camp and went back the way we came. This trek is called the "w" because you basically hike in the shape of a "w". This means that you do a fair amount of backtracking. It isn't such a bad thing because we came to realize what amazing views we had behind us as we had trekked up the day before.

As we hiked, we noticed something different about our walking conditions: the famous wind had stopped completely. The water in the lake was like glass. We were so lucky. My friend Adrienne likes to say that I travel under a lucky travel star. The fact that I was hiking in a place that was famous for its brutal wind and there was not even a breeze makes me tend to believe her.

After making it down from our campsite, we took the trail east to another free campsite in El Valle Frances (the French Valley).

More great views.

Below is the bridge you have to cross in order to get to the campsite. The signs warn that only two people are allowed on the bridge at a time. It was pretty wobbly.

We were excited about this campsite because we could stay there two nights. The following day, we would hike up and down the middle line of the "w" without our heavy backpacks. Bonus! Also, we could hear avalanches as snow broke away from the cliffs in the valley next to us. How cool is that?!?

We didn't feel as lucky with our camping gear as we did with the weather. Our rented tent had broken door zippers that we closed using clothespins and duct tape in very MacGyver-esque ways. The gas for our tiny camping stove also ran out on the third day. Since there was no store, we had to settle for avocado sandwiches for dinner. Below is a photo of Tim unknowingly using the last of our gas as he sits next to our broken tent.

After our two nights in the middle of the "w" we enjoyed still more beautiful windless weather during our hike to the last of our campsites. Our hike featured lots of river crossings where you just had to jump from rock to rock in order to get a cross. Jumping isn't necessarily easy with a heavy pack on your back but we managed.

Our trail passed under the "horns" of Torres del Paine. These should not be confused with the "towers" of Torres del Paine.
After doing two legs of the "w", we thought to look behind ourselves from time to time. Great views are to be found at every angle in Torres del Paine. It's just an incredibly photogenic place.

The camping stove saga continued. None of the stores near our last campsite had gas that was compatible with our camping stove. We were hungry and wanting more than just avocado sandwiches. Then we lucked out again. The "joven" (young man) in charge of the site gave me a half used canister of his own gas. We feasted on pasta! He was a pretty cool guy. It was a pay campground but he seemed to "forget" to charge us for camping there. We didn't argue.

On our final morning in Torres del Paine, I woke up feeling kind of grumpy. I hadn't slept well in four nights and we were planning to stay a fifth night. I was freezing at night and our thin camping pads were doing very little to cushion the hard ground. Also, with our broken tent, we were in constant fear that the weather would take a turn for the worse. I doubted our clothespins would hold up to high wind and heavy rains! I woke up dreading going to sleep that night.

To make matters worse, on our way up the mountain, we saw a bunch of hikers headed down and on the way to the bus back to Puerto Natales. They were done! I was jealous. I wanted to be them. I didn't want to camp anymore. My bad attitude and the steep trail made for slow hiking, even without our packs. (it was another up and down without the packs day) Below is a photo of me right after Tim, out of the blue, suggested we take the late bus back to Puerto Natales in order to avoid more camping. I had tried to keep my misery to myself but Tim was feeling the same way after seeing our fellow hikers who were finished. Torres del Paine was kicking our butts!

After our change in plans, I felt better. We made it to the towers and were even lucky enough to have a few minutes by ourselves at the overlook.

The hike back down was great! We were feeling giddy because we knew we weren't camping anymore. We even ran some of the trail! We boarded the late bus back to Puerto Natales with that enormous sense of accomplishment that comes from doing something incredibly difficult.

Even though we got back to town really late, our hostel was empty and we were able to stay in the same room we stayed in on our first night there. This was awesome because this bed is officially the most comfortable bed we have slept in during the course of all of our travels.

We spent a couple of days chilling in Puerto Natales. I felt a bit of a post-hike letdown as we wandered the streets. It felt good to relax though. And our hostel felt very much like home after our intense hiking/camping experience.

There was something in this town that made me happy: the BIG WEIRD STATUES.

Apparently there is a nearby cave where the remains of a BIG PREHISTORIC SLOTH were found (giant ground sloth) and the city of Puerto Natales is proud of this fact. And maybe famous for it? They have a grand statue of the thing on the lake shore.

And a creepy smaller version on a sidewalk downtown.

Although it is famous for this BIG SLOTH, I will always remember Puerto Natales as the home of the Donde J Sandwich shop, where $4 buys you a BIG SANDWICH filled with meat, onions, lettuce, a fried egg, etc. We ate there every day.

Southern Patagonia was amazing. BIG MOUNTAINS, BIG ICE, a BIG TREK (that knocked us on our butts), BIG PREHISTORIC CREATURES and BIG SANDWICHES equal BIG FUN. It was an unforgettable journey!