Ringing in the New Year

Arriving on the boat from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt (a city of something like 90% fishermen) we were lucky enough to get the first taxi to the bus terminal, a seething mass of confused tourists and vendors hawking tickets to everywhere you don´t want to go. This is where you make or break your plans; not finding a long distance ticket available, you settle for a nicer looking city half and hour away. In my case I made it to Puerto Varas, an intimate little german immigrant town of some 20,000 people, situated on a beautiful lake you could easily mistake for the ocean except for the two volcanoes looming on the far shore.

Having found the restaurants here quite pricey, we´re keen to celebrate (I´ve been hanging out with Brits and Aussies for the past 3 days, pardon my strange adjectives) with a nice picnic on the beach. You find fresh fruit for sale on every street corner here-- strawberries, cherries, nectarines-- and being New Year´s Eve the grocery store is a madhouse. The bread section was totally wiped out, and as soon as a fresh batch was put out there were grandmas fighting over it.

There will be fireworks over the lake tonight, and with some clear weather we should have a marvelous time. Hope you all do as well.

Doug

Not only was the weather great, we joined the locals dancing in the streets. The highlight for everyone was doing the ´train´ -- there was a tostada vendor with a train shaped cart that circled in the street blowing his whistle while we trailed behind him.

Perito Moreno

The Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina is famous because it is one of the few advancing glaciers left in the world, advancing about 6 feet every day, and because it is situated such that the glacier bisects the largest lake in Argentina. The smaller side of the lake, blocked by the glacier but also fed by its melting waters, rises faster than the larger one; it will eventually reach a level about 30 feet higher than its counterpart, at which point the built up pressure will exploit the weakest section of the glacier-- causing about 4 days of crashing ice, the size of buildings, while the people of the closest town camp out to witness the spectacle.

A typical day at the glacier is not quite so dramatic, but because the glacier is still advancing-- the temperature and humidity here work together to compress snow into glacial ice about five times faster than in Antarctica-- it is quite common to witness chuncks of ice falling with terrific 'booms' into the icy water below. It is a marvelous thing to watch, but it also makes you quite jumpy; camera ready, zoomed, focused, light levels checked, listening intently for the tell-tale cracking sounds in the ice, eyes scanning constantly, sweeping the ice face intently. And of course it all happens too fast. You see it start falling, unable to tear your attention away, a block of ice the size of car or bigger; now exploding into the water, sending a wave several feet tall cresting towards the boat.

And a few minutes later, its available at the bar, in a shot glass of Tennesee whisky.

The People, the Countries

Carl, the twenty year-old Swede in Buenos Aires, who had been there two years before; the Israeli´s I met at Iguazu and then ran into again at the supermarket in Puerto Natales; Bob from Boston who I hiked in and around Ushuaia with; NoNeck, who has been to six continents in the last six months; the retired gentleman I met in Ushuaia who was about to travel to Antarctica, and who had been responsible for the bicycle policy in San Francisco; the teenagers I joked around with in Punta Arenas before my penguin tour; Renato and Willie, the owners of my hostel in Puerto Natales, and their whole family; Tine, my trekking companion who graciously shared a tent with me for 4 nights even though I refused to shower; the couple from Charlotte who I met in a restaurant 5000 miles away from home; James, who works for Microsoft now but only because they offered him 4 months vacation a year, and whose food was stolen while hiking the circuit in Torres del Paine; the couple from Brooklyn who bought me hot chocolate in exchange for duct tape (to fix some pants that caught on fire); Yuk-Sim, who told us about social work in Hong Kong; the Jewish hiker from Italy whose rabbi told him to go to North Carolina if he ever wanted to go somewhere without Jews; Andre, the head cook at Chileno Camp, who told us we couldn't possibly use the kitchen to wash our dishes, and who the next morning offered to wash our dishes himself; the South Africans who brought the Christmas dance party to life; the Spanish lady from France whose ipod made the dance party possible; Tyler from Oregon, studying in Quito and hopefully a contact when I made it up that way; Jeffrey and Jodie from Australia, traveling together for seven years now, who are taking the same ferry to Puerto Montt as me; Andrew from Australia who is working here in Chile for a year, and who bought me soda and ice cream with company money.

The United States, Norway, Sweden, England, Ireland, Spain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland, Italy, Czech Republic, South Africa, China, Korea, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil... and counting.

Torres del Paine

The weather in Patagonia is notorious for changing without warning, going from sun to snow and back within minutes; from stifling heat to hurricane force gusts of wind; and probably most common, the rain that starts and then ends just as you finish unpacking and putting on your raingear. My travel plans in Patagonia have proved equally unreliable. The trek and boat trip I planned at the bottom of Chile (which would have set me back a week) fell through, turning into a flight, a different trek, and a different boat trip which actually put me ahead of schedule.

Instead of trekking in one of the most remote parts of Chile, I found myself in Torres del Paine National Park, which is probably second in South America only to Machu Picchu in terms of numbers of vistors annually. It is a park made for hiking, and made generally accessible to almost anyone; you can camp for free, you can pay to camp and get hot showers (or not pay and hope to go unnoticed, as me and my trek companion Tine did), you can stay in little hostels right on the trail, or you can stay in lodges on the edges of the park. You can hike carrying 50 or more pounds of gear, or you can hike the majority of the park carrying only a water bottle (and if you forgot a bottle, you can drink water straight from the park´s countless pristine streams). The western edge of the park is dominated by a glaciar, the eastern edge by almost desert-like conditions.

The constrast is most apparent in Valle Francais, the section of trail that forms the middle of the `W´shaped hike the park is famous for. Approaching camp at the base of the valley, the terrain looks like somewhere in Arizona; blue sky and red sandstone, massive blocky formations and sheer faces over a green treeline. Enter the valley and you´ve crossed into Alaska-- black jagged rock buried in snow and ice, shrouded in menacing clouds; how these extremes coexist in such close proximity is totally beyond my comprehension.

The last full day of hiking, after after four days of sweating and shivering, sore feet and sunburn (apparently the park is right under the hole in the ozone-- making fair skinned people like myself quite vulnerable), boring food and bad sleep, amazing wilderness and amazingly friendly people, you reach the pinnacle of the trek-- los Torres del Paine, the Towers of Paine-- for which people from all ages and countries scramble up a seemling endless pile of boulders to see. And it´s worth everything. After so much climbing, you nestle into a little concave depression in the mountain; the three granite spires looming over you and the small lake that you never see in the photographs of the towers. The setting is so powerful visually, so dignified and almost ceremonious, that you just sit in awe watching the clouds drift past; but for the wind and cold you scarcely notice the passing of time.

Christmas in Puerto Natales

I can honestly say I´ve never had a Christmas like this. Returning from Torres del Paine on Christmas Eve, I was hoping my hostel would have room for the night, that stores (and particularly restaurants after 5 days of camping food) would be open for at least a little while, and that I would get a hot shower to make the day perfect. I got all of that, plus a Christmas feast with the two brothers who own the hostel, their two younger brothers, and their mother. Roasting a rack of lamb over an open fire in the backyard, swapping stories with fellow travelers and sharing Christmas traditions from our varied nationalities; learning about why Argentina has wine but not peanut butter, why films made here are exported to Europe and not America, and watching a subtitled Santana DVD that bridged the language gap between English and Spanish.

People from the United States, South Africa, France, Chile and Argentina joined under one roof in celebration. We looked on as the family owning the hostel opened presents at midnight, then we cranked up the music and starting dancing!

Penguins

Waddling, throwing up, standing upright, sitting, kissing, fighting, pooping, grunting, swimming, burrowing, jumping, pecking, showing off-- and always cute, no matter what.

Skin of my Teeth / Teeth of Navarino

Sliding down a snow bank hiding the trail, we decide it´s time to turn back. Its only 4 hours into the 4 day `los Dientes de Navarino´ trek and we´re already lost. All is white at this point; clouds and snow intersecting on a seamless horizon, masking any clue of where we are or where we are trying to hike. The spectacular views the guidebook promised are here somewhere, but not for us; not today. So after a long descent and an expensive ´hostal´I decide its time to fly out of this place that has been one setback after another. I try the airline agency around 9:45 in the morning, and they are closed, like everything in this small impoverished community. Puerto Willams, a town of many stores but no consumers, meaning the doors remain shuttered except for small windows of time around lunch and dinner. I pass my hostel host and he tells me the airline opens at 10 or 10:30, apparently whenever the workers want to arrive. Luckily it is near Christmas, and many people are air-mailing gifts, so the store is open when I come back at 10:20. A flight leaves at 11 am I´m told, and there is a last minute cancellation which means I´m golden. All flights tomorrow are booked solid.

How did I get here? Although Ushuaia is the more popular end of the world, Puerto Williams across the border in Chile is a little further south and feels immediatly like the real end of the world. The customs office has cows laying in the yard. Riding into town I shared a bag of chips with the woman who stamped my passport. Later I will ride to the airport with the guy who sold me my ticket (who also takes my ticket at the airport) and the guy who will load my luggage on the plane; we have to stop at his home to get fuel for the baggage car. Cows, pigs, and horses roam free everywhere. The ¨information center¨is a choice between two restaurants open at lunch and dinner only. A waitress calls the ferry center and tells me that the boat leaving for Punta Arenas saturday is booked solid, and the next boat leaves December 28th; apparently my reservation has fallen through. This is an isolated place, physically and mentally-- at least for me. For the first time I feel small and doubt why I´m here. The people are reserved or shy; they know everyone here, and they don´t know me. Sometimes it takes straying from the beaten path to remind you just how far from home you are.

Gone but not Forgotten

Sometimes life on the run is like that Pixies song ¨Where is my Mind?¨ A list of things lost along the way (hopefully not to be updated too soon) :

Alarm clock-- left at home; so far I´ve made do with just my watch alarm
Sunglasses (bought in the USA, made in China)-- left with the alarm clock
Sunglasses (bought in Argentina, made in the USA)-- broke the first week
Pack Towel-- left in Buenos Aires
Knit hat-- lost in restaurant, found in restaurant

My mindset is devolving into a compulsive pattern of wallet, check; passport, check; camera, check; everything else being incidental. Which reminds me of a guy I met recently who has been traveling for some 19 years now with only a canvas sling bag. He travels light since all he really needs are his flute (don´t ask) and a change of clothes. Enlightened? You be the judge.

Ushuaia

The bottom of the world is funny place; you can buy everything imaginable (ipods, rei type boots and clothing, digital cameras) making it feel like home in some ways, but to buy something simple like milk, you have to buy a bag of it (yogurt comes in cups or bags) making it feel totally foreign in other ways. It´s also funny to hear the Ramones blasting from cars and seeing ´Good Charlotte´spraypainted on stairwells.

The city itself is amazing however. It sits right on the Beagle Channel, and is ringed by snow capped mountains even in summer. And being summer, it gets dark here around 11pm and lights up again about 3 am... that makes for a short night even by Argentine standards where people are using to coming home from the club at sunrise at a more reasonable 6 or 7 am.

Today I´ll be heading out on a tour to see sea lions and cormorants; yesterday I hiked up to the snowline with an American from the airport to see Margot Lake, which was more like a glorified pond. Eating snow was a nice treat though, and the views overlooking everything were spectacular. Monday I´ll head to Navarino Island in Chile for some more serious hiking followed by a ride on a cargo boat up the Chiliean coast. It looks like I´ll be on the boat for Christmas-- not exactly like I planned, but maybe better than I expect.

--Doug

Iguazu

The pictures you see in guidebooks make it seem like Iguazu is this amazing must-see waterfall, but really its like a thousand must-see waterfalls smashed together into one spectacular valley shared by two countries. The Brazilian side is supposed to be the prettier side, as you get a vantage point that allows you to see everything at once; but since the Brazilian visa for Americans is $100, I can´t say for certain if that is true. What I can say is that the Argentinian side is an incredible example of sheer power-- you walk out along the river on a catwalk that ends above `gargantua del diablo´ or the devil´s throat, which is comparable to Niagra, only bigger and probably louder. Spray from the falls shoots hundreds of feet up in the air to cover you and your camera and everything around you; all you can do is choke back laughter at the colossal magnitude of whats going on below.

You can also take boat ride, which I did, that takes you through the second largest of the waterfalls. It´s like being slapped by the wet hand of a giant, and it´s incredible. It also makes a nice break from the heat, which takes its toll on these long park walks.

--Doug

Back to Buenos Aires

I´ve left my little hotel room since I last wrote, making a crosstown trek with a fully loaded backpack (the first time I´ve actually carried the full weight-- it feels much heavier than the 19 pounds the airline scale registered) to the Tango Backpackers Hostel. That first night I woke early for my flight to Iguazu, and there were hurricane force winds whipping chairs around on the roof patio, and rain drenching the hallway outside my room. Back in Buenos Aires now, there has been nothing but sunny weather.

Yesterday I met two Spanish girls staying at the hostel, and also a Swede named Carl who has been here in South America for three months and is flying back home this weekend. He says traveling alone is the best way to go, and highly recommends Bolivia as the place to travel. He´s also been able to explain some things that I´ve noticed, like the disproportionate number of Israelis traveling here. There were about 10 at the hostel in Iguazu, and several more here at the hostel in Buenos Aires, and apparently there are entire hostels devoted to Israelis which are only recommended if you speak Hebrew. Apparently Israelis are really into drugs and come here to party where things are cheap and available. One Israeli I met in Iguazu told me Colombia is the best country in South America, and now I´m wondering if coca has something to do with it. And apparently Swedes are alcoholics because of the winter depression that sets in, and so the taxes on alcohol there are intentionally very high to keep people in check. Carl told me that if he were to go to the French Alps (the party place of choice for Swedes during the winter) and tell someone he was Swedish he would be punched in the face, so bad is the Swedish reputation for drinking and being out of control.

I´m almost learning more about the world outside of South America than the places I visit! So far I´ve seen most of the main districts or barrios of downtown: Palermo, Centro, San Telmo, Puerto Madero, Recoleta. Each has its distinctive little quirks; for instance pure-bred dogs are very chic in Palermo, and everyday you see professional dog walkers with their herds of orderly canines walking the streets. The parks here are filled with dogs. One park I visited this morning must have had a hundred dogs, all barking at each other from where they were leashed, and people sunbathing yards away as if the racket was nothing. And the parks here are something else; like if Pullen Park and the Rose Garden were put together and expanded, with a splash of Japanese Gardens, and then a planetarium were thrown in for good measure.

After an out-of-breath soccer match this afternoon, it´ll be one more steak dinner to celebrate my last night here in the city, and then perhaps going to a transvestite club with some people from the hostel around 2am; the clubs here don´t really open until then, and with a flight at 5:45am, I figure there is no use trying to sleep tonight.

The Little Things

Flying over the Andes at midnight, lightning strikes illuminating the horizon; 39,000 feet above the Amazon rainforest in Bolivia, an impenetrable green backdrop broken by curling brown ribbons of river, switchbacking into inexplicable patterns; the `phht phht phht´ sound of the buses; the swarms of dragonflies above each park in Buenos Aires; the kid playing with his own hands on a doorstep while his mother makes out a few feet away; the monkeys and vultures, the coatis (cody?) which `can and will bite if you are holding food´but look like a racoon crossed with an anteater, and the iguanas which are big enough to belong in zoos but still seem as startled as I am when they jump out onto the trail in front of me; realizing that reptiles can jump and that dinosaurs were reptiles; the guy who, when I told him I was from North Carolina said `oh, Pepsi! I like Pepsi´and remembered me as `North Carolina´ when I walked by hours later; the marine working construction in Hawaii who was traveling Argentina with three UNC grads; Jorge Luis Borges avenue in Palermo district; the old lady who wanted me to make sure she was getting on the right plane, and yet who I instinctively followed through the mess of tourists and taxis after arriving; the traveling hippies selling bracelets who were heading to Bolivia to get cocaine; the charcuterie slicer at the local store who asked me how much I made per hour, after I blurted out that I did the same work in the United States; occasionally settling into the moment, instead of wondering what comes next.

Buenos Aires

I touched down yesterday and took a nice taxi ride 25 miles into downtown Buenos Aires. Since then I´ve spent a lot of time walking the city, taking photos and eating local steak. This city of 15 million people (according to the taxi driver) is pretty amazing. It makes me think of Guatemala and Italy at the same time. Lots of colonial architecture with balconies and interior courtyards, but with all glass storefronts at streetlevel, selling anything from kayaks to modern furniture.

I´m staying in a little hotel/guest house in the downtown district, that the taxi driver recommended. It would have been impossible to find had I not been let off right at the front door-- the 6 story building is (i think) three top levels of private residences, two levels of guest rooms and maybe more private residences, and then a car dealership on the bottom floor. It blows my mind that I´m sleeping above a Fiat showroom; but the building is great, with marble stairs and window sills, and a kind of double-helix shape that lets in light and fresh air through centralized wells that open out to the roof.

I can´t upload photos yet, but I´ve only explored a tiny portion of the city. Breakfast at Macondo´s, steak lunch and hopefully a tango show tonight.

Ciao,
Doug

27 Hours til Takeoff

The supplies are bought, the bag is packed, and the loose ends... well, this is about new beginnings, not loose ends. Three months of open road lay ahead, so join me in wishing for sunshine and friendly faces, good food and safe trips through the wilderness. Or research some fun places to visit and I'll take photos for you! Either way, I'll try to keep this up-to-date, and I'll be thinking of everyone back home.

-Doug